Have you ever drifted into an experience so foreign you lack the means to communicate it and all the rules you relied upon to guide your life become useless?
My sister and I ventured into the boreal night again, only this time it wasn’t dark. In the absence of light pollution, the sky burst open to reveal a profusion of stars, clustered tight along the bright path of the Milky Way.
The night was a lot colder than we had gotten used to.
The ocean air carries a lot of moisture to the islands, which traps warm air under its cloud cover, but tonight there were no clouds, and the sky was full of stars, which felt close enough to touch, and looked so brilliant.
We can no longer imagine a sky so bright with stars that even on a dark moon it illuminates the earth enough to see its every detail, cast in cool hues.
I looked at Denise and almost didn’t recognize her: she had a light blue halo in her hair, and her demeanor was so serious it made her look wise beyond her years.
We decided to go back to Birsay, to see the Northern Lights, a fitting ending to my search for you, princess, which started here.
The broch is not accessible in winter. We contented ourselves to watch its contours in the distance, highlighted by the glow of the stars.
The tide was retreating, slowly revealing the underwater stone path to the broch, too dangerous to engage this time of year, for humans, anyway.
As the waters receded, their shiny surface gleamed like a mirror, reflecting the Milky Way.
It got colder, but we didn’t care; we instinctively kept quiet, quiet enough to hear the eerie chirping and twittering, while a green glow blanketed the surroundings.
Suddenly, everything we knew about reality melted into the mesmerizing scene in front of our eyes.
The sky shifted with surreal colors of green, electric blue, yellow, rose, and purple, making us forget to breathe.
The colors danced among the stars, with playful sparkles reflected by the sea, chirping like unearthly colonies of birds. I can’t imagine what people must have thought about this spectacle worthy of the gods in your times. How does one explain the sky suddenly coming alive like that?
A strange energy creature watched us from above, pulsating with curiosity.
It must have felt like a god to you, Fiona, an all-powerful entity with fingers of light touching the earth and sky.
We lost the wonder.
Well, many of us never had it: you have to live this far north for this awe-inspiring experience to become a part of your normal reality.
The lights swirled around us like playful fires, and we were drunk with their magic, and unafraid, welcoming their presence and their touch with gratitude, giggling like children.
Denise opened herself to the gift of the sky, and she looked iconic, like the priestesses of old. Even her white parka reminded me of a ceremonial garment.
I watched my sister, as I did since we were children, trying to glimpse the secret fire that animated her life. She was not like me, Denise, there was always this other her, this larger her, just bursting to come out when the situation warranted it.
Behind the histrionics and the willingness to allow herself to be possessed by the emotions of the moment, there was a quiet power, a spark I can’t explain, and I’m sure she doesn’t understand either, the glow of her higher self.
We are not in time anymore, a thought surfaced, clear as a bell. We’re everywhere, beholding the future and the past, so much more than human.
Now are come to the king’s house
Two prescient damsels, Fenia and Menia;
They are with Frodo, Friedleif’s son,
The powerful maidens, in thraldom held.
I kept asking myself what brought me here and never once realized the question isn’t just about me, it’s about both of us: what was it that brought us here together? Denise didn’t need to construct a reason to follow her calling. She just answered it, instinctively and without doubt.
Set against this extraordinary experience, my rationalizations are just a pitiful excuse for allowing me to surrender to this unexplainable wonder.
We have no idea how much larger life, experience, and meaning are than our limited understanding of them, as allowed by our convictions about what is or is not possible. We know nothing.
“Aren’t you cold?” A voice whispered in my ear. I would have thought it was Denise’s, but the latter was ten feet in front of me, facing away.
I turned around to see a young girl with flaxen hair, who couldn’t have been older than sixteen, look at me with knowing eyes, smiling. I was too shocked to react, so our ad hoc host continued.
“Lots of people come to Birsay for the lights. Where are you from?”
“America. Wisconsin.” I clarified.
“What brought you here? I’m Freya, by the way,” she extended a friendly hand to make our acquaintance.
We introduced ourselves and I gave her a quick explanation for our visit here, which sounded so bland compared to the actual experience. I was still unsure, in my altered state, whether I was talking to a human girl, my beloved princess returned, or the goddess herself. I half expected to catch a glimpse of a golden chariot pulled by cats behind a hill nearby.
“I heard about the new dig, exciting, isn’t it? You came all the way here,” she smiled.
We chatted for a few minutes and she took her leave, not before giving us advice.
“Don’t stay too long. The Lights are mesmerizing and make you forget the cold. It’s going to sneak up on you, and you’ll end up with frostbite.”
We didn’t want to leave, but we eventually succumbed to our human frailty and let go of magic and wonder in search of a hot cup of tea.
Denise reflected, her hands wrapped around the steaming cup to warm up.
“What do you think it’s like growing up with this? Do you think you just get used to it, like there’s nothing unusual?”
I didn’t know what to answer. Your native land certainly shapes your perception of life, one you take for granted going further.
Everything in Orkney has a story to tell. Every rock, every mound, every wild path down the beach, even the sky.
It’s a different setting for life, that alters your perspective, and it sneaks up on you, slowly, under the guise of daily life, and here you are, one year in, living in a world with dancing lights in the sky, and myths, and ancient monoliths, steeped in legend.
The language is different too, and you get used to it after a while, hard as it was to understand when you arrived, and it speaks to you in poetry, taking you out of time.
Orkney is an immersive experience, something you don’t get if you don’t stay long enough to appreciate it.
You have to stay long enough to feel the changes of the seasons, the moods of the sea, the call of the underground, the power of the stones.
The islands’ quiet mystique reverberates everywhere, in common and surprising ways, in the middle of breakfast on Victoria Street just as easily as during a spiritual retreat at the Stones: it is simply part of living here.
“What time is it?” Denise asked, sullen.
“Seven thirty.”
“No!”
“Oh, yes.”
“We came. We saw. We took pictures. Can we head back now? I want to get a good night’s sleep.”
“Your wish is my command,” I joked, bowing obediently. “Do you want me to drive back?”
“Yes.”
Have you ever driven through the night, guided only by the Milky Way, which looks so close you could touch it, in a place where everything not blessed with its own inner light melts into the background, and there is nothing else to gaze upon but a profusion of stars?
