The last embers of the colorful sunset were slowly fading away, with the warm colors slowly dissolving to the deep blue of twilight. A savory dinner of pasta and bread, a luxury in a remote location like this, was settling in my stomach, a reward for the long late-summer day of hiking and exploring the unique landscapes of the Ring Road in northern Iceland.

As I lay soaking in a hot-tub in this remote corner of Iceland, I was ready to call it a night, when suddenly, the faint arc of the aurora appeared but for a fleeting instance. After two days of intense displays albeit above cloudy skies, I had all but lost hope of seeing this spectacle, but what I had witnessed over the next few hours lay forever engraved in memory, an ephemeral occurrence etched into permanence.

The dance of the aurora is spectacular, and its irresistable attraction lies in the seeing the slow but continuous transformation of this unique energy into shapes unimaginable: snake-like swirls change to wormhole vortices, to long arcs stretching to the horizon, to streaks of color and light against a dark skyscape. This is one such exposure of the aurora set against the hostel I was spending the night at

Saeberg
Iceland