Icelanniversary: Iceland Sky Updates

A year ago I was in Iceland, on my last solo travel adventure; that’s last as in latest rather than final, although it could be the latter too, as it was for the greenYgrey in the last of the trilogy XaW Files: Beyond Humanity. It includes lots of wonderful wordplay, as I hope Icelanniversary is another example; it also reminds me of Inveraray, the Scottish town I visited afterwards last year.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

I’ve put XaW Files on a Kindle ebook free promo this week, to celebrate the mistYmuse pagan winter festival reaching its most important central time Y-day on January 21st, a month after the midwinter solstice, and a passing from MIST (Most Ideal Sunrise Times) darkest winter to MUSE (Midwinter Until Spring Equinox).

The party is already two days old on this site’s sister site fmpoetry.wordpress.com with MEW (Mist Evaporation Week) hotting up with every day.

Northern Lights or Ice Pillars: UFO Book Explanation

Funnily enough, I recently saw what could be an explanation for the long streaks I saw one day in Reykjavik, coinciding with a rainbow creating snow shower. I thought they might be northern lights, having seen similar on the Sky at Night television show shortly before then.

In Nigel Watson’s UFO Investigations Manual, p.80, he has a photo of something similar, and explains the ‘vertical streaks of light are caused by Ice Pillars.’

On p. 84 he writes about meteors and fireballs, and I saw a great one of the latter one night in Borganes while out northern lights hunting: like a big dollop of paint falling from the northern sky.

I saw another one last month during the Quadrantid meteor shower.

Magical Light Day on Borganes Fjord

While I was disappointed not to see the big Northern Lights sky show I did feel lucky to have had high pressure dominate the week I was in Iceland, after heavy snowfall had created very photogenic panoramic scenery. It provided some great POP (PinkyOrangePurple) twilight times, and I had one especially magical light show spending the entire (short) day on the Borganes fjord.

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There’s more POP and UFO to come this week, and if you’ve got access to Kindle books, XaW Files: Beyond Humanity, with its thrilling Iceland finale, is now freely available:

Iceland Travel History Article Published

An article I wrote about my January trip to Iceland has been published on travelthruhistory. In the article I remember my original Beat inspiration, going against the grain by stressing the journey experience, and I think being innovative by including what I’d have liked to have done or seen but missed; partly as consolation to the good people who think I do and have done too much, and have it too easy. Stating I thought I was mostly lucky counters those who think and hope the opposite for me. Here’s some more photos from my time in Reykjavik:

Laugarnes Park (first afternoon/evening)

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Tjornin (the Pond) (next morning)

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Viking Statues (and Hallsgrimskirkja church) (afternoon)

new non-human friend reminded me of a special old one

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Loki the Pearl (Loki café and Perlan)

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http://www.travelthruhistory.com/html/exotic120.html

Dream Wife Iceland Music Video Fire Light Evidence

I’ve previously blogged about how a golden circle appearing in an Icelandic selfie of mind reminded me of Bjork’s Utopia and The Gate videos, and I just found new evidence of that Icelandic belief in Dream Wife’s great greenYgrey Fire music video:

I was first alerted to Dream Wife in a Classic Rock review of their debut album.

My photo:

I’ve blogged a bit more about Bjork, pronounced Be-yerk, and wrote a little poem about how to pronounce her name based on how I’ve always heard it, before learning it was wrong, on the fmpoetry website.

Cosmic Rey-kjavik – Sun Return

Leaving Borgarnes on the Sunday 09.50 bus to Reykjavik, which was excellent both ways, the eastern horizon glowed a deep POP (which I remember as originally a Deep Orange [not Purple!] rather than the PinkyPurple it looks in the photo) beyond the buildings hiding the dividing line between land and sky. Was it the Northern Lights? It looked vivid and vibrant enough. However, it was the sunrise time too, so I think it was more or all that. I took a photo, but it doesn’t do the deep rich colours justice, appearing lighter than it was (I know the back of the building looks yellowy orange, but it wasn’t that!).

