Reykjavík Grapevine - 31.07.2009, Síða 16

16
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 11 — 2009
1. Snowboarding dwarves
protect the glaciers - keep
up the good work.
"What are you smiling about?" asks
Kristbjörg, pouring a cup of jasmine tea
infused with a few drops of ‘Bliss’ essence:
(number 39) the wild flower Valerian.
"Oh, nothing really," I say, looking out
the window. Lupine sways in a breeze,
eider ducks skim the lake; the vibe here
is utterly intoxicating. Honestly, it really
doesn’t get better than this. Except—I
am dying for a cigarette; I drink the tea
hoping that soon ‘Bliss’ will negate my
nicotine addiction.
Tucked behind Rauðholar, a cluster of
4600 year-old rust-red, iron-rich cratered
hillocks on the outskirts of Reykjavik, is
the idyllic lake Elliðaárvatn; over a bridge,
nestled in a crèche of trees on the second
floor of a timber house, is Kristbjörg
Elín Kristmundsdóttir’s office-come-
alchemist-studio. From here, you can’t
hear anything resembling Kentucky
Fried civilisation, just branches rustling,
birds chirping. If ever there were a place
predestined for Zen meditation, this
would surely be it. It makes sense that
Kristbjörg spends her days here in this
hidden nook communing with plant and
nature entities: collective conscious spirits
in flowers, rocks, water, even glacier ice.
No, these aren’t elves or huldufólk (the
hidden people), they’re beings of pure
cosmic energy.
Over twenty years ago Kristbjörg
discovered the power of flowers when
a friend introduced her to British Bach
flower essences. She tried them on her
organic farm with her livestock and crops
and has never looked back since. Soon
enough she was developing her own
unique Icelandic flower alchemy, creating
healing tinctures for humans. She now
has a fully-fledged homeopathic business,
supplying essences to customers as far
away as California.
Of course, energy-aligned herbal
healing techniques have been going
on since time immemorial. Ancient
Chinese medicine, based on remedies
consisting of all kinds of processed plant
and animal matter—including some
pretty gory stuff—is still very much alive.
In fact, in recent years it has become so
commercialised that you now have KFC-
style medicine chains with flashy gold
logos sprouting up all over China. Bet
you wondered where all those armadillo
testicles were going? The Chinese say, as
a general rule, to heal your Chi, look for
something that symbolically represents
that which you need to heal. For example,
for increased male sexual prowess you
can’t do any better than a lug of ginseng
juice; in its complete form the root looks
a little like the male genitals. Canadian-
Swiss anthropologist Jeremy Narby has
travelled to the furthest reaches of the
Amazon jungle in search of shamans
who talk with plants. Based on his
experiences, Amazon shamans are able
to communicate through induced trance,
often receiving messages from the plant
in the form of symbolic DNA, which
provide essential clues to the plant’s
healing properties. Apparently, it really
works. Narby speculates that all plants
may be innately intelligent; only, most of
us are too blinkered to get the messages.
Kristbjörg says, "Everything has its
own vibration, its own soul, its very own
music and colour. Each plant holds a
specific range of vibration, and because
plants and humans are related, the
essences reach deep into the core of being.
All things are imbued with this universal
power; and plants, flowers in particular,
are able to correct or assist in diminishing
energy patterns—or chakras."
Kristbjörg is so in-tune with the
Elementals—fire, water, earth, sky,
space—all she has to do is to empty her
mind, and in a blink she’s one-on-one
with the plants.
"The Elementals are essential, they
help me connect, because every living
thing is comprised of them. In turn, the
flowers themselves tell me where in the
nature I can find them, what aliments
their energies are good for.
"Everything in our Cosmos is energy,"
she says. "Our consciousness creates the
physical appearance of all matter—and
consciousness, the soul of things—is the
constant vibration of energy into matter,
back and forth. This soul-consciousness
is the channel through which I
communicate with them."
The fundamentals of quantum
physics flash back to me—newer pseudo-
scientific theories talk about our entire
Universe being nothing but a hologram
that pulses from the very origin of the
Cosmos. And, of course, here we have
those ancient Indian Sanskrit Vedas all
over again.
I take another sip of tea, and ask: "So
you see them—er, manifested in some
sort of physical form, these—flower
spirits?"
Kristbjörg crosses her legs into a
pretzel-perfect lotus position. "Yes, only
there are many levels: there are the
flower elves (blómálfar), they are like the
protectors of the plant; then you have the
soul of the individual plant; beyond this,
you have the collective consciousness
of the plant within that region—say, the
Pansies of Hafnarfjarðarbær; finally you
have the collective of Pansies throughout
Iceland. Sometimes I see the collective as
a face, sometimes many faces; sometimes
they manifest themselves just like pure
light energy. We don’t really use words, it’s
more—telepathic."
An entire hierarchy of flower
consciousness?
"So how do you find them? The right
flower for the right essence?"
"Honestly, it’s all up to the plants. I
don’t really do anything much, I just
follow the collective’s instructions. It’s as
if I’m suddenly compelled to go out into
the countryside. I can feel it in the pit of
my stomach, deep down. Many times, I’ll
just start driving, and suddenly I’m there
in right in front of the plant. Then, in a
manner of automatic writing, I take down
what the flower is communicating with
me. As I write, I can see the entity, the
personification of the collective, right in
my mind’s eye."
All in all, at present, Kristbjörg has
160 essences, mostly they are flowers, but
recently, glaciers have been calling too.
"I was drawn to Hofsjökull. There are
huge beings—giants, which live there.
As I neared the glacier, vibrations were
stirring in the air. When I set foot in the
ice, there were these great whooshing
sounds. At first I thought a crevasse was
opening up beneath us. Then, I knew
something was checking us out, so I
meditated, and I could see these creatures:
they were like glacier snowboarders—
dwarves: the protectors of the glacier."
"Now this, Kristbjörg, I really gotta
see."
"Sure, next time, you can come along
if you like. Only, be warned, sometimes
they don’t take well to strangers."
Lucky for me, Kristbjörg’s flower
essence number 40, Wild Camomile
(Matricaria recuita), provides inner peace,
deep clarity and understanding. I’ll be
taking a bottle or two with me.
Radio To The Other Side
In search of the Real McCoy
Words
Marc Vincenz
Marc Vincenz keeps delving into Transcendental Iceland.
Next issue: I delve further into Kristbjörg’s alchemical journey, and I meet a
remarkable woman who promises to introduce me to some truly hidden people.
Transcendental Iceland | Part 5: Spirits of Nature
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