Solar Storm

The power of light

Through the brilliant night sky, neon pink light beams across the clay fields of home. With bare feet in wet grass I spin like a compass to due north. The fuchsia streak was not dancing in the way I have come to know the movement of the Northern Lights, but its presence this far south awakened something I had long forgotten.

It has been three years since I saw the aurora borealis for the first time. Three years since I learnt how folklore and magic are woven into their dancing spirits. I was one day's drive from civilisation, unrolling my sleeping bag on the mezzanine of one of the most remote huts in Iceland, when I looked up and saw the acid green streaks of light perfectly framed by the cabin's north window. I was spellbound by the wildness of the night sky.

The weather was fierce that evening on the edge of the glacier. Sat stock-still against the snow-clad wood of the building, I tilted my head and raised my eyes to the sky. The Atlantic wind whipped my hood against my skin and beat the windows like a drum. Icy air arrived in waves burning my throat and stealing breath. With knees bent and cloaked inside my down jacket I folded myself into smallness, shrunk by the vastness of the sky. Time stretched out to the stars. I stayed until my hands were white and numb and my body stiff with cold. I was utterly captivated by the beauty of the solar storm exploding across the darkness.

Some say the aurora is the spirit of dead warriors; others claim it is the deceased guiding the living. Many believe them to be spirit animals. Each belief is steeped in heritage and culture. These are the stories through which identity is created and calved. But, when I travelled to Iceland, I didn't know any of that, and I didn't know that the power of this elusive and vivid light could or would shape my story.

I had not chosen Iceland because of its night sky but because it was unknown. This remote and otherworldy landscape felt different in my imagination, as if mythical. Its distance and exposure represented the rawness and isolation I was chasing. In this faraway place, I hoped to be different, to escape. In many ways, I chose it in defiance.

That night, as I lay curled in my down sleeping bag and thought back to how the spirit sky had arrived like an invitation. It offered a window to a different future that re-ignited my desire for something more elemental. I understood that what I was looking for could not be found in following my old thought patterns. To move forward I had to transcend rationality. I had to allow myself to feel what should come next.

Soon after, I understood that feeling and reconciling the distance of my desires was not as simple as choosing it or putting one ski in front of another to slide across the glacier. But that night, under the intense storm of the aurora, I learnt the dimensions of what I did not know.

We are now in the Solar Maximum of solar cycle 25. This is the peak of an 11-year cycle where the sun's north and south magnetic poles flip. This next year holds the potential for one of the most extraordinary displays of our time. I already know that early in 2025, I will drive far, far north and camp or sit for hours, perhaps days, below a wintery night sky in the hope of glimpsing this wonder one more time. And maybe, just maybe its illumination will guide me to the next chapter.