A Soup for World Peace
The “Friðheimar” tomato farm -about 100 kilometers east of Reykjavik- sits on the heartland of Iceland and curiously enough, it is the only country inside both the new and the old continents, right where the American and European tectonic plates meet.
And boy, how they meet, what a fiery kiss. Active volcanoes, majestic geysers, and the funniest looking horses, what a soothing landscape… if there is something unforgettable about Iceland, it is the gift of holistic contemplation, an invitation to embrace life with all five senses. Never have I witnessed nature’s poetry as I did in Iceland and I cannot wait to go back.
Perhaps there is something about its secluded location… but personally, I believe that it is the crossroads between the bursting fire below, and the cold weather above, that catapults this place into a necessary pilgrimage, the kind of place that washes away any agnostic or nihilist thought.
To me, Iceland is hope itself
It is power beyond measure in the quietest way
Iceland overwhelms with its organic ways
With its oblique spell
With its never-ending music
perhaps the rhythm of life’s sweetest caress.
So hands down, the Friðheimar tomato farm is the most surreal place I have ever visited. And I often ask myself why I find it so spectacular; having thoroughly traveled around the world and coincidentally, traveling through the beautiful landscapes of the Peruvian coast right now. You see, I find myself strangely writing about Iceland, sitting alone, while listening to the Pacific waves as the sun is about to set and poetry takes over everywhere.
What is the purest form of love? I’d be too foolish to respond, but I could share with you a little clue: one unforgettable tomato soup.
The “Friðheimar” is a family farm passed down by generations, and at its core you’ll find a rather large greenhouse. From the outside it’s hard to tell what is happening inside and as usual, I stumbled upon this farm by serendipity, just like life it’s supposed to be; curious about that whole weird setup in the middle of nowhere. Or was I magnetically drawn to it? So many beautiful questions.
When you open the doors to the greenhouse, you are actually transitioning in the fullest sense of the word. What is happening inside that space must be the closest place to the Garden of Eden.
A symphony of green vines, bees flying, people wondering and sun shining through everything. This tomato farm is powered by the geysers themselves, from deep underground, and so, the tomatoes are beyond words.
A red I’ve never seen before, infrared or supra-red, so much pride… makes you wonder what nature can produce in such a dreamlike environment, when we let her do her thing.
It follows that the famous tomato soup is sheer absolute heaven. I’ve never been fond of gazpacho or any type of tomato-based soup but that one, that’s the kind of soup that changes your present, your future and even rewrites some of your memories.
Talking to the charismatic folks sitting around me in one long picnic table, trying to correctly pronounce “Friðheimar”, which I never did, maybe because I never put the soup down, or the bread (which deserves another story) I learnt that the farm’s name meant “world peace”… or something along those lines. How peculiar. How convenient. How perfect.
Those red tomatoes still bounce in my memory.
Their red makes me think of love itself, of magnetism, of the convergence between the skies and the earth. Of world peace and of hope.
And as it happens; earlier today and for the first time, back to the present day in Peru, while riding a crazy bus with my son across the quaint little town of Lurin in one of our many daily excursions, as we both observed the bursting Peruvian lifestyle through the windows, he suddenly lifted his right arm and quietly put it around my shoulders. He held me tight with his fingers, like I often do to him.
I’m tired of hearing life is too short, that time flies and so on… since some beautiful moments find their way to last forever, some moments feel like they hold everything in place, and these moments are everywhere, waiting to be discovered, waiting to become eternal.
So terribly mundane and so excruciatingly deep, they are the true manifestation of the voice of the universe.
Much like Iceland, I think love and hope live in the same counterpoint, the same frequency.
I think they are all as red as those magnificent tomatoes.
Who the hell am I to define pure true love, or taint it with definitions, with understanding…
And who knows how long it lasts, how it came to be or where it will take us.
But one thing is certain; we are all drawn to it, it is red, it is magnetic, and we know how it feels.
So my question for you today is…
When was the last time you touched the Sun?
The Ascent Light Totem… truly designed from the Heart, the Hand & the Mind.
