Journey North

We had traveled past the 40 degree latitude, after crossing Baffin Bay into the land of Kalaallit Nunaat. We still had a long way to trek before reaching our designated point. The air was always thin and chill that the adaption process was long and exhausting. Slowly we made our way into the icy world at the top of the Earth. The Magnetic North Pole.

For several days there were drastic temperature drops in our thermal readings. We would have to make this journey or head back. The ice so thin and dangerous that a wrong step could prove fatal. Gradually the time came when we drifted into night. It would last until Spring. The darkness disguised the deceptively inviting ice sheet we tread and the white hills seemed to amass snowdrifts into waves, mocking the ocean's flow in suspended brilliance and dread.

I was walking under a fading Aurora Borealis and soon it would be time to set up for the oncoming portal that we would witness of the cosmos.

As I stood there, my cheeks frozen numb, and feeling nothing throughout my body for the environment I had now become a part of. I looked out across the still shimmering white field of ice and snow going on forever. I looked slowly up past the horizon at first, and was held by the slow realization that my eyes were stung with points of sharp light emitting from the stars at only about six degrees. Then I raised my eyes and gazed into the skies. I could no longer feel the ground because it seemed that I stood upon a plane of the universe. Every single star and constellation sprung out incredibly brilliant and overwhelming that I could no longer remember any words and in my throat was caught a suspended gasp and then the tears of unknown longing, and love, and worship filled me and flowed. The beauty of it all was piercing through my soul.

A threshold of forever, into the great field of stars that have no end. The black blankets behind massive diamonds and other gems of indescribable colors and varying points of light shot out like daggers, and the purest blue radiance of the majestic Milky Way towered like heavens of glorious unknown empires, stretching out above everything I had ever known. This is seen by few, and the few who see are never the same again.

The portal was soon to begin its lowering to allow passageway. For hours it seemed we sat in silence. Few winds and the crackling of the Aurora Borealis continued, but fading and muted in the background. Without realizing it at first, a sudden silence fell. At first it seemed the cold had muffled our ears and even our heartbeats seemed quieted. Everything was deathly silent.

A light spilled out of the North and drew closer. We stood and waited. This is it. The portal would take us to witness the splendor of the cosmos. A secret that is the most secret of all the earth, that there are direct ways from here, of interplanetary travel. The journey is the proofing of souls that can attain this gift. To be willing to brave the environments that mimic space and alien planet lands.

When I return, I will tell of all the wonders I've seen.


~~~

Originally written in 2003

This was written to be a novella and this was to be the first chapter. With the following chapters to describe a journey through the cosmos in a light year. But I'm not sure if this will be written as intended. So this is a musing, if nothing else.