Five hundred square meters — madeleine soich

A land born of ice and fire, Iceland has been shaped by glaciers and volcanoes but by mankind, too. It is a land so clearly steeped in flux that, in my visit, I yearned to gain more respect and understanding of Change through its ever-evolving landscape, which is being altered drastically even more so by climate change. Their glaciers are rapidly retreating. Signs mark where the glacier reached five years ago, two years ago, just last year. You learn of landscapes that are now beautiful valleys, cavernous and spotted with flowers, all because a glacier dragged the land as it pulled back. The beautiful glacier lagoon Jökulsárlón was only born in the 1930s as a result of Breiðamerkurjökull glacier beginning to retreat. And so it is because of destruction that we see such beauty created in the lagoon-- floating icebergs, ultramarine in color drift down the lagoon, rotating as their weight shifts, until they reach Diamond Beach, where they rest on the black sand before going out to sea.