It is easy…
… to be distracted …
…by ice …
… and its romantic stories of loss and the fleeting nature of experience…
… and to miss the light …
… and the darkness …
… together …
… in the eye.
Glaciers come from another world.
It is a world of light.
~
Jokulsárlón and Skaftafell
Jökulsárlón
The people stand silent before the glacier and wait. So has it ever been in the presence of gods.
Vernacular Art Installation in Reykholt
Everyone’s an artist in Iceland. It’s a thing.
If you had a glacier staring at you without eyes from its place next door, and the sea on the other side of your house, you would know that you live at a meeting place, and it’s not yours.
Sheep Trail to Mýdralsjökull, Hofdabrekkaheiði
It comes over the mountains from the glaciers, who draw it from the sky and send it back to the sea as an image of themselves.
November 5, 2016, Viðey
It comes as a flood. It comes in a fog river many kilometres in width. It doesn’t come from the Atlantic. That is Caribbean water out there. Up in the sky, well, that is a far different thing. That is not this world at all.
When the god Oðin plucked out an eye to receive all the wisdom in the world, he received two ravens: Thought and Memory.
Here they are in Kerlingardalur, thinking and remembering. What else is consciousness?
Skaftafellsjökull
Well, yes, ice, but that comes from beyond the world. That is unconsciousness. That is what you need thought and memory for, lest they have you.
That’s the way of the black road.
A Farm in Iceland 