Cosmic Ray Vik

I’d seen online that the Northern Lights had made a big appearance near Vik, 150 miles / 225 kilometres east of Reykjavik, so walking to the centre from the Mjodd bus station I kept observing the sun and eastern sky, with our solar system centre keeping me company through thick cloud the whole way. It seemed to be creating shapes again, kind of a pillar effect.

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Getting a little lost, I ended up south of the centre in Kopavogur, but that resulted in me seeing the southern horizon of Reykjavik for the first time, and I was impressed by its peaks there, already loving the northern and eastern ones.

As I approached the excellent bargain Capital Inn, where I was staying, the sky under the sun seemed to be moving. Was it the Northern Lights I could see, as they happen all the time, but are largely invisible in the day. Or was it snow high in the sky? Or wishful thinking? I don’t know, but there did seem to be some activity up there, under the sun.

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The sun continued shining into the evening, when I walked down to the city for a few pints of Gull.

Ice Age 3: Borgarnes Secret Art Full Story

I wannabe… an artist
not an administrationist

pastiche of S*x Pistols’ Anarchy in the U.K.

If I’d continued in academia I could be a Professor earning big bucks now, with a P.A. doing my admin, and postgraduate students doing my proofreading; or editors at my publishers. I’d have a publicist saying how good I am, instead of me having to proclaim myself a self-proclaimed genius. So please don’t jump on me for this admission of failing.

I’m not a technophobe, and enjoy the freedom it gives me, and the art it allows me to create and share, but I try not to get too bogged down in it, balancing it with nature etc, as I think it’s healthier for me and my mind.

My Iceland trip was all organised by me, as were all my solo trips, including some with marathons included. Thankfully, I’ve never made a big mistake, such as getting the wrong dates or place.

Ice Sculpture Complete Picture

However, after taking over a hundred photos in Iceland, while transferring them from phone to computer in groups of seven or eight via gmail, which is how much they can send in each email, I seemed to have missed a line of four photos, and they were the build up to my ‘all important’ ice sculpture on the Borgarfjordur Beach that I posted one close-up photo for before.

When I saw that one photo, and wrote I thought the creation of that ice-sculpture deserved a blog post of its own, half in self-parody, I remembered taking a few photos, but when I looked them up on the computer the next day I found just that one.

I must admit, I didn’t think that I couldn’t have transferred it from phone to computer, which is even more negative to me than missing transferring it in the first place. I know it’s lapses like that that make the Mister Men denounce my Doctorhood, but that’s because they don’t know that Doctorhood is about genius not commonsense! I feel I am justified in a little ‘offensive’ humour with most of this blog self-parody admission of mental failing, as well as trying to be the People’s Doctor for over a decade.

AD Icy

In mitigation, I can put it down to ADHD, if you believe me, and add that I was both times in a state of coffilosophy, which can aid fast creative rambling writing such as this, but isn’t so good for clear logical thinking. I also try to complete these blog posts as quickly as possible.

Anyway I found the other four photos this morning, and here’s a slideshow of the full sequence, seeing strange blocks of ice ice-so-lated (isolated) on the beach, reminding me of a baby seal, then finding one both beautiful in a sheer transparent diamond kind of way, and movable.

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YouTube Easy Transfer

I also found out this morning that it’s easy to transfer videos from the phone to YouTube, after them being too big for gmail had stopped me transferring them before; only took me three weeks to try straight to YouTube!

Ironically, it was inspired by time between events at the snowy icy Winter Olympics! Lots of impressive sporting achievements there, and improvised art by viewers too, reminiscent of my ice sculpture, which I know really, doesn’t compare to the stuff seen at ice hotels etc!

In mitigation, the process from my old camera was often laborious, and the videos are not that sensational, more for my personal enjoyment, as I loved my day on the Borgarfjordur, and the next day to the north of Borgarnes. So it was as much about nonchalance as no chance… of technological capability.

