Slowenia 2017: The sublime

[pax_athena]

There is a passage by Christa Wolf (one that I highlighted, alas my books are some 900 kilometers away from where I live - and some 400 from where I am right now) where she talks about how she could not live in the vicinity of the Alps, how their greatness is too much, how their presence would be a constant pressure. How the vastness and emptiness of the Brandenburg landscape is preferable for everyday life.

While the passage itself impressed me, it's not a feeling I do usually share. Landscapes impress me and leave me speechless: the power of the Niagara Falls. The size and vastness of the Isle in the Skye viewpoint of the Canyonlands. But they hardly ever make me feel as if I could not live in their presence. Except two of them: Eyjafjallajökull glacier as seen from the Dyrhólaey peninsula in Iceland, a giant presence peeking through the clouds - the only thing I could think of is a giant alien ship descending onto the Earth, the end of the world imminent. Having that in my back - I don't think I could live with that. And more immediately: and the sheer walls of the Soca valley in Slovenia on the very Southern edge of the Alps, a giant rock slide and in front of it, going on as if nothing a full farm. The rockslide is likely old, much older than the farm. And yet, and yet … And it's not about any real danger; it's about the sheer power, the sheer possibility of unstoppable power they represent.

(At some point of my life, I need to see red lava. It will likely be alike.)

((The photo is not of this particular hike. There is no way to take a photo that would express what those places make me feel.))