Crystal Wave

Before this competition, I don’t recall the last time I had written an article. I’m not a writer, but I do share my art through the result of what my camera produces! Pictures do supposedly say a 1000 words, right? I intentionally did not edit this picture at all, because I wanted to share the same natural, magical, and raw experience I witnessed with those who would come across it. Filters and edits may definitely enhance this picture, but if I had to add those edits- it would have been from a perspective of what I thought was best, and that is not the intention behind this captured picture.

After a long glacial hike through the depths of Vatnajökull in Iceland, we came across this natural formation that was constructed through years of natural mechanisms. Standing in the absolute middle of nowhere and being struck with this jaw-dropping structure right in front of me, my brain started to feel at peace. I felt as if I was standing in front of a wave frozen in time, and I was watching each second slow down. Though there were a few others around me, and silent appreciation was not a practice at this site, I seemed to have had blocked out all the disruptions around me and be one with this magical creation. The crystallized wave somewhat symbolized the struggles that I was dealing with at the time, the different situations that I did not yet have a solution for, and the path I needed to move towards.

It felt as if I was admiring this structure and its natural beauty for about an hour, when realistically it was just a couple minutes. How can such a magical construction form temporarily, only to be melted in a matter of months? These molecules that were frozen in time, made me realize that when it comes to certain situations in life- you don’t necessarily have to respond to it on a reactive level, instead you can stop and mentally assess the different perspectives of the problem in order to find the right solution. Knowing that this structure in front of me is constantly melting and will eventually flow into a larger body, hit me on a spiritual level. With this one majestic world that we live on, there are 7 billion perspectives of it, but at the end of the day we all have some common link that brings us together. Apart from biology and the composition of materials that make us up, the real element which I believe provides us with that common link is hope.

Hope that we grow in our careers. Hope that we can forgive and forget certain instances in our past. Hope that there is peace within our countries. And hope that there is change. Every person lives for hope in some sort of way and works towards that whether it is involuntarily or not- the thought of it is constantly in the back of our minds. Standing there in freezing conditions, my spiritual and mental being started to feel warm and that transcended to the rest of my body, which felt reassuring.

The reason I selected this picture is for those who come across it, to understand that there are several challenges we deal with, but with hope and taking some time to look at the situation from different perspectives, we can come up with solutions that will lead to success. If I do go back to that same area in Iceland today, this formation will be far from gone but that small, yet impactful structure is only a small piece of the puzzle; it’s just a drop in the ocean.