Queen of the North – Aurora Borealis

Wild and free

It was quite a moment when we stepped out of the airport limits, into Tromso. At half past 10 in the morning, it was seemingly dark and temperatures as low as -12 degrees celsius (feels like -14). We had been in Norway for a while already, a land where the sun barely grazes the horizon in winter, and so we were prepared for the little to low light, but the colour of the sky did have a different hue – clear and a very beautiful shade of blue, like how one would imagine the depths of the ocean to be.

And that feeling finally hit! We were in Tromso for that one thing – to see the northern lights. It had been a dream for years, something both of us had imagined in our own silent moments, read about, seen in documentaries, but weirdly we’d never talked about it, till all of a sudden we started planning a trip to Norway! And now, in this frozen northern landscape within the Arctic Circle, we were so close to it finally happening.

The Long Wait

The journey to this moment, just even making it to Tromso, wasn’t easy. The anticipation was unbearable. We’d read and re-read about the best times to visit, when the skies are clear and dark in the dead of winter. That imagination of the northern lights teasing and tickling, with every blog we’d read, every app downloaded to figure out the forecast and every chase booked in advance, all with the hope that it’d happen.
In the deepest darkest corners of my mind, I’d often wondered if it was real, or just something social media had made extremely famous and then of course, the herd mentality, or maybe just an elusive myth that people spoke of to make the world seem more magical.
And then all through the flight to Tromso, looking out of the window, secretly hoping for that one glimmer of green.

The Chase

And then, there I was, standing on the cold Norwegian ground, thick ice under my boots, looking up at a sky that seemed impossibly vast and dark. I needed some silence, but there in that moment surrounded by so many eager beavers, there wasn’t any. There was though, right before me, the stillness of the whole landscape and the unspoken promise of the universe, and as the eyes tried adjusting to the dark, my heart kept throbbing louder, like knocking into the unknown, trying to figure out what next.

Some time went by. My beating heart calmed down with the constant reassurance to self that the forecast was positive. My eyes had settled in the dark, enough to take in the beauty of the surroundings, the fjords, the snow-covered peaks, the sharp air. But Madam Aurora, the one we’d come so far to see, was still missing.

And Then… It Happened

And then there was a faint something in the air. Easily passable as a cloud. But then it grew, like a gentle wave rolling in from the vast unknown. People started pointing their cameras at it, at a faint greenish glow along the horizon. “Is that it!?”, was the only exclamation / question in my head. Did we really come this far to see this, which isn’t even visible to the naked eye. I was disappointed, heart broken even. There were several streaks of something, all over the horizon but it was too cold to just keep staring into the nothingness, the green streaks only visible over a lens. An hour into it, and even those very faint hues disappeared. I was furious! The guides lit a much needed bonfire, and made hot chocolate. I kept wondering why I couldn’t feel happy like the others, dancing and prancing and all that excited chatter.

And Then… It Happened Again

She re-appeared. Subtle at first, just a flicker, barely visible to the naked eye. But this time, she was in a mood. In a mood to let go!

The sense of Connection and Awe

I felt something shift inside me. It wasn’t just about the science, the solar winds, the magnetic fields – it was something deeper, more visceral. I felt as though she’d listened to me, my careless whispers of disappointment, the questions in my troubled mind.

I didn’t cry, although I would’ve liked to.

And as she kept disappearing and reappearing, the initial shock of seeing something so beautiful was replaced by a deeper, quieter feeling, a sense of insignificance that doesn’t feel sad, but rather liberating.

The Magic

You know how they say “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”. Yeah, I might have lived the quote.
Lady Aurora, as I like to call this strangely beautiful phenomenon, is the magic bestowed on humankind, by nature.

On another evening which was also our last one in Tromso, at around 4 pm, we were seated in the living room of our AirBnB and just gazing out of the living room glass facade. There was a faint something in the sky, which caught our attention. I had secretly been hoping to see the lights again, but the chances of sighting the Northern Lights were low, given the weather – it had snowed heavily the previous night and was still cloudy and the forecasts across all apps were negative.

But there she was again, like she had silently listened to our wishes. We rushed out onto the apartment terrace only to see the strongest streaks of green covering the skies of Tromso city. Defying all concepts of how difficult it is to see the northern lights within city limits due to light pollution, there she was, dancing away, stretching a full 180 degrees over the horizon.

The green colour pulsed and stretched across the sky, shifting and rippling like liquid light. She disappeared with the same swiftness with which she’d made an appearance. And then back! The lights surged, expanding and contracting like a living, breathing thing, bright and delicate across the sky, swirling and shifting, rising and falling, in a wild, ethereal ballet that seemed to defy the laws of nature.

The Afterthoughts

There was something so humbling about the whole experience.
And what is truly remarkable is how fleeting it is. One moment, the sky is still, and the next, it’s alive with colour, as if the heavens are performing a dance. Just as quickly as she appears, the Aurora can fade, leaving only the memory of its beauty, and that impermanence is really part of the magic. A reminder that such moments are rare, precious and deserving full attention.

The Science

At its core, the Aurora Borealis is a result of charged particles from the sun interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field. The sun constantly emits a stream of solar wind, a flow of charged particles into space. When these particles, mostly electrons and protons, collide with gases in Earth’s upper atmosphere, they release energy in the form of light. This is what we see as the Northern Lights.

The colours you see in the sky depend on which gases are being emitted and how high up the particles are colliding with them. Oxygen at higher altitudes (around 150-300 km above the Earth’s surface) gives off the signature greenish glow, while nitrogen can produce purples, blues, and reds. The speed, density, and direction of the solar wind determine the intensity and movement of the auroras, which can ripple across the sky in waves, creating a surreal and dynamic show that seems to have a life of its own.

The Gratitude

After witnessing the beautiful Aurora on three different instances, and the third one when we were least expecting it, I’m nothing if not filled with gratitude for the experience that life and universe bestowed on me and us.

The Patience sometimes leading to Despair

I often sit back in reflection of my travels, and this one particularly. When I sit and think of the conversation with the tour guides and other tourists who went and saw nothing – makes me imagine the kind of quiet frustration that people would feel when the Northern Lights do not show up, night after night, despite all the preparation. After traveling so far, across cold, snowy landscapes, and spending all that money saved up for months. Nothing but just the dark sky staring back at you, indifferent. You check the forecasts, the apps, the Aurora trackers, nothing. A slow build-up to a moment that never comes.

Still thinking

It’s been a month now. And I still think of all of it, the way it happened, the questions in my mind.
How I went from feeling frozen and annoyed to when the cold no longer mattered. I was wrapped in something more important than comfort, a sense of belonging, of witnessing something rare and extraordinary.
How it went from being about the colours and intensity, to just about the experience. The quietude of being present in a moment like that, as if the universe had invited me into its most intimate corner, showing me something it had kept hidden for so long.

Believe in magic and if you don’t already, she will make you do so!
She is the Lady Aurora Borealis – I call her the Queen of the North! 💚