þetta réddast
While enjoying a ridiculous amount of smoked trout at Vogafjós (literally “Creek Cowshed”; a restaurant on the eastern shore of Lake Myvatn that is actually inside a cowshed with the cows) I first heard the Icelandic phrase þetta réddast. More of a mentality or life philosophy than a saying, there are many different English language interpretations. I was told at the time that it was “We will get there.” Most people translate it as “Don’t worry. It will all work out okay.” It is a common phrase that is applied casually. Running late? þetta réddast. Not prepared? þetta réddast. And while it is best to keep a positive attitude and not worry about things that it is too late to fix I feel like this undersells the wisdom of the phrase to Americans who are driven by success and define success as hard work + precision. It comes across like ((*oh horror*)) they’re not even trying!
That is why I liked the way my guide, Gunnar, defined it- We will get there. Like, eventually, everything will work it’s way out. Because that is true and that is what people so often lose sight of. A life philosophy is not an excuse you keep using because you are chronically incapable, so that is not what is meant when they say this. A life philosophy is something that is applied to life. Not just your life, all life. As long as there has been life and as long as life continues. It is a very broad and very high. It is elevated thinking. It is “the big picture.” And while it is not just your life, it certainly includes and is reflected in your life. There is a point on the universal time scale where everything bad is brought to nothing (Christians call this “Armageddon”) and only good can flourish (“judgement day”). It is not right now. We will get there. The problems of today are so short they hardly factor in but if you base your happiness on short term goals you will always be worrying. It is true that life is what you make it, but that does not mean that you are in control of your life, that it is something to fret over and fine tune. We can’t completely control everything. Time and circumstances have an ever changing tide. Happiness isn’t something we can get completely by our own effort- its not money, its not pleasures, its not a job well done. Happiness is having hope.
The knowledge that everything will work out brings a small measure of freedom. Freedom to make mistakes. Freedom to be too generous. Freedom to love people just because they need it. Freedom to live consciously in every moment instead of thinking about the things you have to get done. Freedom to be optimistic. Freedom to have a great time even if times aren’t so great. Freedom to see beyond your suffering.
When you can see the whole picture you have a clear view. Don’t cloud your life with the worry that comes from uncertainty. Seek truth. þetta réddast.
Aerial view of interior Iceland via flight from Reykjavik to Akureyri
Aerial view of Greenland
Silent Reflections
Essay from a photo writing prompt by Harpa and the Icelandic Writers Retreat. View the photo and read other essays here.
Stepping softly
from the sidewalk across the breadth to the back,
the wood floor holds the reticent reverberations of yesterdays music while outside
ancient,
gray
ripples
meet basalt blocks unheard.
Arctic sunlight collects on the comb of windows encasing the space
until dissected by one large looking glass
set forth between beams
outstretched,
framing the North Atlantic like victorious arms.
Symmetry.
Safflower skies reflecting on silica and seawater.
A mirrored plane plunges toward water, reflecting the harbor in its face.
Reflection-
a bending back-
Middle English.
Harpa holds the heritage of the people and houses the spirit of a culture,
the compilation of all time, hundreds of years, magmatic, covering and building on each other to create each present. Yet each concert is but a
breaker
in the waters of time, while in
every
singular
moment
its structure stands it publishes Iceland’s biography;
its framework arranged to feature and flaunt the landscape of the sea.
The islands human history was born here,
is here,
as ancestral waves go out
and come again,
retreating
only to bend back
carrying the voices of vikings,
the trill of fishing vessels,
the whisper of sagas,
the echoes of centuries,
like a low, soothing sound barely beneath our perception.
We stand in a building just to the left of a dreamboat silhouette-
but is it left?
The hand we choose depends on whence we came.
We enter from the city
but from where did we enter the city?
We stand in a building just to the right of a dreamboat silhouette,
between the Sun Voyager and its golden destination, the journey shining through panels of glittering glass.
Having stepped softly from the sidewalk we crossed the breadth to reach the front.
The front-
sitting on the threshold of an ocean gazing through the glass for its children,
taciturn,
listening,
reflecting.
I gaze back in silent reverie,
listening,
reflecting,
overlooking half the fatherland.
My favorite photos from the capital city of Reykjavik, Iceland featuring Harpa Concert Hall, the Sun Voyager, and the North Atlantic Ocean.
The Wonders that Exist Inside
One who not merely beholds the outward shows of things, but catches a glimpse of the soul that looks out of them, whose garment and revelation they are- if he be such, I say, he will stand, for more than a moment, speechless with something akin to that which made the morning stars sing together. – George MacDonald
We’ve heard the saying “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover” and decided that it means that ugly people can be nice and just because someone is pretty doesn’t mean they’re a decent person. I don’t like that. Sometimes ugly people are just ugly people through and through and sometime pretty people are lovely on the inside too. But that’s not why I don’t like it, I don’t like it because it’s so shallow. The idea that people are either ugly or beautiful, good or bad, nice or mean, smart or dumb, and that is what we should look for in a person. Instead of judging whether a person is nice or mean, good or bad, why can’t we simply look to observe what is there? Can’t something be beautiful on the outside and complex on the inside? Why don’t we look for the glory, the mystery, the wonderful, the unseen? Why do we take what makes up a man, a man created by God out of the building blocks of the universe, and dumb it down into simply good or simply bad?