I’ve got there in the end, which reminds me of a thought I had yesterday, with most of the issues I started campaigning about fifteen years ago now having been realised, but would they have happened anyway, if I’d just ignored them, and taken the big bucks path… instead of the sunny nature one!

To reclaim my self-proclaimed genius status, pointing out what I’ve done, although I had no plans to do it when I started off this coffilosophy ‘spontaneous prose’; adding to the tradition of my travel writing hero (Kerouac); the last paragraph brought this blog post around to the start, while also introducing my YouTube videos, with one in particular providing an image looking like a path to the horizon sun, between light snow and dark clouds.

Okay, I’ll post it here, but there’s five more over on YouTube, including one or two quite exciting ones, of ice breaking on the bridge; while others are more serene, capturing the peacefulness of the day.

Ice Sculpture not Genius to Doctor Who Ice Warriors Under the Bridge Ice-breaker

Walking along Borgarnes’s Borgarfjordur beach there were lumps of ice that looked as if they’d fallen out of the sky, as they were so ice-so-lated (isolated) in thawing compared to what must have been other ice around them… unless they were placed there by U.F.O. aliens! Al-ice-ns? Doctor Who‘s old-fashioned greenygrey Ice Warriors?

 

The Curse of Peladon depicts an Ice Warrior delegation aiding the Doctor.

 

The Ice that Fell to Earth (referencing the film of that name, swapping Ice-Man)

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When I saw a lump of ice that looked quite picturesque and light enough to be moveable I thought I’d create a little ice-art, from the bottom of my cold heart, lifting it onto a rock, and having to spend a few seconds balancing it:

Okay, my ice sculpture is still at a basic level. I did write a feminist Folding Mirror poem this morning in not much more time than my ice sculpture took, after being inspired by watching the Suffragette film last night.

To finally say ‘bye ‘bye to Borgarnes on this blog, here’s a little more variety to end, in contrast to var-ice-ty, with photos of a frozen waterfall, grass sticking up through snow, and Under the Bridge, which acted as an ice-breaker as I got to know the Borgarfjordur!

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Iceland Mountain Queen Surreal Photo Evidence?

Dedicated to the Grid and Walk-On Girls: always Formula 1 podium placers and Darts 180 bullseyes, and welcome at AAW (Adult Angelic Waifs).

I meant to write ‘bye ‘bye to Borgarnes in this blogpost, but looks like it’s turned into a goodbye Grid Girls instead!

I only became aware… (not a-were… that happened a long time ago…
and I’ve never looked back…
was looking for a pack…
until I found a greenYgrey rucksack!)… sorry for that mistYmuse poetic interlude, I was trying to write that I only found out about the Lady of the Mountain of Icelandic folklore this week.

I didn’t know about the Lady when I fell in love with Mount Hafnarfjall, between Reykjavik and Borgarnes, after spending the day with it; and was thinking that the reflective silhouette and wispy cloud shown in my photos could be interpreted as traditionally feminine features in a totally lovely way, complementing the hard as rock foundation, which is needed for all women apart from those who live sheltered lives – such as shown in The Grandmaster movie.

Maybe she was happy with me because I took a photo of her raven companion in the sunny glow of east Reykjavik, which I just noticed was the last photo before seeing what I think are Northern Lights ribbons near a rainbow:

I just read the info on the above linked Mount Hafnarfjall site, and saw that most of the mountain is basalt, but the crag, which I guess is the one I thought looked like a shark or cetacean’s dorsal fin, is made of granofyr, which has a bit of a greenYgrey resemblance ring to it (gr-n–yr)! Here’s a last collection of photos showing AAWsome Hafnarfjall:

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Borgarnes Black Hole Sun Iceland Photos

Being an agnostic greenYgreyologist, I hopefully still have balance. For my writing and poetry I have to delve into the creative, which is the more mystical spiritual side of the agnostic, and probably the green of the greenYgrey. While I didn’t have any poetic inspiration in Iceland, focusing more on the image, watching a documentary about The Fall’s Mark E. Smith opened up the floodgates; after watching an old CBGBs The Dead Boys concert earlier in the week inspired my first Folding Mirror poem for a few years. I just wrote and posted the second on foldingmirrorpoetry. Today’s started off just as the introduction for my hour of creative inspiration, and I think there’ll be lots more from the rest.

