To the moon is often Iceland compared. And rightly so (Islanda)

"Walking back from your house, walking on the moon…" sang The Police, back in 1979.

Walking and the moon have often been together, as being carried away by happiness, immersed in deep thoughts, living life at its fullness, inebriated with joy. 
It's more than in seventh heaven, it's on the moon. 

The moon is also a distance to measure a very big love: I love you to the moon and back. 

The moon can also be seen as a loyal companion to share your hopes and desperation alike. What are you doing, big moon, in the sky, tell me what are you doing there. 
The ever-changing moon, with rhythms and phases who shape and arrange life, like notes harmonized in symphony.

To the moon is often Iceland compared. And rightly so.

Not only for the rugged terrain, the deep fissures, the powerful insides finding ways to get outside. 

Not just for the windswept hopeless loneliness of the coasts: fjords and cliffs and beaches of stunning beauty and hostile inaccessibility.

Not even only for the out-of-this-world colors, greens and black embracing themselves, with reddish ochres and all shades of blues and greys looming around. 

Neither for the ever-changing landscape in which the history of earth is inscribed, nor for the un-expected welcoming and relished hot springs.

Iceland is also compared to the moon because of the distance, so huge and un-measurable, from everything we are used to. Iceland is different, and sets new standards.

Once you've seen any Icelandic waterfall, no other waterfall in the world will ever stand the comparison. By sheer beauty, power, energy, remoteness.

Once you danced to the northern lights, your breath fast and cold, and tears falling and freezing on your cheeks, silence so thick you can hear your blood in turmoil, you'll feel like having been to the moon and back.

Once you travelled in no hurry on Iceland roads, forded their many streams and rivers, and learned to change your point of view with every bend, then you are likely to reach Iceland's heart.

In Askja such heart is located for me, but you'll find your own secret place, and you'll bow in awe in the presence of Eros and Thanatos, you'll feel life and death always together, love and hate, lust and absence, fear and desire, all forever intertwined, the bright and the dark side, and you'll be over the moon with joy, amazement and respect.

That's why to the moon is Iceland often compared. And rightly so.