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Finding beauty, we recognize it

thanks to the beauty

within us. Beauty recognizes beauty.

Even in the shattered places

of the world and ourselves,

this beauty,

This.

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It’s not an isolated phenomenon

separate from ourselves,

other than ourselves –

no – isolation is delusion.

Everything is in relationship,

like the intimate beauty

of walking feet,

here and there,

there

and here.

Nearby,

beauty.

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As “The Marine Detective” said recently, “Stand for truth. Put good into the world. Know the good and beauty around you. And protect the good in yourself, and others.“

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In spite of the illness and death of my dear partner Joe, there is optimism and pleasure to be found here. There’s darkness, too, and confusion. But quaint as the idea may be in 2025, beauty inspires me to push the shutter, more often than not.

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Joe was in the hospital most of the month, first in the intensive care unit at our local hospital, then in a larger hospital 45 minutes away. In early July he was sent home – there was nothing medicine could do at that point. It was time for Hospice. Joe said he never, ever wanted to go to a hospital again. He insisted on having control over his own death. As it turned out, he was home for only four days and took his last breath on July 6th.

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And that includes you.

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The stalwart old tree trunk pictured above and below belongs to a picturesque Seaside juniper (Juniperus maritima) in Washington Park, on Fidalgo Island. Notable for its geology and plants, the park spreads across 200 acres on a square-shaped peninsula on Fidalgo’s northwestern corner. Though it’s surrounded on three sides by salt water and whales sometimes glide by its shoreline, the park’s location in Puget Sound is 93 miles as the crow flies from the Pacific coastline.

Weather, salt water, and geology have created favorable conditions for some unusual species in the park. The Seaside juniper is the rarest but no one realized that until recently, when a scientific paper published in 2007 reclassified the species. Ever since Europeans rowed ashore, the gray-barked trees with scale-like foliage were called Rocky Mountain junipers (Juniperus scopulorum), the same as a juniper that grows to the east, at much higher elevations. The trees do look similar but genetic analysis revealed the two species to be distinct. Unlike Rocky Mountain junipers, Seaside junipers favor exposures near the sea, growing only in a small area from Southwestern British Columbia to the Puget Sound trough, in Washington. In Washington Park they’re scattered across open, south-facing slopes by the water, but walk a few steps away from the shoreline and junipers disappear, replaced by the region’s ubiquitous Douglas firs.

Pacific madrones (Arbutus menziesii) also grow well on open, south-facing slopes near the water, and the two species can be seen together at the park. They make interesting companions aesthetically – the juniper with its rough, gray, striated bark contrasting with the madrone’s smooth, orange, wavy branches. You can see them behaving like conjoined twins in the small photo below, from a few years ago. When Seaside junipers reach a venerable age, they usually have attractive moss and lichen “accessories” adorning their nooks and crannies. Their furrowed branches can bulge like oversized arthritic knuckles, and dead branches stick out every which way. Even branches that drop to the ground have a way of settling into the grass and looking perfectly at home, especially when the grass has gone pale in the cold months of the year.

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On a November outing with friends, the golden leaves of a Pacific willow (Salix lucida ssp. lasiandra) growing by a lake at Deception Pass State park drew us in for a closer look. Yellow leaves are a tonic for the eyes on gray days. Backing away, I saw the repeating shapes of slender, oval leaves and wiry stems as a flat plane of color and line. That was my thought when I photographed the willow.

A wetland on the other end of the lake had an interesting mix of shrubs. The yellow leaves probably belonged to more willows. Small trees were shrouded in fuzzy, light green lichens, and many stick-like reeds crowded the bigger plants. The subtle autumn tapestry of color was attractive, but it wasn’t easy to translate into a photograph. The colors were repeated in more sombre hues on the caps of a cozy group of mushrooms I found in a dense, quiet forest two weeks later. As the solstice neared and the days shortened, the botanical palette was losing vibrancy but gaining subtlety.

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A madrone branch closeup (below) from early December revealed an especially subtle array of hues. This photograph, taken on a darkly overcast day when raindrops clung to twig tips, shows the cooler side of madrones – but the tree’s typical warm hues still peak through. I used a prime lens that I’ve found to be good in low light, moving close enough to zero in on some indentations in the bark that echoed a gentle wave of the edge of the branch.

