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"

things are a bit CrAzy...

these days. it is the time of year when there is simply no daylight. yet it is the time of year if you are a writer with a newly published book, when you need the most vitality and energy and flow and a bit of luck. i have not published book on this scale since 1989 and there are many reasons why. one is that i object to the madness around this month. seems to be growing worse if anything. the amounts of money people spent to make something perfect that is already perfect. i invented the concept of Brightmas some years ago and i intend to keep it that way.

so i have been working hard to get my book in the media and it has been quite hard but at the same time i have been quite successful in getting it where i want it. i think it is hard work, being in the flow and by being in the flow that has made me feel a bit lucky. i have been training myself to be in tune with how things sync together. i have been acting on those hunches and it always works out the way it should. anyway so i have been on telly, front-cover of a magazine, interviews in the newspapers and soon on the radio. perhaps the most positive thing is that the book has touched many of its readers.

on thursday i will have the selflovenight of the chameleon, devoted to myself and this book. have been organising events for as long as i can remember for everyone else but myself. i have learned so much in this process. this little chameleon is indeed quite shy and has always found it hard to put herself in the limelight. this might come as surprise to many but it is quite true. been all my life struggling with a very low self-esteem and never wanted to be full of myself. i have never found the life of the rich and famous to be something i wanted. it is a linedance. the need to reach to many readers, to touch many lives and at the same time wanting to be out of the limelight. i feel finally strong enough, compassionate enough to dance this dance without getting full of ego and self importance. it takes a lot of courage to get beyond the skin of the chameleon and showing your true colours. so my novel is written in a brutally honest style. blurring the borders of reality and fiction to such an extent that no one knows that is my real diary and memories or fiction. i don't really know what is what anymore. been working on this text for 18 years. yes i admit it> i am a perfectionist.
anyway the greatest news about this all for me personally is that now i can write other books.

and this i will do, i will start early next year on the historical novel about my insane bloodbound father whom changed his name from Karl Valdimarsson to Hank Fox. his family is such a great material for a book. like wildest fiction.

anyway better get on with it.... here are photos from the magazine.... ©vikan> sigurjon ragnar 2005

Click on them images to see them bigger.....

I am thinking about death

and i wrote this as a result of this thought ...

I don't fear death itself
but how it sucks
the live out of the living

I welcome death
oh natural death
breath of eternity

Green moss eyes
volcanic stare
ever moving circle

It is the stare of despair
the angst
driving people to slow suicides
of apathy
that I fear

Oh natural death
sucking the life out of the chest
a graceful last gasp
from a perfectly serene body

I spin in circles
all around I see twisted half deaths
zombie life
killing time
ripping the sacred
bound between man and nature
into scornful pieces

It is not death itself I fear
but the rapture
of the faithfully fearful

So much to do and so little time to do it

my greatest challenge these days is to deal with all the email i get...
i love getting email from interesting people, however i find it impossible to reply to everyone
and sometimes people get an email from me a year after they sent me an email
i sometimes miss the days of snail mail
it somehow had a more natural flow to it
i would write a letter and maybe if i was lucky get a letter back in a week or so
.......

this autumn a got a poltergeist in my computer and many things mysteriously vanished from the hard drive
including my entire IN box... and about 2000 emails i had sent ... including heaps of poems and other wonderful
things i write when i wake up... well to be honest i felt a bit relieved... but at the same time i can't remember what letters
got lost, i had about 200 pending... my IN box was however empty for the first time since 1996 and it was a glorious feeling... for a few days... so now i got a backlog of 60 letters, and no matter how hard i try to work on this thing
it only seems to grow... and GROW.... anyway of course my book is late from the printers
it is somesort of law... things will never be ready on time when it comes to printing
i am dead nervous about this whole thing. but at the same time i am enjoying it and it is almost like i am in love
get them butterflies in my belly when i think about the book.. i am very happy with it .... got 3 copies yesterday
will get the rest hopefully today.... and it is just the way i wanted it to be ...

have a look at this site if you like amazing B&W photos
http://www.private.it/

Joy B the covermaker

i like to make things that are final
like book covers and posters and stuff
i don't like making web pages so much any more
not for others that is
because it is endless and the person i made the web for can mess with it
that is why i like to make books
they are final
final
final
once they have been printed
i can't or don't have to do anything

here are a few covers i have been doing lately

and one poster i made a week ago

finally finally after 18 years of birthpains

the Diary of the Chameleon will be published...... same day as i gave birth to my younger son Delphin
7th of November.... interesting... i didn't intend it to be published that day
it is written in Icelandic but i am working on its translation to Enrish.... English....
Here is the cover.... a collage from two of my old scrapbooks

Comics: Closer Than First-Person

I have always had a weakness for comics. My newest favourites are graphic novels that recite history. Just read three books on this subject. They have a common thread, life during wartime experienced through the eyes of the innocents. The visual of the graphic novel somehow brings the distant world of the inhumane closer to heart than any documentaries I have seen, and these books brought me closer to these horrid events that have occurred and are still occurring in our human history.

