ggggggeeeeeeezzzzers at da city pond

In the newest issue of Mindfire

you willl find poems, music, art, all sorts of writings as a reflection on the concept of war and peace, go to
Mindfire and find some pretty awesome stuff of inspiration .... including pomes by yours truly Joy B's alter ego Birgitta

I am asked a lot to submit my work all over the world and sometimes i simply forget that i had submitted anything ... so it is always such a nice surprise to see my poems or art or music flow with the creation of others

thanks all of you that have asked me to be part of
without you all i might possible maybe have stopped a long time ago
you have given me the fuel to carry on being me, the courage to stay close to what i believe is my voice

and who knows maybe one day i will grow up to be a great writer
such is my goal, because i know the power of the word....

joy
b

I have finally

finished with the second editing of conversations with ghosts

will publish it here soon for a few days for a free download ....

other than that things have been busy, very busy ...

did one of my best performances last Wednesday accompanied with Iceland's only tabla player Steingrimur Gudmundsson

tomorrow will be a great day for friends of iceland, we will have a carnival protest walk to give people a chance to celebrate this unique nature we are a part of and to have some fun while showing we care and are willing to protect it from the insane plans of the government and the powercompanies to sell it to the lowest bidder as long it is heavy industry aluminium company with a bad reputation ....

I am not

dead yet, even if i have been awfully silent in the last weeks... as usually I am busy with 10000000 things ... strange this thing with activism ... why is it we are so few doing it ... yet it is by far the most interesting thing to do instead of the time i would possible spend in front of the telly... or on the phone or blogging or what ever ... it adds a functionality to my life ... a meaning ... to see the things i do have impact on others, to be able to inspire real change ... nothing quite like it and the good news are: we can all do it.

so if you see something around you that needs to be changed: be the change: do something about: it is as simple as that.

i have been thinking about sacrifice after reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman... (a great book by the way)
how we use this phrase all the time without knowing whom we are sacrificing to: for example: i am sacrificing my time to do this or that.... to whom are you sacrificing: i think it would be wise to direct that sacrifice to something you know
like for example: if you believe in something make sure to formalise your sacrifice to what you believe in ....

or all those sacrifices might end up in all the wrong places.....:)

Better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

-Andre Gide

had my birthday last monday
got the best birthday gift i could think of> was told that my daughter who has lived in Norway since she was less than a year old is moving to Iceland later this year. this means we can have "normal" relationship... that is she can come over when ever she feels like it, it will no longer be long distance relationship... here is a poem i wrote about a month ago from the new book i am writing conversations with ghosts dealing with this issue....

Once

we were one
this child that grew out of my womb
with full:length hair touching her toes
and neonbright eyes
—so blue
only to vanish
from my swollen breasts
after spending the exact same
time in my arms
as in my womb

when she vanishes into her world
a part of me dies

watch the iron:birds swallow her
as they take her away over the endless ocean

those lost ghosts within me
create more havoc then those visable ghosts

until I cry
the ghosts of nostalgia
out of my mind

Conversations

with Ghosts available On May 1st, than you will be able to download for free the 35 e-books that have been sent in so far for the Poetry Super Highway's Great E-Book Free-For-All for free!.

"A work in progress: Conversations with Ghosts is about external and internal ghosts. The drawings and sketches by the Hand add a new dimension to the brutally honest words of the infamous Icelandic author. Go and get spooked. See if you can spot a familiar ghost."