The soft curve of a dead branch (right, below) is something I had noticed ten minutes earlier. Maybe curves were on my mind – they often are. In the photo on the left, soft curves mark the water-worn roots of a large driftwood log. That huge, heavy log has been in place for years, long enough for lichens to take hold. You may know that the yellow-green streaks on the wood are lichens, but the white patches are actually lichens, too. Driftwood rim-lichen (Lecanora xylophila) is a crustose lichen, which just means it forms a crust, in this case on driftwood. A fungal layer attaches the lichen to the wood, an algal layer is above it, and a cortex is on top. If you look closely or use a hand lens, you can see many attractive, chestnut-brown, roughly round discs dotting the white cortex of the lichen. The discs are apothecia, spore-bearing reproductive structures that allow the fungus to reproduce by dispersing tiny spores via wind or water. I included a photo from several years ago that shows the apothecia.

A grand sweep of shapes is interesting, the subtleties of different hues are beautiful, and the tiniest details can be fascinating. All we need to do is look and appreciate it all.

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Here at 48° 44′ N, the winter months are full of cloudy days. The same can be said for late fall and early spring so we have to find ways to bear it. Perhaps even embrace it. The photo below, of a forest reflected in a lake, was taken in early November at 4:19pm. The two photos under it were taken a month later around the same time, back at Washington Park. The murky, shadowy, in-between nature of that almost-dusk time of day can bring up sadness, but look how beautiful it can be.

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Maybe it’s all just a field of sensations, I thought. Always sensations. We are bundles of sensations: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting – even thinking is so often sensation-based. We exist as sensing beings among other sensing beings in a world of motion, from invisible, constantly vibrating particles to perpetually turning planets and expanding galaxies. Shimmering sensations enter our consciousness and create entire worlds, one after the other, after the other. This is our personal world, our field of being. Sometimes it’s delicious, sometimes it’s terrible. Sensations are where we begin. And end.

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She doesn’t take walks as often as she used to

but there are good reasons for it.

There are reasons preceding reasons,

layers of reasons why

she hasn’t been walking as often.

Why? The word is always there, hovering

behind the day’s preoccupations, then striking

unexpectedly, firing up her mind,

arrowing silent screams into the void.

But she accepts the whys and the void. She waits

for the moment to pass.

She doesn’t need answers, only needs

to let “Why?” loose in the world.

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When she decides to follow a familiar trail

she carries her camera, and then wonders

what to do with it,

what picture to frame,

and why.

Here

and there

she lifts the black box, presses the shutter,

and thinks, “That’s not going to work”

or “Maybe.”

At home, the photos light up the screen

and she sees that many of them are worthless

but some of them sing,

yes, they sing

broken and storm-tossed laments,

and sometimes

songs of contentment, equilibrium.

Grief and comfort:

both present,

both true.

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I write about her in the third person

for many reasons,

layers of reasons.

Mostly it’s just a way to see more clearly.

The why’s remain unanswered.

And writing

keeps life alive.

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Mile after mile, the wild, empty landscape of South Iceland unspooled its magic. Jagged mountains leaned in like formidable eminences grises, fat sheep grazed in tawny fields, ancient blocks of lava reached darkly toward the sea. Spaciousness reigns in Iceland, especially in the South. One feels that the land answers to no one. A volcano erupts and a town shutters. A bridge is built and washes away – again. Sulphur colors the ground in strange hues that jump skyward as rainbows.

You know you’re small here. Life snaps back into proper perspective.

As we headed southwest on Route 1 that September, the weeks Joe and I had spent driving past land that was often barely inhabited were building to a climax. Our rhythm had been to follow the road and natural daylight more than any imposed schedule. We were usually outdoors, in the car, or asleep. Food choices were simple, in fact, all our choices were. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the abundance we have at home. But eliminating 90% of the picking and choosing that occupies so much of our time can be a healthy move.

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To untangle the knotted threads of busy lives takes time and openness to change. Largely occupying ourselves with indoor tasks, often on electronic devices, we hanker after rough edges, unfinished textures, the scent of earth. I think this is true for many people but I can only speak for myself. In Iceland, for me the scales were swinging back into balance with every inhalation of sharp, clean air, each step on rock-strewn, boundaryless beaches.

Iceland’s Ring Road, locally known as Route 1, offers a plethora of pleasures, one of which is being in the presence of glaciers. When I saw the first one out the car window, I wanted to get out and fly to the edge of it. What was that long, pale mound of old ice like up close? Such unmistakable grandeur the frozen beast possessed! There was nothing friendly or intimate about it – and nothing manmade, either. It was a landscape to be present for, not one to scroll quickly past on social media.

But before the ice, let’s see a softer and perhaps stranger landscape…

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Clouds glowered and lightened by turns. Perhaps it was the work of the Huldufólk, the island’s hidden people, those cunning, supernatural beings inhabiting a parallel universe in Iceland’s unpredictable landscape. We were headed to Reynisfjara, the famous black sand beach, when we noticed peculiar, greenish lumps everywhere, on both sides of the road. Curious, we looked for a place to stop, soon finding a side road leading to a dirt road. The world grew quiet once we shut the engine and got out. There was scarcely any sign of human habitation. What was this place? We’d never seen anything like it, not in books or online. And certainly not in person.

