There’s A Place From Where I Came.
Speaking of silence, this quote from Björk is my favorite thing I’ve read this week…
I was brought up in the suburbs of Reykjavík,” says Björk, sitting in a small cafe in the heart of the Icelandic capital while the rain skitters about outside. “I lived next to the last block of flats, and then it was moss and tundra. I used to walk a lot on my own and sing at the top of my lungs. I think a lot of Icelandic people do this. You don’t go to church or a psychotherapist – you go for a walk and feel better.”
Iceland’s most celebrated musician is feeling particularly impassioned about her homeland: she had just held a press conference to raise awareness of the threat to the Icelandic highlands, an area of extraordinary beauty and ecological diversity that may be irreparably damaged by plans to lay a subsea power cable to the UK, accompanied by above-ground power stations and infrastructure.
(click here to continue reading Bjork on Iceland: ‘We don’t go to church, we go for a walk’ | Music | The Guardian.)
Much of my childhood was spent in the wilderness of Ontario, in the magical land of Frostpocket. Frostpocket, and surrounding Machar Township, and South River, Ontario, might not have the breathtaking landscapes of Iceland, but Frostpocket has its own kind of beauty. As a kid I was lucky enough to (mostly) avoid being forced to go to church, my religion was the same as Björk: go take a walk. Singing was optional, but definitely not forbidden. This is still my religion, wherever and whenever I can take a long walk, I feel refreshed.
We just need a good name for our religion so we can get tax breaks, and convert more people to the precepts…