The past and the present

What sustains us are the memories we have. Without a doubt, they will influence our future. The things that we remember shape who we are. The same holds true for our hopes, expectations, and dreams. That may, however, be untrue or true.

We're constantly searching for solutions to meet this.

When we don't find what we're looking for, we create our own answers. It's how we survive. All of us, particularly in situations when something happened or has an emotional component. Understanding everyone's viewpoint is essential, to take into account other people's perspectives on the world, as opposed to only your own.

Everybody sees things differently.

This, I believe, applies to all conflicts in the world, including those between friends and family. We must remain calm and truthful. We are living a lie unless we have that. We end up hurting ourselves in the process.

We are dehumanizing ourselves.

More honesty, more real life, and less hiding behind our own walls. Even if those are there for a cause and are difficult to bring down at times. It's a never-ending process, and communication is crucial. It always has been. And hope keeps us going. It’s the strongest emotion that is out there.

Never give up trying to find your place in the world. Everything will work out one day!

You are enough!

Peace & Love

Climate Collapse

Melting Glacier. Iceland, July 2023.

We are now in the summer of 2023. The climate is progressively breaking down. Weather is becoming increasingly dangerous in some areas. I suppose this is the year it all started.

My optimism is low these days.

My heart is broken.

To see what could have been avoided.

There were lives that could have been saved.

Death and destruction.

Wildlife and nature are collapsing.

Ice sheets are melting at an alarming rate.

It was all known a long time ago.

Whether conscious or subconscious, I think everyone today feels or is aware of what is happening to the environment and our world. It's a collective feeling that something is in the air and you can't get away from it, whether you believe it or not.

“Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we devised artificial lights and atmospheric pollution and modern forms of nocturnal entertainment we watched the stars. There were practical calendar reasons of course but there was more to it than that. Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away.”  Carl Sagan

I'm not sure where we're headed from here, but the unknown concerns me.

The earth's energy balance is out of control.

The ocean is far too warm.

The land is parched.

Floods are far too powerful.

Storms are intensifying.

People are becoming more extreme.

Politicians are falling short.

The media is deceptive.

The wealthy are unconcerned.

Inflation is far from gone.

The greed grows all the time.

There is no desire to find solutions.

Many people are trapped in order to survive.

Many sections of the world lack access to education.

Is there any way out? To live self-sufficiently and just consume what you require. That is no longer possible in an increasing number of regions around the world. Because, in the end, you'll need to come up with something in order to survive and prosper, and that something will be something that brings you money.

Because money is, in some ways, synonymous with freedom. We ultimately require it in order to exist, live, and achieve what we desire.  So you'll work for the sake of working, and it may not necessarily be what you agree with or stand for. Some do it effortlessly, while others struggle.

I believe it is a multidimensional process rather than a single conflict or problem that is easily resolved. Something we must all address and/or obey collectively.

Whether we want it or not.

“The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.”

Carl Sagan

Whatever happens to us and humanity, one thing is certain, it will not be dull anytime soon. Let us hope for a miracle and that people in authority realise one day that they live in the same society as we do and that if we continue with our current destructive system, there will be none left for their children or grandchildren. And it will all be their fault since they refused to change or act. Leaders exist to rouse the people, to affect us all, and the big corporations and think tanks of today know exactly what they are doing to keep us occupied and busy buying more useless items we don't need or following unsatisfactory or false dreams.

Mass Psychology is real, and what was once known as Propaganda is now known as Public Relations. Social media, in particular, has completely altered the way individuals are reached. As with so many things, it is a two-edged sword. We just have to use it correctly to put the people back in control, rather than a few corporations that want us to click more and more and more for the sake of greed and profit.

The capitalistic system failed a long time ago. Without a doubt I am aware that without it we would not have what we have today. It is outdated and now a dead beast striving to survive and dragging us all into the abyss. As a result, we are witnessing the steady decline and collapse of communities and nature around us. It is simply greed and a stubbornness to abandon an obsolete system. We require a completely new approach to how we live on this planet. Invest heavily in innovative technology without allowing large firms to stifle development.

I am sure there is still room for some optimism, but I believe that too much hope is naïve at some point. Humanity is now at crossroads.

Peace & Love

Light and Shadow

Shadows that hunt you

Lights that blind you

Shadows that shape you

Lights that mend you

Shadows that like you

Lights that love you

Shadows that are you

Lights that are you.

