Ad

I got a call from an acquaintance in March asking if I'd mind acting in a commercial for the Keflavík Airport. The casting call was for an American speaking woman, and I happened to be the first person that came to mind. I tried to help look around for someone else, but ultimately the director chose me.

So one evening in late March we filmed the ad and did a photo shoot at the Blue Lagoon. They dolled me up, almost ridiculously so for a person taking a dip in a glorified hot tub, and for three hours or so I spoke my lines with American verve and smiled with my eyes in best Tyra Banks fashion. (This shot was taken towards the end when I was almost smiled out.) I'm not quite sure what the director was thinking, having me all prettied up, especially as my character (Anna Wright :) was supposed to be on a quick layover on the way to Europe (do we US born and bred wear this much makeup for red-eye flights over the Atlantic? Umm, no.) There are four other ads in the series with other international characters, and I think the whole thing is supposed to be a bit tongue in cheek.

I had a blast, regardless, of course got nicely compensated, and now have the honor of having my photo (looking kind of like I'm wearing an evening gown and have been photoshopped into the Blue Lagoon:p ) and commercial spread throughout our international airport, as well as in magazines like Altantica and Iceland Review. The best part is how the gig came about: via one more sweet connection in our pretty little city.

Contact

The beauty of living in a small city is that no matter the distance between people, the web of connectivity keeps us always together.

Not to say that separations can't occur. I've lost folk for years who live just down the street, a seemingly impossible feat considering the compactness of our Reykjavik. But just as easily I've found myself running into the right person at just the right time, over and again. It all seems to be a matter of synchronicity, and sometimes even as though we each occupy our own separate dimension, which merge when the city seems to want them to. Until those moments, we can make due with the knowledge that we are all connected, linked and twined, by the intricate web of contact that binds us.

Eye

In a world of illusion, we see what we want to see, yes?

(Flowerwatch Journal, this one is for you ~.~ )

Balloons

A balloon tower rose over Austurvellir on Saturday, part of the Jónsvaka Midsummer Fesitval. For me, the fascination lay not just in how the breeze played with the ephemeral structure, but in how seemingly minute additions, in this case one small balloon at a time, over time, created it. It is the tiny moments, possibly considered inconsequential in themselves, that add depth to our histories by bridging the spaces between the more dramatic and defining events of our lives.

Pink

With all the words floating about in the ether, both spoken and written, words that inform, report, damage, debate, judge, describe, as well as those that thankfully admire, respect and heal, I think there is simply nothing much more to communicate than what this bloom signifies.

In the words of Tolle, "Flowers, more fleeting, more ethereal, and more delicate than the plants out of which they emerge...[are like] messengers from another realm, like a bridge between the world of physical forms and the formless." 

Beyond language, beyond society and petty things, beyond even the human capacity to create, and recreate, a simple blossom says it all.

Sheep

As two major planets of great mass and affect move into the sign of the Ram for the first time in decades, it seems appropriate to display a very content ewe and her lamb, who posed for us at a farm just north of Reykjavik. This proud mother and her offspring are the latest in a long line of Icelandic ovis aries, whose history as a breed apart has mirrored that of people on this island and has, in all actuality, been the main reason for any human success this past millennia.

For more on the beast, read this Wikipedia article, and for anyone interested (visiting families with children, for example) a trip to this farm, named Hraðastaðir, in Mosfellsdalur can be arranged with a simple phone call to Nína at 820-1829.

Stream

These kiddies tryed to dam a stream with rocks and twigs and leaves but, as always, the cool water found a path of lesser resistance and flowed on...