Words of Light and Hope from Muriel Rogers

I slowly trudged across the rough grass on my way to the toilet block. It had been another
long day but we had decided to try a new campsite for a change. Maybe that was not a good
idea as it was much further to the toilets. Still, I was looking forward to having breakfast near
Seljalandsfoss and then going for a walk behind the waterfall before heading off to the
Markarfljót valley and Tindfjallajökull for another day’s work. You will probably not have
heard of any of these places but you may have heard of Eyjafjallajökull , the volcano in
Iceland that in 2010 halted flights for over a week due to ash clouds. Eyjafjallajökull is just
across the valley from where we were working. We were studying the rocks exposed on the
flanks of Tindfjallajökull to learn about the ancient ice-sheets and glaciers at the time when
the volcano erupted. Very little work has been done on this volcano so the only information
available was anything we could read from the rocks as we slowly explored the valley.
But I digress. On my way back from the toilet block, longing for my bed, I looked up. I don’t
know why I looked up but above me, the whole sky was a mass of green and white swirling
lights, the aurora borealis, the northern lights. I hurried back to our campervan and settled
myself comfortably on the side of the bed looking out of the window. I spent over an hour,
watching the most unbelievable display until eventually my eyes refused to stay open any
longer. It was gone midnight and we were heading back to the Markarfljót valley in the
morning.
We spend so much of our time trudging through our daily life. Maybe we should stop and
look around us more, who knows what we might find? If I had not looked up I would have
missed one of the most amazing sights of my life.