I think that there has always been and will always be an eternal balance of light and darkness. What I see, what you see, and what we all see and feel on a daily basis. Without a doubt, there is a strong connection between it. In this scenario, one or the other large group can only focus on one with the restricted goal of killing the other. They are unaware that they can live together. Without one, the other perishes. The strong urge to investigate "the other side," as well as the reality that it is frightening and challenging owing to our general unfamiliarity, but vital to learn, grow, and understand.

"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."

Carl Jung

It's a necessary take for what I'm doing with photos in certain ways. Even now, I'm not sure which fascinates me more. Darkness or light, or the dynamic combination of the two at times.

From my experience, one may purposely or inadvertently drift to either side for a period of time to become more mindful of what it truly is. Ultimately what you are looking for on the outside and within yourself.

My images almost always tell a story about me, they blend my thoughts, feelings, and current state of being. For me, it must be this way. There must be a reason to capture an image. It is not for an audience, but ultimately for me. Of course, acknowledgment is important and I value it all.

In a way it is is my own method for dealing with what I think about and go through. What I feel within myself, what I want to express and what I need to get out in order to keep moving, learning and flourishing. It's a never-ending adventure of never being sure where it will go or how it will evolve. But when I started to love and accept it, the ups and downs became my favourite part. Kind of darkness and light itself.

"I am certain that if I have any merit, it is knowing how to make good use of my eyes, to guide the camera in its task of capturing not only colors, lights and shadows, but the movement of life itself."

Gabriel Figueroa

Our visions and stories are all unique and beautiful in their own way. I suppose we just need to share it more and talk about it. Vulnerability and sincerity is the key to letting it out. Surely everyone finds comprehending from someone somewhere. It doesn't matter who it is, someone just needs to listen and show understanding and if asked, give or share their own experience and guidance.

See, everyone has a story to tell, it may not be the most fascinating one, but it may mean the world to someone and you don't know that until you do it. Simply throw it out there and allow what it does to the listener.

If you don't dare, you'll never find out. You might never let go of some things in yourself. We all need tales to be free and totally present in the moment. A way to find calm through releasing. That is why I try to connect and create. It benefits others and also me. That is all that matters in the end.

„Existence precedes essence.“

Sartre

I don't agree with Sartre on everything, but this phrase got my interest and seemed plausible. This, I feel, is where we should begin when considering our state of being.

Improve connections with one another in order to obtain the insight we require to make this world a better place. It all depends on where you look, what you see, and how you interpret what you see. Basically strip away one's ego. Become free and open minded to everything without judgement in the first place.

I believe the more you grasp darkness and light within yourself, the more you will be able to sense and understand it in the world around you!

Every experience, every season of our lives, whether painful or joyful, has a meaning and ultimately defines you as yourself for the rest of your life. We need to discover a reason for our existence, and what could be better than helping others by sharing parts of our lives?

Is it really that easy? I guess it is.

Finally we need to collaborate to create the world we want with less suffering and more understanding to assist one another’s journey. I realise it might be an unreasonable ideal that may never come true, but why not strive for something?

And it is, was, and always will be this way...

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”

Greek Proverb

Peace & Love

The world, the land and me in between.

“Over the years, one comes to measure a place, too, not just for the beauty it may give, the balminess of its breezes, the insouciance and relaxation it encourages, the sublime pleasures it offers, but for what it teaches. The way in which it alters our perception of the human. It is not so much that you want to return to indifferent or difficult places, but that you want to not forget.” Extracts From Barry Lopez, About this life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory.

After spending the longest time in a decade in Germany, I'm back in Iceland, a country that has given me so much in the past, and I've begun to evaluate my relationship with the earth and my genuine place in it these days. Because I want to be in so many places at once, I sometimes feel like I'm locked in a loop of returning and never actually going anywhere. Along with how nature and the environment shape us, I consider how we should appreciate and protect the ecosystem from our own selfishness and the vast amount of destructive travel I see while paradoxically longing for it at the same time. The most important question is, "What can I personally do to help the environment and the world?" I feel like there is so much more I could be doing, but the overwhelming quantity of things that are clearly there makes it seem daunting, if not impossible, to begin at times. The only choice I see clearly now is to educate and share what I see via my camera lens to raise awareness, and the necessity of travel is unavoidable for that, which puts me back in the loop of never arriving. But maybe that's the journey and flow to take and find again because that's where the destiny lies, even if leaving a location or people behind hurts or produces an uncomfortable feeling in the first place.

