I was struggling… overwhelmed with the world, and I had this feeling that I just wanted things to stop for a while so that I could catch up. And I told my mom at one point that I was going to…spend a few weeks where people wouldn’t expect me to do anything other than just stare out the window…And she said, “You need to go to the wilderness.”
~ Terry Tempest Williams, Erosion: Essays of Undoing (October 8, 2019)
Photo: Luksefjell (Norway) by allanaasland (via Poppins-me)
Notes:
Hailing from the Northern, Southern and Western parts of Norway, the now Liverpool-based trio I SEE RIVERS creates an organic musical landscape they’ve dubbed ”Float Folk”. (Facebook page)
If you liked this tune, check out I Think I Like You
Nick Kontostavlakis: Μy last trip to Norway during February, 2017. The Lofoten Archipelago is spread on the northwest side of Norway, very close to the borders of the Arctic Circle. It is a cluster of small fishing villages and is often called “the Foot of the lynx” because of its shape. The islands are full of legends, maybe because of their natural beauty and their mysterious landscapes, or maybe because there the Sun either never rises or never sets. The only thing you can hear is the thousand voices of birds, the wind and the sound of the sea. That combination of the landscape which comes into view every morning and the sounds of nature is a priceless experience that fills you with energy and inspiration for the whole day, no matter what you have to face.
Notes:
“The moon blots out the sun during a total solar eclipse over Longyearbyen on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean on Friday. The total eclipse was only visible on Svalbard and the Faeroe Islands.”
Source: wsj.com: Photos of the Day March 20, 2015. By Jon Olav Nesvold, Reuters.
Jarle Bernhoft, 38, also known as Bern/hoft, is a Norwegian singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and lyricist. Bernhoft is from Nittedal in Norway, but currently lives in New York.
what he [Bernhoft] did with those few tools was quite extraordinary. Using them, and via a process of instant recording, looping and layering, he was able to create the sound of a full band – including all the instrumental parts plus backing singers on rich harmonies – and it was all just him.” – The Guardian
Find his website here: Bernhoft.org
Find his new album released last month here: Islander / Bernhoft
So many people glorify and romanticize “busy”.
I do not.
I value purpose.
I believe in resting in reason and moving in passion.
If you’re always busy/moving, you will miss important details.
I like the mountain.
Still, but when it moves lands shift and earth quakes.
~ Joseph Cook
Image Credit Harald Naper of 047 Vråvatn, Telemark, Norway via Hungarian Soul. Poem Credit: Joseph Cook
Excerpts from wsj.com: How Norway Scores So Much Olympic Gold?
…Norway itself is a Winter Olympics marvel: With only five million people, it has won 303 Winter Olympic medals, far more than any other country on the planet. To find a country smaller than world-leading Norway on the all-time Winter Olympics medal table, you have to travel down to Croatia, which ranks 24th with 11 medals. And this month, Norway is fielding one of its strongest teams in almost two generations, with some experts considering it the favorite to win both the highest gold and total medal count, a feat that it last achieved in 1968.
Other countries long ago took to shrugging off Norway’s Winter Olympics medal haul as the unsurprising inheritance of a people whose young are born with skis on their feet, as an old Nordic adage goes. But skiing is also fundamental to the culture of other Scandinavian countries, including Sweden, which has about twice the population but, with 132 total, not even half the medals.
Instead, many experts think the answer lies in the culture and lifestyle of the country, where an extraordinary egalitarianism runs through youth sports. Before age 6, Norwegian kids can only train but not formally compete in sports, and before age 11, all children participating in a competition must be awarded the same prize.
Still, most experts say the biggest reason behind Norway’s success is the culture that propelled it atop the medal table from the outset. Norway’s cities are relatively close to the wilderness, and children are encouraged to play outdoors even on the coldest days.
In those disciplines, attaining world-class status typically takes years of training. This is one reason that the Meråker school accepts students whose passion for sport may outshine their performances. In the long run, desire and perseverance will play the greatest roles in shaping future Olympians. The school’s coaches say the main lesson they teach is the importance of training relentlessly for years beyond high school.
In addition to physical work on the farm in the afternoons, weekends and holidays, he was regularly charged with what his father refers to as “incredibly boring stuff,” like picking stones from a field, just to improve his psyche. Every time he hurt himself, his father would tease him until he stopped crying. Eventually, he came to believe pain is cool. “My father taught me at an early age to tackle pain—I think that’s my strength. I can go for hours in pain without giving up,” he said. His childhood mentor, a star skier turned coach named John Thomas Rena, agrees. “I think a big part of Jenssen’s talent comes from the way he grew up,” he said.
Image Credit: Best and Worst Dressed Olympic Nations in Sochi
“In the window before me I can vaguely see the image of my face. Apart from my eyes, which are shining, and the part directly beneath, which dimly reflects light, the whole of the left side lies in shade. Two deep furrows run down the forehead, one deep furrow runs down each cheek, all filled as it were with darkness, and when the eyes are staring and serious, and the mouth turned down at the corners it is impossible not to think of this face as somber.
What is it that has etched itself into you?”
~ Karl Ove Knausgaard (My Struggle: Book 2: A Man In Love. P.553)
“As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it. Things that are too small to see with the naked eye, such as molecules and atoms, we magnify. Things that are too large, such as cloud formations, river deltas, constellations, we reduce. At length we bring it within the scope of our senses and we stabilize it with fixer. When it has been fixed we call it knowledge. Throughout our childhood and teenage years, we strive to attain the correct distance to objects and phenomena. We read, we learn, we experience, we make adjustments. Then one day we reach the point where all the necessary distances have been set, all the necessary systems have been put in place. That is when time begins to pick up speed. It no longer meets any obstacles, everything is set, time races through our lives, the days pass by in a flash and before we know what is happening we are forty, fifty, fifty…Meaning requires content, content requires time, time requires resistance. Knowledge is distance, knowledge is status and the enemy of meaning.”
~ Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book One (p.14-15)
