THE NORDIC LIGHT

The Nordic Light at Gasslanda

The Nordic light has captured the imagination of some artists/painters and a school of painters developed based in northern Jutland in Denmark at Skagen in the early 20th century. However, most of the people here do not give it much of a thought, but I do; this extraordinary light that never fades away completely. It is not a strong or fierce light; it is mild, even in the middle of the day.

The phenomenon of this Nordic light has captured the imagination of many. In England, for example you had C S Lewis, the famous writer, stemming from Ireland. He was far enough to the south (around Oxford) to dream about the exotic North that had produced remarkable literature in an environment that was extreme, pitch dark in winter, various, no-ending shades of light in summer. He saw two sources of inspiration and revelation even: the Nordic culture and the Hebraic (Biblical).

This is where we are right now, when writing this piece on 23 June, two days after the summer solstice (sommarsolståndet). It is a remarkable time, even in south Sweden, where I am right now; it never gets dark. People living here don’t make much out of it. They are used to it. You need your 6-8 hours of sleep regardless of whether the light is there or not.

Last night I did my jogging round here that we call the Gasslanda run. It’s exactly ten kilometres and we’ve done it for many years. It takes us through the village of Gasslanda, a village of about ten small farm holdings. Some of the inhabitants still do farming; the others live here but work in the city. It is by and large open country and the farmsteads, quite spread out, lie on low hills.

Unlike Wole Soyinka, who summarizes his writings in a book called “you must set forth at dawn”, I set out for my jog at dusk. That was more precisely at 22h15 last night.

The sun had set a few minutes before, which means that I set out still in what was almost broad daylight. It is actually quite late and I did not foresee any other people moving around at that time; people go to bed early. I thought about it, how unrealistic it would have been to go out for a jog at this time in Cape Town! But here I was, doing my jog.

For some reason I was light-footed this evening, it was easy to run. I was attentive to various animals pitching up but I only saw one roe-deer (very similar to a springbok) and heard a sound that could well have come from a boar (they are becoming common these days, disliked by most). It is still for me a strange kind of thing to run past the one farm holding after the other, and there is no one around; it is absolutely still, no movement, no people in sight, and the day has not yet ended, at least the Nordic light says so.

About half an hour after sunset I see the full moon emerging on the horizon in the east, large like a giant pancake, with a streak of a grey cloud across the upper part, as if being blindfolded. What a sight! I go downhill and the moon disappears behind the woods on my left. I am reminded of the fact that the farmsteads that certainly have been there for more than 1000 years, in one form or another, also have created an abundance of leaf trees, maple, linden, elm, ashen tree and oak. I take note of the fact that these lush, deciduous, leafy trees, at about 22h40 at night still have their deep shades of various green colours; the Nordic light is still strong enough to give me this sense of colour, but slowly it is getting darker.

Again the full moon pops up on the horizon this time just to the left of the quite impressive steeple of the Gårdsby country church, about one kilometre away, a church built with directives of Bishop Tegnér at the beginning of the 19^th century, today far too large for the actual rural church community.

It is perhaps 18 degrees Celsius, ideal for running. The Gasslanda run is a round that brings me back the last one and a half kilometres on the same now downhill road, back home. It takes me exactly 60 minutes, not too bad, also not very remarkable, but I feel good; this evening I don’t feel tired, neither at the start nor towards the end. It is past 23h00 when I am back. It is getting dark. Back home I see everything clearly, the light is far from gone. The light now coming from the North West where the sun did set, casts its rays on the trunks of our majestic oak trees. But what are fading away are the colours. After a short swim in the small river, adjacent to our property, the light still leads the way, but if I look sharply into our garden, the lush green is no longer there; the colours have given way to a new kind of light, the light of the Nordic night.

It was important to capture the Nordic light at this moment, in this evening. In a few weeks the days again will become noticeably shorter, without you much taking notice of it.

I am not able to capture the Nordic light in a few words. But it is there now for the next few weeks at least. It casts very long shadows, and at dusk it does not disappear, it stays on. It is as if to say, and here C S Lewis may have been observant, as if to remind us that there is a light that never fades, that never leaves us in the dark; there is at the end, not only at the end of the tunnel, a light that gives us life in a lasting, eternal way. 

If that is what can be drawn from an evening becoming night run around Gasslanda village led by the Nordic light, one should be but happy and grateful.