The Black Hole Sun of the headline is taking artistic licence to reference the Soundgarden song, included in the Guns N’ Roses set for their current tour, since the suicide of Chris Cornell. The clouds are really dark grey, as in the greenYgrey landscape-weather original meaning.

The Sun Works in Mysterious Ways

If you spend a lot of time thinking about the sun, like I have over the last fifteen years, you can start to treat it as a living organism, as some people think it is, as Earth is Gaia: like a couple of flowers in the universal garden, or neurons in the universal mind.

After yesterday writing there was a nice sunrise because high pressure dominated, at 7.45am, 30-45 minutes before its midwinter peak, this morning at 8.30 the sun shone through a narrow band of clear sky in an otherwise dark grey cloudy sky, with spectacular crepuscular rays shining through.

The part of my brain that thinks the sun is alive and aware (a were?) interpreted it as the sun replying to yesterday’s blog post, putting me in my place, as if to say the pristine POP (PinkyOrangePurple) sunrise was its creation, not high pressure; that it can create beauty even in a cloudy sky, and that it can do it at any time of day!

North of Borgarnes Sun

On my second and last full day in Borgarnes I walked north, in the opposite direction to the day before. I probably would’ve taken the bus to Stykkisholmsbaer, but it didn’t run on Saturdays. I walked that way, before finding a path to the coast. The weather was kind to me again, with the sun in full view over coast and deep snow.

I was probably going to post these photos after some more from the Borgarfjordur beach, but this morning’s sky has put them top of the agenda:

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I also met some lovely Iceland ponies:

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Sun Dog-Wolf Wishes, Sun Pillar Reality, Same Photographic Evidence of Exquisite Serenity

As seen in the photos on yesterday’s blog, the sun had set by the time I returned to the road, and the sky had POPed (PinkyOrangePurpled):

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My Last Photo

The battery had nearly run out on my phone, and I took this photo with 1% left. I wondered at the time if it was a sky effect known as a sun dog, but checking up yesterday that’s more when it looks as if there is a ‘sun’ either side of the sun.

It would have been apt for my greenYgrey concept, as from the start it was supposed to be a sun wolf, rather than the more stereotypical moon wolf; its greenness was supposed to have been sun-dyed, and later its Y ascended, partly symbolising the yellow of the sun, and its enlightenment.

The fact that I saw brilliant sky scenes during the sunny daylight, and didn’t see the Northern Lights in the moony night (there was a cool crescent moon near the same seaside horizon as the sun in these photos) does fit in with the greenYgrey sun wolf theme.

This photo seems more like a sun pillar, where the sun’s light extends vertically, making it look as if it is really long, or there are more than one. That isn’t the sun in the photo, as it’s already below the horizon:

I don’t think I’ve ever taken a better POP photo, although it looks even better on my phone gallery; inspiring me to this moment name such PinkyOrangePurple photos POPhotos, pronounced POP-hotos!

I apologise for loving my own photos so much. It’s not my photography I love though, it’s the beautiful scene of immaculate nature; just like the great artists of the Romantic era!

Iceland Mountain Fjord Sunset Photos

It was around or below zero all the time the week I was in Iceland, from what I saw of the temperatures, and it was supposed to be about -5c the day I spent on the Borgarfjordur beach. While I’d taken many photos during the day, the snaps I took after sunset turned the sky, land and water PinkyOrangePurple (POP) looked totally sublime in my phone gallery. They don’t seem to look as good transferred to the computer, looking lighter, but I think they’re still very nice.

After last post contained a silhouette reflection on Mount Hafnarfjall, here’s the scene below, as the mountain joins the fjord: