In the beginning, God said “Let truth literally unfolded before me during my most recent sojourn in Tromsø, Norway. On a clear and frosty night, imagine yourself lying on freshly fallen snow on the beach with the towering snow- peaked mountains surrounding you like icy sentinels. The stars above dramatically reveal the numerous constellations. The stellar glow of the full moon on the right side of the ebony sky illumines the greenish haze on the left as it gently and magically spins into brighter hues of green, pink, yellow, and gold. As if spun by a cosmic wizard, a stunning pyrotechnic show unfolds in the backyard. The only ambient sound is your heartbeat, the faint cries of a seagull in the distance, and the sudden swoosh of a Leviathan humpback whale that shoots off water from its blowhole. You pinch yourself to check if you are dreaming. All of a sudden, you realize how blessed you are to have witnessed this phenomenal miracle of nature.

It is true that only in the darkness can one appreciate the light, thus in a nomadic spirit resembling Indiana Jones on the trail of the holy grail, I took my chances together with my gregarious travelling companions Yvette Lee and Leslie Yap to find this most stunning light show on the planet, known as the aurora borealis, named after the Roman goddess of dawn. Garbed in our thick waterproof snow suits that made us feel like astronauts ready to walk on the moon, we tied the strings of our heavy-duty boots, put on our lip balm, and kept our hands and heads warm with our gloves and thick woolen hats. We savored the warmth of a bonfire set up by our guides with hotdogs and melted marshmallows beside the seemingly frozen body of water connected to the vast ocean. The silence was deafening. And then the cosmic lights in bright flares of green, pink, and blue appeared like an enormous magnet of oval rings that illumined not just the sky but every cell in our body as well. We were simply amazed, and we loved every magnificent second of it.

The glow will remain inside you long after you have left the sanctuary of Tromsø. God said, “Let there be light.” For only in this light can we appreciate what illumines the darkness. As the people in Tromsø often say, “Goodnight.”