Since I am still working on it, it won't be available for some time to come.... go get it on May 1st and tell me what you think...

spook poem

from my newest book of poems titled Conversations with Ghosts

In

the morbid night
wet snow
suppresses every sound

I hear a rustle and feel a terrible fear
paralysing every nerve

Ludvigs shadow ghost is the spirit in the glass
on the Ouija board
a mean old man that drinks through him

I saw the silhouette of the shadow ghost
I felt it lift me

poltergeist hands

felt the glass move
without me being able to do anything to stop it

spelled out words that had no meaning
except to nourish my fear

I whispered between my clenched teeth „leave“

and he laughed
and left
to follow Ludvig

and Ludvig had ghost eyes
when he drank and doped

and he had irresistible magnetism

I was always seeing the grinning ghost
dark and hollow
gaping
gorging
sucking

dark spikes
covered the ghost
and his lips stuck
around the nibble of Ludvigs right breast
grinning eyes,
leering darkness

„come back“ I whispered
but the ghost looked at me
with despiteful self:conceit
and carried on sucking

Little changes

Big changes... in the last couple of weeks... little time to do the things I am used to... however since time is liquid and not linear like to are told to believe... time always moves with my expectations and limitations... so despite the fact that my workload is far greater than a couple of weeks ago... i am still managing to spend about the same amount of time working on my creative stuff. The thing is when I am trying to master my own time in my own space... I tend to waste it... like it is less valuable somehow. Anyway the big changes are... I got a 75% work as a graphic designer for a newspaper... and I am translating two books to Icelandic : one by Don Miguel Ruiz: the Four Agreements.... and another one by Ikeda and Gorbachev: conversations on Buddhism and Communism.... I am also working on my own little book of poems titled Conversations with Ghosts... the Hand is drawing and Joy B will be the storyteller... it is her conversations with ghosts... the book is taking a grand shape. I am very happy with it... wrote most of it in a couple of days... so it is has an theme an undercurrent of urgency and of course i need to edit it... so i am polishing them and taking out lines and changing their shape, BUT they are still like a frozen moment in time or rather a slice of a complete moment in time of the world of the mind of the heart of JOY B...

i am translating it to English
sometime this summer i will make it available as a free e-book... but only for a week... from this spot in space
here is one sketch... by the Hand and Joy B...me

Joy B Poserized

sometimes Joy B shows her funny face when her author plays with photoshop
i hope you will laugh as much as i did when i saw this photo of my spitting image

Given

the chance to make a real difference....

I got a letter this morning that made my heart jump with joy
if you know me than you know why I am so happy about it
here it is:

"I am a Canadian and have recently returned from Banda Aceh, Indonesia, working as part of a group supported by CIDA (Canadian International Development Association). My role was to assist small business, most of whom were retail with various marketing strategies. In the process of my participation I worked with a wonderful woman who was selling a variety of products made by a group of forty village women. She sells a variety of merchandise including including T-shirts. In a brainstorming session with my young Indonesian interpreters an idea emerged to market a T-shirt with a design including a poem of the Tsunami (written in English). The group did some research and determined that your poem was their favourite. I explained that they could not use the poem without permission. So this is where I come in.

Brigitta, would you allow "Tsunami Poem Without a Name" to be used for commercial purposes on a T-shirt design by Ibu Asmatawi. The poem would have your name attached as the author and would only be used to support the local business in Banda Aceh. Certainly a prototype could be made available to you. It is thought that a memorial park will be created in the city centre where the huge barge moved 5 Km in from the sea. This could be a good opportunity to sell memorial T-shirts, now and in the future."

This is why I write... really... to make a difference in our world... to be part of... to help where the help is really needed... I am deeply moved that the people that were effected in such a grave way found my poem to touch them in such a way

and the most important way since i have no money to give.... that i can give them my permission to use this poem of mine like this... i am so thankful... really:)

here is the poem again just in case you missed it when i first published it on this blog just after the tsunami


The silent ocean
suddenly a wall of destruction

Sleeping in the soft sand
—mass grave
1000 upon 1000's of souls
brilliant flash of light
spiraling in a world between worlds


Fragments of pain
—deep
into the heart


Mounting numbers
of lifelessness
—Empty shells


Larger than life
—proportions


All I have to offer is
— hope
in those darkest of times



All I have to offer is
—oceans of joy
as dawn breaks

Strange

days as usually in the world of Joy B

Joy B has applied to go to school....

and Joy B has made some BIG choices
of complete change of shape of her life

and Joy B is talking to ghosts
made a whole new book of poems titled
Conversations with Ghosts

here is a sample of the first poem
click on the image to get a larger version of it