Maus approaches the unspeakable.
I started with Maus by Art Spiegelman, a Pulitzer Prize winner. I hate to admit that I am rather bored with documentation of the Holocaust, seen so much of it and it had ceased to have any effect on me, except the traditional sadness of human brutality and insanity. Maus is great because it is not in the hero-making business. It is a brutally honest story within a story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive and at the same time it is set up against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival and the relationship between a survivor and his son.
It is not always the ideal relationship and yet it has a warm core to it and it moves easily between the grisly past and the difficult now as a result of this past. Art Spiegelman’s work from Maus is on display at the Reykjavík Art Museum as a part of the comic show Nine at Hafnarhúsið.

I couldn’t help compare the fate of the Palestinians to the fate of the Jews.
The next book I read was Palestine by Joe Sacco, winner of the American book award. Somehow it was a lot more difficult to read that one because it is not based on the past but what is actually happening now and I couldn’t help compare the fate of the Palestinians to the fate of the Jews. The parallel is uncomfortably real.

Sacco manages to use the comic book format to its full effect, bringing fragmented life into reality, his work made its way deep into my soul so that I actually felt as if I were with him on his journey, and like him I couldn’t wait to get out. Again it was the brutal honesty of the author about himself and his weaknesses, like in Maus, that made the story what it is, unforgettable.

Children were the soft targets of the snipers because they got paid for each person they killed.
Finally I read Fax from Sarajevo by Joe Kubert winner of Eisner Award. This is a story based on real faxes from Sarajevo. Joe received these faxes from his friend and comic book publisher Ervin Rustemagic during the siege of Sarajevo in 1992-1993. It tells the story of Ervin and his family struggling to survive and the many facts about war that was just too easy to forget: like how the rest of the world did nothing, and how many children were the soft targets of the snipers because snipers were paid for each person they killed and kids were an easy target. The adults would usually come out from their hiding to help them if wounded and then the snipers could shoot them too.

The place to get hold of these books and other like them is Nexus, the only specialist in comic books in Iceland and of course you can always get them at the city library’s ever-expanding comic book department.

A Unique Life – A Unique Museum

Article I made for the Reykjavik Grapevine about the home of Halldór Laxness
-------


It was raining heavily and the rain turning into sleet when I arrived at Glúfrasteinn, the home of the late Halldór Laxness and his family, recently turned into a museum.
I pushed the doorbell and a got a warm welcome from the guide. It was a strange feeling to walk into this world I had heard so much about and which is woven thoroughly into the history of Iceland’s culture during the last century. The walls were covered with art by some of the greatest Icelandic artists of Halldór’s generation.

The first item that caught my attention was a painting by Kjarval. I could see that someone had tried to paint a moustache on the male figure. The sound guide on the Walkman explained that it was Kjarval himself who wanted to make this addition to the painting when he was visiting Halldór. The thing that impressed me the most was its surroundings, how it merges with the ambience of the home. There are so many windows and through each of them, the unique nature of Iceland is on display in all its glory. It is as if the windows are frames around an ever-changing work of art.

In Auður’s bedroom one can hear the clear blue river sing its songs and the strong smell of books is everywhere. It is a house of books, faith, creativity and hospitality.
The life of Halldór was unique to our history and culture. Like many good artists he was eccentric and did things his way. For example, he would always write by hand, standing at his high desk, his wife sitting next to him typing everything he wrote. The home is full of interesting things for the eye, relics, interior design, furniture, books or art that used to be very exotic and bold for our fellow islanders at the time.
If you go, you have to give yourself time to walk down to the river and explore the surrounding nature of Gljúfrasteinn. And when you leave make sure to give yourself time to read at least one of Halldór Laxness many brilliant books, for example Independent People, a book that has influenced generations of artists on the island.

