Play crack the sky.

That I may dream of Suomenlinna.

Its history, being an 18th Century fortress built to protect nearby Helsinki, is merely a side curiosity to me. My visit was not about its history but its aesthetics- of the grounds, the sea, and the sky above. Its mortal history only dilutes its effect, for it has a central and inescapable quality of eternity about it; learning of the human hands that laid the bricks only cauterizes the wonder.

Standing on its cliffs, my perspective followed the line of the cannons still pointed out to sea, and I watched as storms rioted over the Gulf of Finland. Storms so far away, that I could see their clear borders, and the wave of sunlight that would follow soon for those on boats underneath. The sky meticulously ran the gamut of greyscale, the clouds the gauzy layers of organ tissue. This was not a tourist destination, it was a setting for our earliest history. This was watching mythologies form. Where unnoticed humans arrive to witness concepts hold court, time and wisdom debate one another. If this is not where Earth began, it was close enough that the feeling is still palpable.

I have little to tell you about Suomenlinna, but much for you to see. Please look through the pictures, maybe listening to the Sigur Ros album ( ) as I did while walking the grounds, for a deeper experience.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshuajaniak/sets/72157621957599583/