I finally get to explore a part of Fårö with the ideas of Metafari, or Metaspace as it presents itself with. Barbara Sjogren visits me on her way back to her home in Cairo. We go to the Rauk area of Langhammars first in the afternoon of one day, and then in the early morning next day.
Who are you?
-Barbara Sjogren, I am an artist and a teacher, a tree that lives by the sea. I was born in Tanzania and raised in the Midwest. As an adult I moved to California and later Maine and New York. After 11 years of teaching High School art in New York City I moved to Sheik Zayed City, close to Cairo to learn about Pharaonic and Islamic art, while teaching.
-The end of August is very hot in Egypt and I needed a place to cool down. This was a revisit to my fatherland Sweden where I last was in 1966. At that time I was a young teenager in Europe for the first time. After 44 years, I still feel the same way.
-I chose to visit you, my dear friend Leif who I have known since 1972 when you were a teenager/exchange student in my parents home in Omaha, Nebraska
Describe the place we explored
-We went to Langhammar, Fårö. - A space by the sea where the earth and the sea meets. The formations are of limestone, where the hard parts of the rock has been staying in place while the softer parts have been eroded away by wind and water as the land has risen out of the water.
-There is an incredible feeling of the place, as you are walking on the bottom of a very ancient,
tropical, seabed that has now been lifted to become the beach.
What thoughts or questions did the place evoke in you?
-I noticed that the feeling of grandure and the feeling of intimacy was two opposite feelings, yet both very positive. The very same place gave me both feelings.
-The next was the return to a belief that every individual is it’s own seed of personality that develops in a unique way. There is a kernel that unique to each individual personality, with traits that need to be nurtured differently from every other kernel. Each individual spirit is determined in a genetic way but nurtured by the cultural and social environment
-And then the familiarity of the space the second time I visited created a feeling of comfort in me. The first time you are in a place, you are trying to figuring out the place to find the landmarks. The first time I went here, the day before, was as a tourist. I did not even realize I was back in the same place!. The strangers at the place, the tourists, kept me from the feelings of this place. I was not able to reflect when I went to the place as a tourist. But the second time I could.
After Langhammar we pass by the small fishing village of Helgumannen, we stop by the rauk area of Digerhuvud and we step into the small shelter and former office of the Lauterhorn pilots and customs official. Finally we visit the grave of Ingmar Bergman who lived at Fårö for the later part of his life.
And I say goodbye to Barbara, and we decide that next time we meet will be in Cairo to explore the Metaspace idea there. Tanzania, Shetland, Orkney, Scotland, Western Isles, Fårö, Cairo. Where will this idea bring us in the future?
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