I recently reread Barry Lopez's book About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory and now Arctic Dreams, and I wanted to share a couple of the phrases that truly spoke to me on how to interpret and express experiences of being in the moment with our world. He visited several countries throughout the planet to understand more about humankind and how everything is connected. His travels transported him to places where the greatest minds in history found inspiration.

“The evening before I departed I stood on the rim of a lagoon on Isla Rabida. Flamingos rode on its dark surface like pink swans, apparently asleep. Small, curved feathers, shed from their breasts, drifted away from them over the water on a light breeze. I did not move for an hour. It was a moment of such peace, every troubled thread in a human spirit might have uncoiled and sorted itself into a graceful order. Other flamingos stood in the shallows with diffident elegance in the falling light, not feeding but only staring off toward the ocean. They seemed a kind of animal I had never quite seen before.”

When he was flying across the world in cargo planes, he would frequently depart a location after only twelve hours on purpose, never being able to truly connect to a place but to understand the machinery of global shipping dynamics.

I believe there comes a moment of no return when you see and feel how the world and system we constructed actually function. Furthermore, once you know too much about how the world works, there is no turning back; ignorance is bliss. My primary issue is coping with the realization that the wealth we have built mainly in the west is still "slavery", albeit in a different form, because it was earned through the sweat, blood, and toil of humans who had no choice but to submit to our domination and perform tasks until today.

“How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.” Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez.

“In Antartica, The Wright and half a dozen other valleys in the Central Transantarctic Mountains are collectively referred to as the dry valleys. It has not rained here in two million years. No animal abides, no plant grows. A persistent, sometimes ferocious wind has stripped the country to stone and gravel, to streamers of sand. The huge valleys stand stark as empty fjords. You look in vain for any conventional sign of human history- the vestige of a protective wall, a bit of charcoal, a discarded arrowhead.

Nothing. There is no history, until you bore into the layers of rock or until the balls of your fingertips run the rim of a partially exposed fossil. At the height of the austral summer, in December, you smell nothing but the sunbeaten stone. In a silence dense as water, your eye picks up no movement but the sloughing of sand, seeking its angle of repose.

On the flight in from New Zealand it had occurred to me, from what I had read and heard, that Antarctica retained Earth’s primitive link, however tenuous, with space, with the void that stretched out to Jupiter and Uranus. At the seabird rookeries of the Canadian Arctic or on the grasslands of the Serengeti, you can feel the vitality of the original creation; in the dry valleys you sense sharply what came before. The Archeozoic is like fresh spoor here.”

Again, just a few thoughts to share on a rainy and windy evening among the mountains I adore.

Worlds in Worlds

I must admit that this winter seemed particularly long and odd, but that's just how life can be at times. As a result, I am all the more eager for warmer weather to arrive. I am actively exploring macro photography possibilities as springtime welcomes in new life after the cold season. As you get closer, the scene gets more bizarre and it becomes clearer what's really occurring between the trees.

I've always wanted to try macro photography, but I never really did because I was surrounded by such beautiful scenery and wildlife. Since I no longer possess that, I had to alter my perspective and make the most of what I do have. The more I spend time outside with my camera wandering around the forest floor between dead trees and branches, the more I notice the tiny creatures that exist just below our typical field of vision. Even though it is a part of our ecosystems and is usually invisible to us, without it everything would be drastically altered or even cease to exist as we know it.

I often consider and reflect on the current situation of nature in our culture while I am outside. Fundamentally, what is working, what may be improved, and what is just horrible. And I have to be honest from my perspective and the little that I know—the future looks bleak.

Microorganisms, or microscopic living things and plants, are everywhere around us in our oceans and soils. They do a great deal of work to put it simply. They, in my opinion, merit the same amount of attention as stunning, expansive landscapes, tall mountains, amazing beaches, or significant fauna. How come most of us don't understand or see it that way? Isn't it past due? Is awareness the key? Is it a matter of knowledge and wisdom? Is empathy a factor? Is it due to urban living and how we currently live?

I believe it's probably a combination of all of them, each in their own unique way. A lack of awareness of these small details in our contemporary environment and a busy, hurried lifestyle that prevents awareness. Natural environments are very hard to come by and frequently overcrowded in urban settings, making it difficult for living things to even get by let alone have room to expand.

Last but not least, I believe a significant component is empathy with every living thing and the natural world on this planet, in a sense appreciation and understanding that they are a part of us and we are part of them and we can not survive without them, at least not for long. As everything has a right to life, not only us as the top predators, we shouldn't think that we are above anything. In general, we need to be more understanding and modest, and we also need to educate people about the interconnectedness of all life on planet earth.