What the

bleep do we know is simply one of those things in my life that has changed it.....
i am ready to go deep into the rabbit hole
oh yeah

seriously i saw this film a week ago
and ever since
my life has not been the same
a string of adventure
of my dream unfolding at quantum speed quantanium speed light speed nano speed

if you have not seen the film What the bleep do we know
you simply have to
puts reality into a whole new perspective
or rather validates those gut feelings
you have to watch it in the dark with big headphones on your head and absorb
like a trip into infinite ocean of possibilities

i am happily busy recreating reality

see you down the rabbit hole

After a week

of serious self doubt and identity crises i have reached the following conclusion: i can't be anything else than a poet, a writer, an artist. i wish i could but i can't. sometimes i wish i could be something else. it would be so nice to have no calling. just float through life without thinking anything but the newest car models and next episode of guiding light. would be nice to work without ever thinking about the rights of the fellow co workers, collapse in front of the telly with a big juicy steak and never think of animal rights. to eat processed food and handy junk food and spend the early mornings driving next to other non thinkers in machines instead of in nature. it would be nice to hand over all my willpower and judgment to politicians and to put my health into the hands of doctors. it would be nice to never ever think of anything but myself and how i can possibly possess more. but no i can't, no matter how much i would like to turn my brain off and forget everything i have learned. that is the curse of knowing, you can't take it back. i can't reform, i am possessed by the virus of knowing. i can never turn it off.
i am drowning in volunteer work, i won't get paid for it, i won't get any glory for it or even good will. but i have to do it. because i know that if i don't do it, i can't be sure that anyone else does it. i am possessed with the knowledge that i as an individual has the power to change the world. but the big question is how can i do it without killing myself in the process.

the good news are i am writing poetry again
and in the process i feel alive again

today

was a twilight zone day
a really creepy day
full of pro heavy industry
pro aluminum smelters in iceland
more more more
let us change the name of this island to aluminiumland
in icelandic álland instead of ísland
then we can speak álísku and all work in the save environment of the aluminium smelter
more more more
it is after all green sustainable stuff
our industrial minister says so
(i think she is a troll)
and people love to smelterlterters
and who cares about the nature here
no one ever goes there anyway

and to top it no to writers grant for the amazing joy b
i have to admit that i am about to give in to my smokaholic desires
and feel very sorry for myself

but hell no, little did they know that i am the HULK
and i dont know what really happens when i get mad
and i can feel it bubbling the anger the resentment the selfrighteousness
i got to go out and smash things
like dams and big drills...

a few glorious moments later
i feel a lot better now;)

i have found the rock of the oracle
steam from the womb of creation
mass of liquid heat
constantly moving deep
under our feet
i have opened my mouth and sucked in the hot air
from the fumes
from the dormant geyser

the future altered
i could see
clearly for a split second

i was
not
the same
again
nor was my shape shifting past

in my kitchen

my ancestors
hibernating look at me, they are in frames
unknown faces i have never seen but traces
of those faces in the people i love

what matters to me
is not the volume of my work
but how many hearts i really moved
inspired and healed

i know i love myself
tonight i served myself the ceremonial love tea
from me to me

i can easily look into the mirror and feel that in love butterfly love in love love love
to me...

to that extent i am narcissistic, but i like it
i like to be alone
i have never loved it as much as now
i am finding fragments of myself i thought i had lost or i had totally forgotten i had
i am in my cave, very anti social, and i am hibernating
because this summer
this summer
will be unforgettable

say no more

new blog to read, another joint venture of me and theHand... all about Diane999 the graphic novel we are working shaping moving shaking forming sounding singing into creation

PRIVATE

is a quarterly review of photography and writing. This independent and itinerant publication has been offering its photographic journey since 1992 and I am going to have a poem in the February Issue. It is a beautiful beautiful magazine. The photos breathtaking... to say the least. So I am happy and more happy to be in it. I wrote a poem specially for this forthcoming issue dedicated to the concept NIGHT. Go on, go and have a look at this magazine... link is in my link selection to the right....

