Puffins of the land.
Sheep of the sea.
The Icelandic Circle of Life
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Tag Archives: sheep
Sheep Don’t Forget
The farm is gone …
…but the sheep still come, hefted to the mountain …
… and to the sea. (To them, the road is nothing.)
The sheep of the sea? Ah yes, these are stone farms.
Very tasty.
Winter barely has a grip on the Reydarfjörður shore.
But… sheep of the sea? Is that correct?
No, they are oyster catchers of the land!
If we moved back, they’d still be there to receive us.
Iceland at War and Peace
The Battle of Örlygsstaðir was fought in a sheepfold on August 21, 1238. A terrible business. It was fought here.
It was a rout. It’s hard to defend yourself behind a three-foot-high loose stone wall. Little is left.
There’s a bench, for when the grimness of battle and waste overcomes you.
But, look: sheep!
Battles come and go, but sheep remain.
Forget the cruise missiles. Take the long view. Go with the sheep.
Show Your Teeth!
That’s the stuff!
Never underestimate the good humour of a Breiðafjörður sheep!
Water Paths in Iceland
There are vertical paths.
There are horizontal ones.
In a gale, they can be both at once.
We see these falls as paths because we are pathfinders. See the path to the right in the image below? Can’t resist?
Of course not. That is the human spiritual trace. The sheep is an elaboration, and exquisite for that. These creatures are not paths but warmth, hearth and home. Their other form is this:
That is a sheep and a human family, spiritualized as one, in time. This is the water path that makes it possible:
It is one with them, because of human path-finding. That is the spiritual path at the edge of the known world.
Philosophers Going Nowhere in Dritvik
A big raindrop.
When you can’t move for water, watch better.
Icelandic Philosophy
When it rains long enough, Icelandic sheep can’t move.
The sweater weighs a ton. Bearing up to that encourages moments of philosophy.
A Farm in Iceland 