Aurora safari 2019

Towards the end of 2018, I had sold my home in the UK.  My life in Sweden was to really begin.  As I woke into the early days of 2019, I felt a deep stirring.  A lifelong dream to see the aurora borealis suddenly arrived with a command.  Now!

I found myself in the Aurora Safari camp, on the edge of a frozen lake in the middle of the Swedish Lapland.  Wearing the most clothes I have ever worn.  And living in a tent.  And being kept warm by a log-burning stove that I woke up and stoked myself through the -20 degree night.  And learning to snowshoe, right high up along the ridge, drinking hot lingonberry juice and eating kanelbulle.  And learning to cross-country ski.  And setting off, alone, for an adventure in the moonlit darkness along the lake side and – where was the turning actually – back, following – or was I – the snowmobile trails to the light of the – was that really it – camp.  And cajoling myself, hour after hour, to be brave enough to face the dip into the ice hole from the naked heat of the sauna (and yes I was, by the second night).  And taking another adventure to behind the far island of the lake, with my Instax camera cosy against my small hot water bottle to protect it from the cold.   

A luminous goodness glowed within the purity: the substantiality of love.

And a calling: I am made for extremes.

I never saw the aurora, but one day we will.