The instant I saw this stone, I was able to read it…but I will never be able to translate what it says into words or language. It is not diminished for it, nor am I.
At the Side of the Old Trail to the South, Sóleyjarbotnar
The windows of Iceland are for neither looking in nor looking out, but for display of earthly objects in the light of the sun, which makes them sacred: talismans, spells, and prayers. It is an exquisite and complex art form, quite separate from the 1960s New York art that saturates the Harbour Gallery (and which is also beautiful.) In their windows, the people speak; in their galleries, they create a window for the world, based on this style.
Tomorrow, let’s go for a gallery tour.
The sea coughs up its dead on the lips of the Öldulón, in South-East Iceland.
They seemed like a good idea. Musical instruments, perhaps.
But reindeer don’t play guitars.
So, like, of limited use, especially when a gate is “no gate.”
Or when the Siberian driftwood fenceposts keep drifting.
Music, that’s the thing.
Iceland: the song of the sea.
In Iceland, the land squeezes water from lava, sand and turf. It carries gravitational energy towards the centre of the earth, before it is deflected by stone.
Less well known is that its journey really passes through the sun. An amazing trick! And so the old Norse universe lives on. (Berserkjarhraun).
Sunrise.
Noon.
Sunset.
Dusk.
…is light.
And colour.
When the snow falls, then you can ask your questions.
The sun is bright inside the ancient ice of the glacial lagoon.
As the ice melts away, the sun inside is slowly revealed.
This is an artwork written with the stone the glaciers cut out of the mountains many centuries ago.
They have come together again, in beauty.
In mystery.
And in wonder.
This is the glory of the world.
Its moods are 50,000 years in the making.
They are not human moods.
Even the darkness is light.
Even the light is darkness.
You can see by it.
You have only a few minutes.
Begin.
Let me demonstrate how poetry is an indigenous form of thought.
Land…
Land’s river …
Land’s liver …
Sky’s blood…
Sun.
You can only speak this language if you are at home on Earth.
Chances are you do, and are.
And I mean everything.
You are at sea.
A Farm in Iceland 