Happy new year! Today we open 2025 with a photograph by previous contributor Maroula Blades. Read more about her image below.
In August 2022, I took the image, “Stone Sculpture,” on the nature island Hiddensee in Germany. It is a place that I have visited often, as it gives me serenity. Hiddensee is a car-free island in the Baltic Sea. It is west of Germany’s largest island, Rügen, on the German coast. The island has about 1,000 inhabitants and was once a holiday spot for East German tourists (when Germany was divided after World War II). It still attracts tourists today, and is the location of the University of Greifswald’s ornithological station. Gerhart Hauptmann (Nobel Prize-winning writer) and Walter Felsenstein (theater and opera director) rest there.
The sculpture reminds me of cairns built by the Inuit in late prehistoric and early historic times in northern Québec! I love the idea that cars are banned from Hiddensee, which must help make the island a tranquil place in which to live.