It is a new dawn in Iceland.
The sun is cracking above the glacial white horizon, and the sky is flooded with a fury of pink and orange. Myth is blowing strong across this landscape in the biting winds.
I am orbiting the so-called Golden Circle of Iceland, which encompasses stirring displays of the elements that brew their magic together on this island.
There is the vast placid lake that mirrors the drama of the sky at Thingvellir, the site of Iceland’s first parliament that was founded over 1000 years ago. In this place, where chieftains would ride to meet and apply the laws of the nation, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is visible above ground. In other words, to make the implication of this very clear: the two tectonic plates that underlie Europe and America collide here in this savage landscape, and new rifts, earthquakes, and nearby volcanic activity is not uncommon. This is the playground of the element of Earth.
Further along the Golden Circle, there are the thundering waters of Gullfoss that crash down from melting glaciers with a vigour that defies imagination: a waterfall fit for pagan gods, and those who yearned to hear their roar.
Skidding around on the icy slopes that surround Gullfoss, I feel tiny and unable to grasp just how much water is coming down the river, through the gorge that the waters carved for themselves millennia ago. The element of Water is here in all its forms: beautiful ice formations along the rocky banks, liquid water gushing through, and water spray turning into mist that appears almost like steam against the low midday sun.
At another stop on the Golden Circle, there are the furious eruptions of Stokkur geyser, keeping its own quick and erratic rhythm, prickling under the surface as the boiling pressure builds, and spreading the stench of sulphur and yellow-green puddles across the geyser park.
The sun has already moved far across the sky on this mid-winter day as I discover Stokkur’s eponymous neighbour called Geysir, who gave name to this phenomenon in many languages. Geysir bubbles sleepily like an old gentleman, as Stokkur’s vivacious shadow paints itself over its crater every few minutes. The element of Fire is nipping at the heels of Water and Air here.
Drawing the Golden Circle to completion, there are the calmly swirling waters of the geothermal pools at Laugarvatn, into which I plunge my shivering body in the ambient temperatures that are hovering around freezing. Windchill adds to the curious phenomenon of my head feeling painfully cold, while my body is relaxing into a beautifully warm state of bliss…
I realise that if I sink my head far enough down toward the surface of the hot pool’s waters, my ears and nose get warm enough for comfort too. Thank you for your generosity, underwater springs.
I relax more deeply. The sun is now drawing closer to the western horizon at these arctic latitudes. My other senses come alive. The smell of the rye bread that the locals cook overnight in the hot black sands surrounding lake Laugarvatn lingers. Steam rising in intricate swirls from the waters’ surface clouds my vision in the middle distance, and plunges the landscape centuries, millennia, back in time. Gone are the vestiges of modern steel and wood construction around the pools.
It is just the black earth, the hot water and I.
My thoughts take flight.
Something about Creation comes floating to the surface of my consciousness. It slipped by almost unnoticed as I stood by the banks of the Gullfoss waterfall. I caught a trace of it as I noticed my body and energy field reacting strongly to the gushing torrents of water and the enormous sound of their destiny on the edges of the stepped cliffs. It was so very alive and intoxicating, so very unstoppable, and so very insane to even consider somehow hemming its flow. It was simply there, in its full force and glory.
I suppose that is what happens when long-frozen energy, in the shape of glaciers, is released back into motion. It reminded me of those ideas that suddenly come, and there is absolutely no stopping them until they have taken their form of completeness. Sometimes that means staying up half the night, or even through till dawn and beyond, to see them through, if the flow commands it. Once all that frozen energy starts to shift and move, it will have its way with whatever stands in its path… It follows that allowing oneself to be carried along on its crest may be the only way to avoid getting crushed under its intensity. This can go on for as long as the frozenness is thawing – and in the moment of Creation, it feels like forever.
Then another aspect of these flows of Creation came as I picked my way around the geyser park, feeling the irritation in my energy field, the nervousness and impatience in my body. As soon as the geyser would erupt, I would feel calm again for a while and could breathe easily in the sulphur-laden air, until the prickling and impatience would start to build once again.
This type of Creation wave is also familiar to me, when an idea has been percolating for some time in my system, and then I almost cannot stand it anymore, and it just needs to gush out. It may well be a very short spurt, but it feels much better to have it out – on paper, on screen, in words – than to let it build up any longer inside me. Then a feeling of ease comes over me, a pleasant post-climactic feeling where I have some space to breathe. At this point, I often want to push the creation I just made away from me: the idea of adjusting, editing, further refining it is almost repulsive. It is my creation, and I love it, but I do not want to engage further with it, as it is now gone from my system. Just like the pools of Stokkur’s discarded waters from his majestic spout, that need to find their own ways to run down the slopes and find their home in rivers, the ground, or the ocean.
But in the hot pools of Laugarvatn, I am in an aspect of Creation that is unfamiliar to me. My energy system, my mind, my body do not know how this one goes. It is intriguing.
As I sink into it, I notice how my thoughts and feelings are in motion, while my body becomes more and more still. It is something about the tension of opposites.
The pools of water are lined with black stone. The stone is immobile, stable, calm and seemingly eternal. It is cold and hard to the touch above the waterline. From its underground source, the hot water fills the pools created by the black stone. The water is in constant motion, fluidly adapting to every nook and cranny, whirling in its own delight as waves of temperature and wind move through it.
The nature of my soul feels more aligned with the water – the quick motion, the adaptability, the rushes of excitement. And yet, there is the black stone, holding in the water’s edges, giving it a space to fill and play in. And slowly being worn smooth by that water, in its easy playfulness. The stones will not be here forever, I suddenly realise. The water will gradually wear them away, play its way right through them.
The form of Creation I sense here is a meeting of motion, stillness, speed and timelessness. The expression of the Creation will come from these powerful opposites that will gradually wear into sameness. One day, these rocks will be grains of sand carried by the flowing water, and that sand will form the water’s banks. It is gentle, yet undeniably powerful, and it is incessant yet peaceful too. This is a form of Creation that I will invite in my work, and open to explore within myself.
I suddenly wonder if this hot pool I am sitting in is a metaphor for the soul within a body. Time, space, eternity and transformation meeting right here, in me, around me, and everywhere else on this rocky black island at 64 degrees North. Earth, Fire, Water, Air… and Soul.
Travelling back towards Reykjavik as the sun rapidly sinks under the horizon, I have a deep sense of stillness and peace in my weary body. The elements are mighty, and I met them all today.
