Tag Archives: settlement

The Mother of Reykjavik

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I like to think of this monolith in Reykjavik’s old harbour, near the Viðey Ferry and the industrial docks, as the mother of the city. Look at the sand she has drawn out of the sea’s currents and sheltered here…
… sand perfect for Ingólfur’s long boat in 870. In a country in which most beaches are stretches of surf or keel-ripping rock, that is no small thing. Here is the mother of the city. And look at her, isn’t she gorgeous? Wouldn’t you put into shore for her?

In Iceland, Everything is Hay

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It used to have trees, and it is eaten by sheep. A little bit of replanting has been done. Here are some Siberian larches in East iceland, placed in like a quilting block.

One works with what one knows. Everything else is a compromise. Spiritually, as I showed you yesterday, the compromise is between paganism and Christianity. Environmentally, it is between earth before and after settlement. Below is an image of Iceland flowing to sea, which is called the force of wild nature.

Well, yes… wild nature with sheep and shivering humans. Iceland is not an indigenous nation. It is a nation of settlers. Settlement is an ongoing process. It is at the root of the country’s past and future. This is what it looks like.

Baa-aaaa!

It also looks like this:

Reykjavik

And this:

Kirkjubær

The point is, when you live on a sub-arctic island, and keep sheep, everything is hay, as the Icelanders say, meaning that when the hay runs out in the middle of the winter you will feed your sheep anything — anything — to survive. Even this:

Yes, in Reykjavik even John, Paul, George and Ringo are hay. And danish beer is hay, too.

Baaaaaaa.

Viking Hydro Power Station

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In the 9th century, long, long before Nicola Tesla, the vikings of Iceland changed the course of the Öxá, to create a waterfall in þingvellir. The sagas tell that it was named after a troll that used to chop up early parliamentarians with an axe — surely a witty reference to early spiritual struggles in Iceland, which was grounded simultaneously by at least three spiritual traditions: Norse, Irish and Christian. Wikipedia tells how the waterfall was used to provision campers with water.I will merely point out a couple things. First, the Icelandic killing fields were in this river, either by the drowning of witches, ie reunion with the troll, or by beheading on a rock in the water, ie the cancellation of Christian belonging, as a form of organic justice. This was hydro power before the industrial age. We now call it “nature” and “beauty.” Those are only industrial terms. Beware.

The Icelandic Enlightenment

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It is coming. Everything that has been explored in the past is new.p1190186

An Icelandic science is possible. Currently, it is called art, or Nature, or some other European concept. It is waiting for its moment.

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This isn’t Europe, though. This is the Garden. This is the moment.

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Its terms can be redefined from the land up, instead of being classified to fit into a foreign hierarchy. Courage is all.

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The world starts here, from here. As the world drifts into madness, sanity becomes more important than ever.

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Nothing is known. Nothing has been seen before. Beauty is our guide to the energies of the land, which are the energies of our minds.

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This is the primary human experience. Settlement of our bodies begins now.

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Let’s dare.

The Ghosts of the Irish in Iceland

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When the Norse and their female Irish slaves arrived in Iceland in 870, there was already a colony of Irish monks on the south coast, living in caves and living in splendid isolation with their God. There are accounts of them living in what became known much later as the monastery site of Kirkjubaerjarklaustur. There is just something about the place.  First, a look around in the summer sun. iceland-day-3-to-5-051 iceland-day-3-to-5-043 iceland-day-3-to-5-044

Here’s the “Church Floor”, basalt columns eroded by ancient waves.iceland-day-3-to-5-054 iceland-day-3-to-5-053

And the rumoured centre of Irish life.iceland-day-3-to-5-046

And now in the summer rain. Note the change of light!p1010115p1010068

Here’s the “Nun’s Falls”, from a much later catholicism.

p1010066p1010111And now some late Autumn (2016)  pics, with the sun barely making it above the sea.p1320200 p1320223 p1320198
A splendid place for meditation and prayer!
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Unwilling to share the purity of God with heathens, the monks left in their skin boats. Their ghosts remain. I wonder if the women were sad to see them go.

Would You Make It As An Icelander

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Would you be able to support a family by raising sheep on a lava field like this?
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Or would a farm on the cliff, below a waterfall blown upwards by hurricane do the trick? p1380745

Those are your choices. Not only that, but your choices view, and are viewed by, the desperate gambles of others. Try that.

 

Living With the Volcano

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Some farms in Iceland are in the most marginal patches of grass in the midst of lava fields. Here’s Thor’s Shield, the mother of all shield volcanoes, at the peak of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where it crashes into land underfoot. There’s a little bit of grass here in Thingveillir, but not much.p1400536

Lots of wind, though, which makes it a great place to take some of that grass and build a house.

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Sandgerði

Beautiful, isn’t it. Every farm in the country has ruins of turf houses like this. That’s the thing about Icelandic views: it’s the fact that people live on this land that makes it beautiful. The hard work of warming the land has been done. After all, the story here is one of settlement, not of conquest.