Iss: a rune of becoming

This is a mixed media art piece, the bear I found online but despite undertaking reverse image search could not find the actual artist who drew the bear 😦

Echoes of the past
Vibrate in the snow
Little clouds of icy dust
Unsettled by sound
Iss: rune of rest and pause
Life happens underneath the ice
Underneath the blanket of snow it stirs
not yet ready to wake
not yet ready to move
not yet ready to grow

February

Pale grey slush
Generously dispensed from above
February
The mornings lighten

By the way
Who thought that first R made sense?

Ice-cold faces
Attacked by even icier, colder needles
Thrown full force
Against numb skin

By the way
Wasn’t there spring in the air?
Just yesterday?

Super-moon hung hidden
Behind thick clouds
This morning
Árvakr and Alsviðr were too slow

By the way
Have you read the Edda yet?

What are the stories
That keep you going
During the dark times
In the midst of winter?

Spätsommer

Late Summer

Traces of heat make my clothes sticky
A last desperate attempt of summer
Before gossamer
Chases the cobwebs
Like brooms made of lace
Swiping away dust and dry leaves
The debris of a summer well lived

No Regrets

I didn’t know how beautiful the mountains were
On whose feet I spend the night
Only now–looking from afar
Can I see their height
Can I see their beauty

That’s life so often
We are too close
To see the bigger picture

Only visible from a distance

So be gentle with yourself
Your decisions can only be based
On what you know at the time
That small piece you can see
Right there
Right then

No regrets!
Only the way forward
Your life is now
Not then

Wild Camping

A kaleidoscope of cascading ridges
As above
So below

An imperceptible breeze
Gently moves the silvery surface
Ever so slightly distorting the twinning hills
A liquid mirage

It is late August
So late the woods smell of autumn

Mother pine is our host today
The tend pitched within her embracing roots
Clinging to the shoreline

I feel salvaged anyway
The sap moves tangibly below my sleeping matt
Branches above shelter from immediate sun or rain
The moon hangs like a windchime between two pine trunks
Despite the morning light

Tranquility distracts me for a moment
From all the things I should be doing instead

Outer Hebrides: Go with the flow

Again this one does not quite fit yet.

drying wet-suits and a grill in the foreground looking over an ocean bay

Discarded wet suits
Drying in the breeze
A sad looking bag of charcoal
Crunched up
Holding the potential for one more BBQ

But not here
Not now
Not on this holiday
ANYMORE

Sadness creeps up
The simple life
Of our ever-so-slightly moving abode
Will soon be packed away
For another summer

August has just begun
But for us the summer is over
100s of emails looming
I have 48 hours leeway
And mentally push
Against the tidal amplitude of work-life

I love my work
But the constant pressure
Like currents in the sea
I have rowed against
Had become too much

I hope my learning
Will last and like my kayak
I will only put the paddle into the water to steer into the right direction
Occasionally
And not dispense all my energy rowing against the swell

I won’t fight
Against the tide
Anymore

Outer Hebrides: Empty

Wide skies
Wide horizons

An eagle hovers
Empty your mind let your thoughts move through

Normally I struggle
But
Here
I can’t hold on
To a thought
To a worry
To a contemplation

Clouds move over
Every changing
Like my relentless thoughts usually do

Occasionally the clouds become stuck
Hovering over the valley between the mountains
Like the thoughts I should let go
Eventually the wind moves them on