In two short days I am off to Iceland. It is the kind of place that you say you are going to, and people kind of look at you like, “Iceland?!? Really?!? Why?”
Of course my instinct is to say, “Why not?”
But I have to try to drive down my cheekiness so will give a less caustic response.
I took a Nordic Mythology class in college – during my quest to dabble in every single field – and I loved it, truly, madly deeply.
How could you not love culture whose creation story begins with a cow licking its way to create the earth?
As John Muir wrote, “I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in creation’s dawn.”
And this is Nordic mythology (for me), in a nutshell. The earth was not created and activity ended…no no no. The earth is in creation phase and we are all seeing this happen every day. We are all a part of it.
This non-static, changing, moving way of viewing the world spoke to me in college.
Then there is Iceland itself….what an interesting place, indeed! Let’s talk natural resources and energy use for a moment:
“During the course of the 20th century, Iceland went from what was one of Europe’s poorest countries, dependent upon peat and imported coal for its energy, to a country with a high standard of living where practically all stationary energy is derived from renewable resources. In 2014, roughly 85% of primary energy use in Iceland came from indigenous renewable resources. There of 66% was from geothermal.” (From the National Energy Authority of Iceland )
(I will refrain from making any obvious political connections so as not to offend anyone with my first post.)
How could you not love a place where you can sit in warm, blue water while snowflakes dance on your eyelashes?
Amy Oswalt 