The cycles of life
Well, we all saw it, and quite a lot of us headed out to assume the contemporary pose of worship and wonder, peering at the sky through our phones. Tik-Tok, tempus fugit, and the rush to post to your socials is real.
From the roadside North of Cowdenbeath, we pulled tripods from the car and scrambled to remember our settings for astro. Is it different for the Aurora? What ISO should it be? Neither of us had ever seen the Aurora before, let alone photographed it.
The solar activity is no great surprise – there is an 11-year cycle and a 22-year cycle well known – but it is unusual for it to be so intense, at least in recent history. By “in recent history” I mean any time since Bebo. All of life is cyclical, isn’t it? We love the waves at the shoreline, days and nights, summer and winter, and the opening and closing of flowers. Observing the cycle of solar activity is just another way for us to connect our breathing, in and out, with the universe we inhabit.
Recent events have brought to mind a kind of perspective in which we are detached from petty niggles and stand above the timeline of our lives, looking down. This aurora display is another manifestation of the cycles of our lives, and how privileged we are to live them. It’s also saved us a fortune – we can strike that bucket list trip to Tromsø now.
Click on any of the images for a bigger version. All taken with a Fuji X-T5 and either a 16mm or 23mm lens. There are better photographs out there, but that isn’t the point. We spent as much time gawping, open-mouthed at the sheer wonder of it all. We felt affinity with ancient relatives, long ago, who may have done the same, standing on the shores of a vast celestial ocean, eyes moving from one constellation to another, connecting to whatever life may be there, looking back at us.