The museum is open Tuesdays to Sundays 10.00-17.00.
More information to be found at
http://www.gljufrasteinn.is

Voices In the Waterfalls

Interview I did with the Icelandic artist Rúrí ­ early spring 2005.
-------

Rúrí represented Iceland at the 50th Venice Biennale 2003 with the multimedia installation Archive - endangered waters. The work is finally displayed in Reykjavík at the National Gallery of Iceland, and will be until the 13th of March.
The work contains 52 waterfalls that we have almost lost, have lost or will lose through dam building. Rúrí has recorded the voice of each waterfall and when you pull out the image from the archive the waterfall speaks to you.

BJ: What was the inspiration for the show Archive – endangered waters?
Rúrí: “Nature without doubt. I respect nature deeply, I connect with her. Whenever we do something to her, it affects all of us. Each nation has the duty to treat their environment and nature with full responsibility and respect. This planet and its whole biosphere is our joint responsibility.
There is an extra dimension to our planet that most Icelanders are not aware of because of the abundance of water we have. It is the fact that water has become the blue gold on our planet. Pure water is a very fragile aspect of the planet’s biosphere. If the mentality of power and greed is put aside then it becomes clear what really matters; water and nourishment, not oil.”


BJ: What sort of reactions has the exhibition gotten?
Rúrí: “I have never experienced as much warmth and kindness at an opening of my work before. It was as if the child within came bursting out in people when they got in touch with the artwork. People often feel joy around water, perhaps the sounds from the waterfalls opened a space for that in them.
I have also heard that people in France cried at the exhibition when they realized what the work was telling them, that most of these waterfalls will be no more.”

When asked what is ahead for her, she said, “I am preparing work that will be a part of a new sculpture-garden in the mountainsides of Vesuvius, Italy. I am also working on two sculptures that I have been commissioned to do for a museum in Germany.”
Some artists have a unique access to the collective consciousness and their work speaks to everyone because it contains levels of truth and vision we all can relate to. Rúrí’s works have a mythological sense to them. She is a modern mythmaker.
In works like The Gate, a memorial for missing persons, The Rainbow at the Leif Eriksson Air Terminal in Keflavík, the Glassrain and her masterpiece Archive – endangered waters, she makes that quite clear.

Icelandic Government - Pimps of Nature!

Joy B finally found the message from Muninn one of Odins ravens, he will not forget what this government will be infamous for selling the things it never owned. Seeing the havoc, the destruction in the majestic highlands of Iceland not only brakes my heart but transforms me also into a warrior by all means necessary... i will fight to the bitter end if needed to save this nature, our nature, all i ever was, was part of her, all i ever will be is part of her, allowing the destruction of her means allowing my own destruction....

Little do the fools know that are messing with our nature, she is active, unpredictable, she will give us earthquakes and volcanic eruptions before they will ever be able to finish the mindless destruction. The idiots are building Europe's largest dam on an active crack in the soil, its soul will move, shake, tremble, the glacier rivers will swell, move destroy, claim back the wild nature before they will be able to finish their monument of mindless short term greed.

Joy B the spellmaker

When I lived in the beautiful valley in the East of Iceland called Fljótsdalur I was told that one could find the largest dwellings of the Hidden People in Iceland deep in the North valley of Fljótsdalur.

Last week I was walking as I often do through the ancient graveyard in the centre of the city of Reykjavik. I walked passed the grave of Kjarval, an eccentric and one of our best-known artists among Icelanders, whom used to spend much of his time in the East of Iceland, not far from the place they are killing in the highlands to build an aluminum smelter for Alcoa (international criminals of the corporate kind). Stopping in my tracks I thought to myself: “What would you have done if you would be alive now, experiencing this torture and destruction of our nature?”
In my mind a thought floated, they don’t burn witches at the stakes nowadays for a minor spell. Therefore, I asked him and all the ghosts that dwell in the graveyard to flock to the East in the company of the Hidden People of the South and deities from nature. I visualized one of the gigantic drills they are using to make the damn dam in the highlands of North East Iceland as a penis and I saw it loose its erection, becoming limp and soft, no longer capable to penetrate deep into the womb of the mountain. At this moment I felt a mighty storm move around me and the army of beings that had walked with me for a short period of time had vanished.
Later in the day I heard in the news at the national radio that one of the drills was not working anymore, limp it was, weak against the elements of nature.
So now is the time when we are told the enemies are the terrorists, the hidden enemies, the armies of hooded boogiemen, and the power of fear. Now is the time for us the spell makers to make our spells, with the elements of nature, against the killing machines of nature, of wilderness, against greed, fear and indifference.

