Þingvellir - Iceland
I wrote this a month ago but it sprung to mind today because…democracy. I’m quite fond of it. And I feel a deep sort of loving awe for any society which persists for hundreds of years. Growing up it was unusual to find a building more than 200, maybe 250 years old, and so the knowledge from 500, 600 years ago was just lost to most of us. I guess systems of government have been shifting in different regions throughout the globe since recorded history began, history was never my strong suit so this realization feels kind of revolutionary and threatening to how I thought things were. Maybe this is a time of reckoning in many countries, of new and uncomfortable self-awareness and of answering to long-avoided consequences. I…I fully intend to keep governmental specifics out of this space, but feelings about things still drift in and influence my choices a little. So. Maybe this intro will seem relevant
Þingvellir – maybe time loves me back :)
On the first day of this trip I landed in Keflavik at 4am. Rented a car, remembered how to drive, delivered my flight seat-neighbor/new-friend to his home in a suburb on the edge of Reykjavik, then parked in front of a lamp store to reorganize everything in my bag, nap, change, and set up my sim card. When the sky became bright enough to feel like daytime I started driving. First stop Þingvellir National Park (I used their website for reference while writing this) Ok first stop was supposed to be a bakery in 101 Reykjavik but I got turned around a few times and finally gave up and left town. So. Beautiful historic Þingvellir, location of the very first Alþing (parliament) in around 930, it continued to convene for two weeks every summer until 1798. Puts some few dozen or few hundred years of parlaiments or congresses into perspective, eh? One in every 9 farmers had to accompany his chieftan to Alþing, it was (as I understand it) like a capital city of commerce and excitement, created and then dissolved every year. It is a physically stunning and culturally invaluable location, where laws were made and (mostly after 1280 when under Norwegian rule) punishments decided. One person, the lawspeaker (chosen by assembly for a 3 year term), was tasked with reciting all of the laws (and once the laws were written in lawbooks, responsible for knowing them) and was the most important person at the Althing, but in between sessions was totally powerless (altho maybe extra respected by his peers) In 1000 after some years of gaining followers the (relatively new) Christians and the traditional Pagans split into two separate parliaments, each with their own lawspeaker. It was not quite that orderly, Njáls Saga described it as:
"The following day both sides went to the Lögberg, and Christians as well as heathens named witnesses and denounced each others laws and regulations. Then there arose such a tumult at the Lögberg that no one could hear what anyone else said."
They ultimately decided that the pagan lawspeaker would decide Iceland's official religion and he went away for a day and a night to decide. Upon return he decided that everyone would be officially Christian, although Pagans could continue to practice privately if they like, and Iceland has been officially Christian ever since (there was some Danish or Norwegian involvement with the religion thing, I don’t remember the details). Each year people gave speeches, exchanged news, and they started to write things down around 1000 or 1100. After 1280 a lawbook was approved and punishments became more severe: There is a location in the park where men were executed (gallows rock), another where adulterous women were drowned (drowning pool), etc, with most locations known exactly to this day, in 2016. This certainty about the distant past is still incredible to me, difficult to fully comprehend. Þingvellir has remained an important location for the entire timeline of known Icelandic history, for example it is also where Iceland received its first constitution in 1874. On top of all of that, it sits in the fissure between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates which runs through the center of the country, so it is literally changing all the time. The park also includes Þingvallavatn, the largest natural lake in the country and with a deepest point reaching below sea level. Rain that falls on the lava plains around the lake takes 2-4 months to trickle through the lava to underground channels and out to the lake, gaining useful minerals along the way. Water all the way from the Langjökull glacier seeps into the lake too. “It takes 20-30 years for water to run south into Þingvallavatn from the glacier Langjökull, and it's said that, on its way, it passes through the earth's mantle at a depth of eight kilometres.” And elsewhere in the park there is an actual crack, a fissure between the plates called Silfra full of crystal clear glacial melt water, with apparently incredible snorkeling. you can snorkel between tectonic plates, incredible. The next day I met 2 people on their way to a snorkel so I guess they do it year-round.
The rain was intermittent, the wind was mild, and the hours-long sunrise of morning light (and maybe some jet lag) gave everything a magical glow. I found some Icelandic reggae on the radio (like this, for example), stopped wherever, wandered wherever (on trail and LNT), and spent the whole day with my jaw hanging open and a giddy smile plastered on my face even when the rain turned pointy and sideways and tried to freeze it off. You are no match for this awe-grin, rain! Such a tremendous mix of history and natural beauty, marvelous on the eyes and feet and lungs and senses, but also delightful-feeling to be in the presence of such a long and well-known history, a location which literally watched the nation change around it, and on it. And further, marvelous to be in a moment set in millions of moments of geologic and natural history, sometimes so obvious that you can see what is lava on top of something else and what was eroded by water or pushed around by glacier, you can see the action of time on stone and feel in your body that those processes are continuing right now. You don’t just visit Þingvellir, you are in it, you become a part of one of those moments in an overwhelmingly gigantic chain of historical and geological and natural and cultural moments. It is not looking at some dead past, it is all still happening, still changing in various ways and at various rates. Will there be sagas describing these moments, are they already being written and read? The sudden flood of foreign visitors, the focused protests to shape government, the rapid changes to habitats and populations and coastlines, standing in Þingvellir I felt like one of the grains of sand making up this moment. I keep throwing words at it because the experience is indescribable, and feels …well, I think it changed me.
(I didn't take a lot of pictures, was busy with all of the awe)
