An End is A Start

Early into our stay in Iceland, we went to a lecture by Christopher Patrick Peterka called "The End is the Start". I was so inspired by this lecture that my pen wouldn't even write as fast as the great quotes were coming. Peterka is not Icelandic but he has a huge interest in helping Icelanders feel empowered by the crisis rather than dampened. And from what we have seen and heard from the Icelanders we met, they are not going to be steam rolled by the economic hardships.

He called Iceland "The new Global Think Tank". Iceland not only produces incredible artists but it also has made leaps in the field of technology and networking communities. We went to the Ministry of Ideas (which is a building dedicated to housing cubicles of brilliant groups and nurturing their ideas to fruition. HOW INCREDIBLE!!!Mission statement ;Ministry of Ideas is the people's movement in Iceland. It inspires the country and the rest of the of the global village for a new world model.-

Peterka did say one thing that stayed with me without even looking at my notes; he said "change cannot happen without mobility, to move forward you must be willing to leave behind everything you were attached to."( I took this to mean the surge of cars, second homes, and fancy toys bought in the boom -previous to the collapse).

After the lecture was over we were all instructed to reach under our seats and pull out the first thing we were going to do to participate in positive change. I was concerned about old gum or other foreign stickyness but to my happy surprise I found a glow stick. The old raver in me felt like it was party time but my patience let me see that it was all part of a message on the wall. We snapped our glow sticks as the entire room of people (including members of Sigur Ros) with their illuminated plastic tubes jumped up and made these words peacefully and powerfully exist. I love how this entire crisis is being interpreted by Icelandic "creatives". It seems to have lit a fire under their creative tushes and I am honestly in absolute awe in what has developed in this short amount of time to combat what has devastated their economy.

So it's late as I write this, very late. . . just as magical as I find this nation and its people to be- we are going to see some equally imaginative and magical things in the next year come out of Iceland. Stay tuned.

To read more on the "And End is a Start" lecture visit our friends at Iceland Review