Icicles: Ravens: Snowstorms: and the Rain

I am a classic Icelander, i get pulled by the strings of the weather Gods. Today i can see the sun, it is glowing yellow ball trying to push up behind the mountains. It has been so long since i saw that i am not sure what to do about it. Should i just go outside and try to suck the rays into my skin, at least my face before it is gone again for god knows for how long. Or should i be an optimistic and think well everyday is getting a bit longer, so the chances of seeing the bright redhead are growing as we speak.....

In the last week we have had lots of snow, i like that, and beautiful icicles, nice to eat: i made snow troll yesterday with Delphin, she is still standing, despite the rain. I live between the fourth and the fifth floor, like a little mountain to climb everyday. The ravens like to hang around this department house. I love their raw sounds, and i like to see them fly. Always so playful.


We have had lots of storms, even snowstorms, i like them a lot, i like to be in the whirlwind of the blizzard, nothing but whirling snow and the sound of snow falling, ever so silent and so bitterly cold on the face, stick the tongue out, hunting for the cold aftertaste of the snowflakes.

HaPpY New YeAr 2006

Yes the year 2005 is gone done over with. A great year. Like all years in the world of Joy B it was full of challenges and strange occurrences. But it was a good year. Not so much because of success, money, fame or things like that, but because of perspectives. I changed. SO everything else changed. Such is the power of the mind. This new year will be no less interesting. I can already sense the challenges: death, alienation, fear and such perfect adversaries of stagnation. I don't have to be anything else than me. I have shed my skin, the ever perfect chameleon is an illusion. I am not perfect, i am not anything what people think i am. I am liquid, solid liquid, flaming liquid.

Enough of this. Last night was perfect. Instead of expectations of external, joy, happy happy joy joy, I was all that in a strange sort of way, it was moving within me, like the still wind before the storm. I stood firmly with my non traditions. I like solitude, so i spent the night with my kids and did nothing but be with them, training delphin how to ride a bike in da flat and of course watching the fireworks on and off. (see last years blog around this time for explanation of icelanders and firework)
I made the worlds best vegan lasagne, poured into it good fortune, joy and creativity. I will never be able to make one just the same again. I have a great difficulty in repeating myself and that includes cooking. Never use recipes. My food is like a mandala, created from the moment, to be enjoyed then but never again. It makes it much more special somehow. Yes cooking is alchemy. I am the alchemist in the kitchen. It has been a very well kept secret for only me and my kids. I am very lousy host. I don't like to be host. So i don't invite people for dinner. If anyone is ever invited over for dinner, that means something special. Not special special, but special from that fabric of the moment.

During this New Year i want i want to feel as i do now in this very moment: a glowing in my heart, like a crazy light-bug buzzing for no reason at all except gratitude and a sense of serenity.

HappY BrightMas 2005

This year that is passing is one of the best years of my life. During spring I started chanting ala SGI and got the mirror of my soul, da GoHonZon handed over to me on the 17th of June. Since then many amazing things have happened. Specially within myself. This passing summer and Autumn (fall) I totally devoted myself to the environmental struggle here in Iceland (savingiceland) and made some secretive spells with the help of the Hidden People of this island. My website Womb of Creation had its 10 years anniversary, my older son got initiated into adulthood and I went to an international poetry festival in Macedonia. I published my novel the Diary of the Chameleon, been working on it for 18 years on and off. I climbed some mountains in the south and in the east. I sat down in the vortex of one of the doomed waterfalls in the east of Iceland and promised never to forget that I belong to this nature. It has shaped me into who and what I am.
I made some precious new friends and renewed my connection with some ancient friends.
What stands out of all of this is gratitude.

Thank you for having your share in making this year so special

With sincere warmth and brightness

Birgitta "Karls" Jónsdóttir
aka
Joy B

p.s. the BrightMas image this year is created by Maurizio di Bona aka "theHand"