Crossing

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Sesselja Björnsdóttir

I saw this photo on Sesselja's son Ari's Facebook wall (Ari is an excellent electronica musician - I've got a bunch of his music on my Soundcloud favorites list under Lotus Robot) and immediately connected with it. I felt there was something powerful about the bridge, and assumed it was just the overall symbolism that bridges hold in literature and such.*

But then Sesselja wrote to me that "this is the bridge over the river Ytri Emstruá, when you are hiking Laugavegurinn [video]. Because of the bridge people can hike this track." So this bridge is more than just an easier way to get across a small ravine: it's actually what makes this famous Icelandic hiking trail possible. I like that.

* "The important thing here is the symbolism: the bridge, and the enchanted world it brings to the poet’s mind. The very nature of a bridge dictates its symbolic use. It is a structure that joins two otherwise separate pieces of land, yet at the same time enhances their separateness. One can travel across it, from one land mass to another, but while on it the traveller is neither in one place nor the other. " From The Perilous Bridge, by Alby Stone.