George Eliot said, “Adventure is not outside a man, it is within.” Where is our sense of adventure? Don’t we all want to experience awe, to be struck by something too wonderful for us? In the quote above MacDonald is referencing Job 38:7 where the morning stars (or the angels) cry out joyfully together and shout in applause upon seeing the Earth which Jehovah has just finished making. Imagine seeing our planet for the first time when nothing like it has ever existed before. It is glorious enough to us in our narrow view of it and yet it is suggested that we may have the same sense of joy and applause, excitement and wonder that the angels felt when we search deep inside another and examine what they are made of. Many of us wish to explore the world, but we are surrounded by hundreds of worlds living and breathing and swirling around us everyday, we should explore those.
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. Eden Phillpotts
All of nature, including us, exists below the surface; the surface of the ground, the surface of our skin, the surface of our perception. These photos are a small sampling of the “savage and beautiful country” that lies in between the mysterious (Diane Ackerman).
A big, blue box on the outside, when you open the little viewing door just a crack bright, yellow light comes streaming out. It’s full of high intensity sodium light that you’re not allow to look at lest it burn your retinas out. I assume.
The brilliant pink flower that erupts from the center of the previously pictured cactus. It feels fake like plastic and the spikes don’t poke you.
Purple petals on an aphid infected flower look out like an eye deciding whether it is safe to bloom.
These plants produce a fruit that it only ripe for eating for small window of time before it become s full of acid and toxic to humans.
An ornamental fig. Not much smaller larger than a pea these small fruits have a teeny whole in the top through which a female wasp enters and lays her eggs. Next a male wasp enters and fertilizes the eggs. When the baby wasps are born they trample around in the pollen before leaving to lay their eggs inside of another tiny fruit, carrying the pollen with them. There was already a wasp in this particular fruit, can you see it?
These little flowers are special because they contain a lost memory from my childhood. Years ago my grandparent owned the Monte Claire Motel and there was one of these plants in the lobby. The flowers are smooth and plasticy and they leak a sweet, sugary liquid like little tears.
Estes Park
Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.
― Charles Lamb
Girl time in Estes! I’m still unclear as to why Estes Park is such a popular vacation destination. There’s not anything to do or eat there for a girl that can’t eat candy but still I had the loveliest of times there this past Saturday doing nothing in particular with my most beautiful lady bird, my spiritual sister and best friend. The air tasted of marshmallow, sweet and chewy in our mouths as we walked through town past countless taffy pullers, candy and ice cream shoppes. Rumor has it that its worth driving all the way to Estes for an ice cream cone at the little place on the corner and yet someone had the audacity to put a dairy queen/orange julius up there! That’s the thing about Estes, it tries really hard to be a destination, it really does, but it just doesn’t have it. The foods expensive but nothing special, you can’t find anything allergen free to save your life. I don’t know, maybe going to Steamboat my whole life has spoiled me into thinking all world renowned vacation spots are created equal and it simply isn’t the case. But still with a camera and a good friend by your side a day in Estes can still have a bit of magic sparkle, the marshmallow air really helps that too.
So there was this wicked mural across the back of a bunch of buildings all about the guy that made Estes Park into the town it is today. This nice local guy told me all about it including the fact that the artist commissioned to do the work finally finished it like seven years after she said when would, the town was outraged because she was paid in full and then never delivered. I thought that if it was really that big of a deal maybe they wouldn’t pile a whole bunch of junk in front of it but I am the minority. But that’s Estes for you, a good thought lacking a thorough delivery.
I am really proud of these elk, they didn’t gore anyone while I was there! Not a one, not even the guy that stood right in the front ones face taking pictures. Seriously people, these a huge, powerful, and very wild animals that you should under no circumstances approach, if you need a picture get a zoom lens. Treat them like you would a gator, a fuzzy and majestic gator that hangs out by the road munching on flowers and grasses but a gator none the less. Keep your distance and don’t get all up in their grill bro.
Lily Lake at Night
The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water, – so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be. -Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau, I decided, is my friend because he was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s friend and that guy is my bestie so a friend of a friend is my friend too. Emerson wrote that the sky is the eyes daily bread and truly, everyday when I look outside I remember this because there is something amazing up there every time. The night sky is especially dear to me. Psalm 19:1 says “The heaven are declaring the glory of God; and the work of his hands the expanse is telling.” I think it is amazing that no matter where you live or how much money you have or how smart you are you can look at the night sky with appreciation; even if you have nothing, the sky is there for you every day. It is so big, and yet not empty. It is full of activity and energy that makes you realize that what you are dealing with is insignificant, yet you are not. When you take the time to look around you can easily see that our universe was designed as a perfect place for humans, there are so many things built in to help us deal with and enrich our lives like the sky for calmness, helping us to see the bigger picture and giving us a glimpse of unimaginable glory, or lakes for clear thinking and introspection.
A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. -Henry David Thoreau
My goal is to take more time to fully appreciate the area that I live. Since I see it everyday it can be passed over and taken for granted a little bit and I don’t want to be like that. This is explained more thoroughly in the ‘about’ section if you haven’t read that and are at all interested.
My friend Nikita Van Putten had the great idea of driving up to a lake in Rocky Mountain National Park to photograph the super moon last saturday. I never really figured out how to get a good picture of the moon so don’t get your hopes up. I did however take these of Lily Lake. It was really cold and windy, but also amazing. We were the only ones out there (perhaps because we weren’t supposed to be?) in the very dark. This was my first time doing long exposures and night photography. The first picture is my favorite of the night, and also the very first one I took.
CHINKandCRANNY 