Reconnecting with Nature

The time spent outdoors here in a month is probably more than I have in the past year. And even in the times that I spend outdoors back at home is not as much for enjoyment as it is to get from point A to point B. My excuse is having to work in studio all the time. Yet after being constantly immersed in nature here, I find myself thinking I was silly for even avoiding it because some of my fond, but rare, memories back home are spent outdoors. And here in Iceland, that part of me is emerging again and cannot wait to share experiences and make new memories with those back home.

One of our first activities was this: Find a place in the field. Sit there for thirty minutes. Think and do whatever you would like. At first, I did not know what I was going to do with my time. But I realized that my breathing suddenly became in sync with the sporadic gusts of wind, focusing on that for a while. And then I stuck my face in the high grass and looked down into a gap, creating an imaginary world. Began thinking about how to be able to do this in New York City. And about how it would be cool to find some secret getaways. 

The Hekla forest seed picking was a more active use of time in nature. Collecting the seeds off birch trees was both meditative and focused; It was a laid back activity but my mind was telling me to get every single seed I could find. Maybe that brought out the OCD tendencies in me. When we gathered all the seeds into one large bag that weighed 10 kilos after just one day, it was rather rewarding to see what a group can do in a short amount of time. 

During one of our free blocks during the day, I went and sat by myself outside by a pile of rocks and began to draw my surroundings. It was the first time that I had drawn since being in Solheimar and could have sat out there for hours. It reminded me to take time out of my day to do things for myself, and not for the sake of the classroom. Since then, I have been doing a lot of blind contours and was able to share it with some of my peers here. 

Seeing the northern lights for the first time took my breath away. It must have been the first week we were here. I do not know exactly how the phenomenon works, except that it involves the magnetic fields and the bouncing of particles. But it is a rare sighting that became a reality for me, rather than watching a time lapse youtube video before coming here. Just goes to say that nature can amaze in unexpected ways and wherever you go, there will be something waiting to be discovered.

-tracey