The Mountain Lady

I
Deep is my love that
flows into the heavy glacier river
towards the muddy sea surrounding
her fragile soil

Uneasy dreams
filled with
whimpering and screams
as they cut deep into her womb

Gigantic drill
penetrates deep into the Mountain woman
Shoots off with ever growing lust for power
-Aluminium semen

Rumble and quakes
wake me up
at the dawn of illusion

The Mountain lady
is bleeding
Her scars deep
The foetus growing inside her
has hundred heads
Eating at each other
with short term greed
-Toxic waste of a future

The mountain lady
was our ancient sacred symbol
of faith to this extreme nature
Towards the elements of beauty
that sparks from her crystal clear eyes


II
The elder women
gather in a circle
cry bitter tears
as they work up a spell
abortion
abortion
of the aluminium foetus

In the distance I see the industrial father
with his carefree smirk
King of the mountain
blinded with greed
and ambition

The spell is our love
for each rock
for each grain of sand
each shape
each life
on the hit list
of corporate greed

dedicated to each and everyone daring to make a spell against the Karahnjukar dam by doing something to stop it

Saving Iceland

If there is one thing that makes my heart beat faster,
If there is one thing that makes my mind jump within chronic joy attack
If there is one thing that makes me feel Icelandic
than it is our wilderness, the silent heartbeat of earthquakes
the sharp mountains, the fragile fauna, the soft moss, the crystal clear mountain springs
I love this island of extremes for its nature and it is the thing that has always pulled me back home
but my island is under grave danger of being destroyed by corporate greed and mindless destruction of the highlands in order to build a massive dam in order to provide energy for an aluminium smelter run by the multinational criminals Alcoa. The Icelandic government has been lying on their back like cheep hookers, believing that the aluminium semen injected into Icelandic economy will make us filthy rich fast, especially those that have sold out on our nation and wilderness. No other western country would dream of building such factories or inflict such destruction on their wilderness today, maybe 20 years ago but not today like us. Please go to http://www.savingiceland.org if you care about Icelandic nature and spread the word or take part in the international protest camp that will take place this summer in the highlands of the North East of Iceland. The protest camp will be situated in the area that will be flooded.

This destruction of Iceland is not just about Karahnjukar, they have their eyes on many other gems of our nature, many historical glacial rivers are under threat and our land will be scarred to such an extent that some areas of it will be the most polluted in Europe. We have to act fast, we are few but dedicated in this fight here in Iceland. The multinational corporations think we are easy to deal with because there are so few Icelanders, so in many ways we are like a small tribe and that works to their benefit. This is why we need international help. We are experiencing a serious activist burnout and need encouragement and all the help we can get to rescue the largest remaining wilderness of Europe.

Cold Turkey & moving houses

I guess the worst thing that can happen to an internet nerd like me is to be without access for a period of time. I moved houses first of June and the telephone company lost me in their system somehow. So I had to thread the hotspot cafe's or visit friends with routers, because everything I do has its sync with the internet. I pay my bill within the online bank, I get resources for my projects online, I use the online dictionary, I use the online telephone book, I communicate with my friends, I am because I use the internet to a great degree. So a week without access is serious cold turkey for me, but at the same time it made time change and gave me the needed space for moving. I have for some mysterious reason chosen furniture and material things that are as heavy as it gets and nearly killed my friends and family, including myself carrying it to the 4th floor. I was very very lucky; because I found a flat to rent that I can have for many years. Usually I move so often that it is hardly worth to unpack. I not only used to move because I was a tenant and that is not an easy situation in Iceland, but I also moved around the world, and that meant I would shed my material skin, and have to start all over again and again. It is a lot of work and thus it was such a wonderful thing to only have to move between houses this time, I can see my old flat from my new windows. Mount Esja is also there, the queen of mountains, ever changing and majestic in a friendly sort of way. I am so ultra happy with this new flat, it has views to all directions, it is bright, has good energy, and is even closer to the things of importance. I think gratitude is a key element to happiness. And dreams do materialise if the intent is clear. Like this flat. I loved the other flat I was renting, it was perfect except for a few minor details, and I always knew I would have to move out of it after 9 months. I didn't really want to move out of it, so I wished for a flat that would be just the same, in the same neighbourhood, plus the things that lacked in the other one, a storage room and new electricity and such. I put an add in the paper and the people that own this flat were the only people that called, but they had the perfect flat, and by pure luck and without any delay we signed contracts the day after I had a look at it. Such nice people, my heart is filled with gratitude....
Yes it is .... and now despite extreme exhaustion, I am jumping around in a chronic joy attack.....
Ready to deal with all those projects I have somehow got myself into.....