10,000 Emerald Pools
Emerald is my birthstone. It’s May here in Michigan, my birth month, and Spring is popping all around. My light pink irises are in bloom and I can’t wait to cut some and bring their beauty and fresh smell into the house.
Last weekend my husband Kris and I decided to drive out to Little Sable Lighthouse to see if we could see the Northern Lights that were in peak form for several days. His friend was already out there and getting a good show in the sky while we were still about 30 minutes away. I was feeling frustrated because I wasn’t sure it was going to be worth the hour drive, I didn’t know if we’d actually get to see anything, and the night before we’d seen a pretty good show already from the driveway at our house. Plus it was 11:00 at night and I was getting sleepy. We were about 5 minutes from the lighthouse parking lot when I checked the Aurora app and saw the probability of seeing the lights was going to drop to 3% in about 10 minutes. As we pull up, my husband’s friend is standing in the parking lot and waves. We get out of the car and he shows us some of the awesome photos he just took but says the colors have died down and he’s going to head home. I’m trying to wait patiently while my husband shares pleasantries and gets his gear together but all the while I’m itching to get to the beach and see what we can see.
We awkwardly make our way down to the beach in the dark. There are a fair amount of people with their tripods set up and I realize I might of just ruined someone’s photo by stepping in front of it. I apologize and he graciously says it’s ok. We pick a spot and set up the tripod. I take some photos with my phone and see that there is still some faint color the camera sensor is registering that isn’t visible to the human eye when looking at the sky. Kris realizes he left his SD card in the car and goes back to get it. While he’s gone, the light arc in the sky seems to turn more green and I wonder if the lights are coming back around. He gets back and we both spend some time taking photos. I wander down by the lake and then take a couple in the direction of the lighthouse. The greens and purples are showing up in photos and we’re seeing some pretty sights. It’s not quite the show I believed God was telling me we’d get when I asked Him on our drive up.
It’s cold out and we’re starting to feel it more so we decide to pack up. I ask God, ‘should we stay or go’. I sense Him say, ‘wait a minute’. So even though Kris already has his camera and the tripod packed up, I say, ‘let’s wait a minute.’ We stand quietly with our arms around each other and enjoy the scene. Then we start seeing trails across the sky and they get larger and more of them appear. We see more and more white trails, flickering and movement and faint color and as we start taking pictures, our cameras pick up more color and reveal the glory that is surrounding us. It was a spectacular show. The expanse of lights grew and grew and flickered and shimmered.
It was a special end to my birthday week. Something I’ve been wanting to see for as long as I can remember.
“Down to the bottom/ 10,000 emerald pools/ I’ll dive deeper, deeper for you/ You’re all I need to breathe/ All I need is you” - BORNS
