Acceptance
Driving out of my neighbourhood just before noon today for a quick gas run, 3 cars were abandoned on the side of the road off in our first snow. The roads were snowy, slushy, and ice pellets rained down, but it didn’t seem particularly bad. It made me wonder just what went on outside in the 4 whole hours I slept last night between getting home on dry roads after 4am, and waking up to centimetres of snow and ice sheets.
This is the chaos of the weather in the Yukon. I couldn’t love it more, but it’s challenging. And yes, the stop sign was dancing today, of course.
Not every night lately has been so perfect, and not every chase has met sustained clear sky, but I’m beginning to find calm in this routine of endless chaos through some cloudy weeks.
An old friend in Yellowknife taught me a lot about aurora chasing, but I don’t think he knows it, and I know he would never take credit for it.
He had endless trust in all of this - in himself, in knowledge and information, and in nature itself. And in the end, he always had acceptance in the aurora and the weather we faced there, and there was a calm around him you could feel as a result. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever been able to admire, to study, learn, and imitate. And in some full circle type of way, the end of an extremely chaotic month and a half has brought me so peacefully back into all of that love.