We slowly eased into the terrain, marveling at the moss-shrouded rocks that seemed to reach all the way to a glacier looming on the horizon. It was at once Lilliputian and extravagant. Shiny, black berries glinted on plants draped over mossy blankets. The bulbous shapes, the fine texture of the moss and the little plants huddled in crevices were enchanting. With no thought of time, I lost myself in a strange world.

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Eventually I learned that those undulating lumps of moss cover an immense old lava field. In the 1780s, multiple eruptions heaved lava across 218 square miles (565 sq km). The historic Laki Craters eruptions spewed poisonous chemicals that wreaked havoc on Iceland’s crops and livestock, resulting in famine. A sulphuric haze reached far south and descended on Great Britain and Western Europe, causing thousands of deaths there. The eruptions may have affected India’s monsoons and caused one of North America’s worst winters ever. It was “one of the most important climatic and socially significant natural events of the last millennium.” (Wikipedia)

Iceland isn’t called the Land of Fire and Ice for nothing!

The eruptions scattered an enormous wasteland of sharp, black lava chunks across South Iceland. Over time, the bizarre landscape that stopped us in our tracks was created, thanks to a plant called Wooly fringe moss (Racomitrium lanuginosum). As a pioneer plant, it can grow and thrive on bare lava rock. Because the moss grows very slowly, a hard step on those plump, inviting pillows can destroy a century’s growth. I instinctively sensed that walking on the moss wasn’t a good idea but I was tempted!

Eldhraun – firelava in Icelandic – was a revelation. We hadn’t seen references to Eldhraun when we planned our trip, which meant we were free from preconceptions. That innocence bestowed on us the thrill of discovery, which in turn connected us to the landscape more intimately than if we had known about it. Traveler’s luck!

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Guides to South Iceland always reccommend seeing Jökulsárlón, an iceberg-filled glacial lagoon. The parking lot is beside Jökulsárlón’s narrow outlet to the sea. As we approached the area I could see dozens of tourists lining up by the water, competing for the best view. Tangled knots of cars and RV’s strained to enter or exit the parking lot.

This was not our scene.

Luckily, the guidebook I had mentions a smaller glacier lagoon just down the road. Easy decision! Fifteen minutes later the two of us were peacefully sitting on the rocks at Fjallsárlón, watching icebergs float away from an immense glacier called Fjallsjökull (“jökull” means glacier). There were only a few other tourists around the lagoon. We were quietly transported to an icy, otherworldly realm where rakish icebergs rested almost motionless in a mirror-still lake, their sharp angles mimicking the mountains behind them. Across the lagoon the glacier loomed large and glorious.

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I squinted at the jagged patterns on its deeply fissured surface: dark, sooty cuts, flanks of tropical turquoise, washes of palest gray – this ice seemed far more alive than a clear cube in a glass. There was a feeling of movement, a march toward the water or a slump down into it. It was some other entity: elemental, ancient, unknowable.

That glacier is an outlet glacier of Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull, which occupies 8% of the island. Again, Iceland is the land of fire and ice! Underneath this immense cap of ice are volcanos. Imagine what happens when one erupts under all that frozen water – it melts the ice, big time! The floods create lakes under the ice that can burst through, like they did in 1996, when 38 days passed before the water from a major eruption finally broke through the ice. Part of Route 1 was obliterated and the flow was so big that for a few days it was second in size only to the Amazon River.

As the sun sunk lower in the sky that afternoon, massive floods were far from my mind. I was mesmerized by the unlikely turquoise glow inside a huge, triangular hunk of ice resting quietly on the lake’s surface. The icebergs seemed to be full of possibility. Change is inevitable, isn’t it? I wondered how long it takes for the icebergs to melt, to change visibly. How long does it take for one to float into outlet stream and out to the sea? Beside me, tiny, bright yellow Saxifrage plants displayed the last flowers of the season between gray and russet cobbles. Joe and I barely spoke, not wanting to break the spell. Looking at the picture I took of him now, I wonder what was going through his mind.

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Iceland rewards the curious. Graced by wonder after wonder, I was captivated. Traveling across a sparsely populated land, meeting warm, honorable people, and experiencing a myriad of uncommon natural wonders was an unforgettable experience. Here’s a slideshow that hopefully offers a taste of the island’s charisma.

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That’s all from Iceland for now. Next up will be a look at late autumn on Fidalgo Island.

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