Lighthouse Letters
By Sharma Krauskopf
This is an article by Sharma Krauskopf from Michigan who fell in love with Scotland - and decided to buy a lighthouse keepers' cottage at Eshaness, a remote location in Shetland, in the far north of Scotland and live there each winter. These pages were previously part of the "Scottish Radiance e-magazine Web site which was created by Sharma.
Northern Lights
Aurora Borealis / Northern Lights
Graphic © Fred Olsen via Wikimedia Commons
For the first time since we have had the lighthouse I experienced something up to now I had only heard everyone talk about. The Aurora Borealis are supposed to appear in winter but we had a cold clear night two nights ago and there they were.
My newest book, The Last Lighthouse, was about to go off to the printer so I had to go down to the fish hatchery about four miles away to fax back the last corrections on the text. It was fortunate since I probably would have been curled up in front of the Rayburn watching TV otherwise. The lights were just starting to show as I returned, Having had a long and stressful day with all the last minute details on the book I went right to bed.
Something woke me at 1:00 am and I looked out the window and the sky was full of shimmering green lights. The colour is hard to describe but it looked like a pale iridescent jade with light streaming through. The light was alive and constantly moving and changing. The streaks went up and down not across like clouds do. They would sometimes be bright and then gradually fade. Once and a while they would move across the sky. It was spectacular as the sky was black with hundreds of bright white stars. The graphic here is via Wikimedia Commons.
Add to that the rotation every thirteen seconds of the lighthouse beacon and you have a night full of lights and movement. It was so alive and beautiful you could almost feel the majesty of the universe pulsing in the cold clear air.
An excited Sharma.
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