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"

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