Liminal Days

A couple of days before our week-long trip to Iceland, I asked my professor Karla Rothstein, “What is it that we’re looking at while we’re there?” She simply replied, “We’re not there to look at anything. We’re there to experience Iceland.” At the time, all I had was an imagined picture of a place I’d never seen, paired with the excitement of what the week might hold. But once I arrived, I finally understood what she meant.

We spent most of our time in the northern part of the island, beginning in Akureyri, and each day felt like stepping into an entirely new world. What first appeared to be pristine, untouched landscape slowly revealed itself as a dense, layered system—alive, shifting, and ancient—at the far edge of the earth. There, you could feel nature in its most commanding, unfiltered form.

I felt like a child in an enormous laboratory: standing where tectonic plates meet, crawling into subterranean caves warmed by hidden springs, gazing at endless seas while soaking in thermal pools rich with sulfur that stained our swimsuits. And, of course, the aurora—when it finally appeared—felt nothing short of surreal. Its shifting light made you instantly aware of your own smallness in this vast, extraordinary universe.

No one can truly describe the essence of Iceland. Photographs can try, offering glimpses and approximations, but they never capture that overwhelming intensity—the way the landscape holds you, humbles you, and pulls you entirely into the present. You have to stand there yourself, in that raw expanse, to feel it.