Thrice Blessed Under Southern Skies

“The cosmos doesn’t call often — but when it does, it whispers directly to the soul.”

I never expected to see the northern lights in South Carolina once — much less four times.

Back in 2024, the sky surprised me twice: first in May, when a geomagnetic storm painted faint colors over the fields, and again in October, when the horizon glowed in soft waves that didn’t feel real. I remember thinking, This is it. This is my once-in-a-lifetime shot. If I ever wanted to see the auroras again, I told myself I’d have to travel to Alaska.

But the universe had other plans.

On November 11 and 12, 2025, the auroras returned — brighter, closer, and more personal than ever — and I got to share the experience with two of my three sisters.

“Even the power lines paused to witness the heavens bloom.”

On the 11th, my baby sister and I grabbed our cameras and headed to Lake Robinson’s boat ramp. For the first hour, the sky teased us with a pale glow, but as we chased darker spots from Hartsville toward Bishopville, the lights finally showed themselves. Quiet streaks of color rose above the treeline — subtle, but unmistakably alive. We stood there in disbelief, laughing like kids who caught the universe misbehaving after bedtime.

Then came night two.

“Starlight draped across the night, soft as a whispered blessing.”

My oldest sister joined us this time, and the three of us caravanned to a wildlife preserve near Cheraw. The auroras arrived slower and softer, like they were saving their strength, but the night had its own magic: several shooting stars, a sky full of crisp detail, and a faint stretch of the Milky Way that I managed to capture — proof the sky was wide awake even when the lights were shy.

The craziest part? Just a day earlier, snow flurries drifted over the yard like winter was testing its entrance cue.

Snow, shooting stars, the Milky Way, and the aurora borealis — all in the same week, all in South Carolina.

Looking back, “rare” doesn’t even begin to describe it. I felt thrice blessed:

“The northern lights met the backroads — and for a moment, the world stood still.”

• blessed to witness such a magnificent event twice in two nights,

• blessed to have two of my sisters by my side for the journey, and

• blessed that the sky has found me again and again, even when I thought its magic was spent.

These nights reminded me that wonder isn’t always someplace far away. Sometimes it finds you exactly where you are — on a backroad near Bishopville, at a quiet preserve in Cheraw, standing in the cold with people you love, looking up.

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