Tag Archives: nature photography

Simple Beauty in Iceland

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Yup, there’s the grand view of a secret beach, where no one goes.

There’s also the stick, that no one stops for.

Well, almost no-one. This is the delight that can find pure joy in a farmstead so far away across the wetlands that walking won’t bring you there.

That, too, is Iceland, as is this water that flowed over Hengifoss just a half hour or so before. Is it any less now?

You can either run after it or stand still and let I go. That, too, is Iceland.

The Spirit of Water and Air

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The beach at Hellissandur showed her spirit this morning.

As you can see, it doesn’t take a lot of light, or, better, the light goes inward rather than out. So is it with the long, low angles of the sun on Christmas Day. Look at the water erupt from the sand and say its name in this light.

It is a day on which the whole Earth is alive. We found that around this mountain at Midsummer.

And now, this force is just as strong. What welcome energy!

What life! This time, it’s not just the Earth that is alive. Look at the sun going down over Melariff at 2:30 in the afternoon!

The view is from the 1100-year old Viking Farm at Saxhóll. A few minutes later, the sky revealed a dragon.

And just after that, many stories all at once, enough to meditate on for a year.

As the sun left and rain fell across it in the West, the energy lingered, not in the sky but in my self that was the sky.

And so we carry ourselves, just as the Earth, the Water and the Sky carry us. It is we who are spirits of Earth, Water and Sky.

The Secret Origin of Icelandic Horses Revealed at Last

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Icelandic horses are very beautiful, especially in a winter gale. Icelanders will tell you that their ancestors brought them over from Norway by ship. Sure, guys.

Let me take you behind the curtains of that little deception. It might look easy to be an Icelandic horse…

… but like being an Icelander …

… it can be a little rough. Really tough on the hair, for one.

Not only that, but tense, like.

Makes a horse a little crazed, you might think.

Watch out for your ears.

Yeah, but that is all because horses didn’t come over on boats from Norway and continue on to create America out of a lump of clay…


…just as Icelanders aren’t vikings but the descendants of Norwegian farmers and their Irish slaves, who came here for the good hotdogs.

As for the horses, they live near waterfalls. It’s a thing.

Svodufoss

Note the horses being born above. You can just make them out below, too.

The paddock is nearby, where humans can keep an eye on the miracle.

Hólmskelsárfoss

Miracle? Yes. Here’s a foal just about to be born in the stream coming down from the falls.
Hólmskelsá

That’s how it works in a magical country. That the resulting horses look like the horses you might meet elsewhere, well…

… that’s part of the magic, too.

Now you know.

Two Kinds of Icelandic Forests, Both Magical

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There are tall, soaring birch forests, like these in Ásbyrgi, some five metres tall, that shelter sheep…

…and their are small, intimate forests you have to lie down in a pasture to see, which shelter flies. The forest below in Neskaupstaðir might be short, and might fade and rise annually with the sun, but its trees are surely exotic and wondrous. Some of the trees are even copses of flowers.

They offer different kinds of intimacy and bring you differently into the land. In both cases, when you look up again, or step out, you are a different person. That’s because forests are persons. You become them.

Good Days and Bad Days in East Iceland

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The black sand beaches at the mouth of the Selfljót are unparalleled.

They stretch hauntingly into the distance, almost unwalked by human feet.

 

Pretty fine on a calm day!

 

The sand is so black, every little thing on it is a revelation from a spirit world.

But!  But!  But! Not on a windy day. It would be ghastly out there, as the drifts show.

A blizzard of black sand! Enjoy the good days, I say.

Take your time.

Watch the water and the sand tell its stories, like a good visitor.

Even climb high for a view.

And then go home. You are small.