My bucket list is huge, and it keeps getting bigger each and every day! The reason behind my ever-growing list is that I spend a lot of time on the Internet looking up strange stuff, and also that I am an extremely curious person who gets a kick from trying and experiencing everything once. They say curiosity killed the cat (I’m still alive and kicking) and it’s satisfaction that brought the cat back, so like my feline friend, I guess there’s no harm in whittling down that list.
And let me tell you, I’ve got some extreme stuff on that list. So far, bungee jumping and skydiving are crossed off. Still pending are swimming with sharks, bivouacking (yep, it’s a thing) and spending a frozen night under the Northern Lights.
I have dreamed about seeing aurora borealis, the Northern Lights, ever since I was old enough to learn about natural phenomena. In this video, we get to watch a stunning series of time-lapsed vignettes of the night sky from different locations in Iceland, shot by the visionary photographer Vilhjalmur Olafsson.
Only visible from September to early April, between the hours of 6 am to 6 pm, this spectacular display of nature is mesmerizing. It happens when the sun’s rays of charged particles hit the Earth’s atmosphere causing the electrons to become excited and move faster, creating a higher energy state. The interesting part happens when the electrons slow down and move back into a lower energy state. It’s this loss of energy that releases photons which is then perceived by the human eye as light, and what we refer to as Northern Lights. Based on how the light is transmitted, it looks like a flowing silky blanket of magic, moving and breathing in the sky. There is no denying the true beauty and mystique of being surrounded by something like this.
What’s so neat about this video is that Vilhjalmur caught the aurora borealis from different locations and edited them together to show the full magnitude of this natural wonder; one that has been a part of ancient northern folklore for centuries. Apparently, if the Northern Lights turn red, it’s a sign of war coming. Also, North American indigenous tribes would whistle when they saw the sky turning different colors, in an effort to try to bring the Northern Lights closer so they could whisper messages in hopes that the shifting light would take their messages to the dead.
Click on the video below to watch this magic light show set fire to the sky. Looks like I better plan a trip to Iceland, I’ve got a burning bucket list I need to sort out!
