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| October 2024, Northern Canada |
Decades ago when we bought our home, I noticed something that made me love it even more: walking up the staircase, we have a window from the main floor to the ceiling. It's like having a skylight visible from the lower floor. As I walk up the stairs, there's a fairly clear view of the sky and occasionally, the northern lights are framed there above me like garments of light.
As a northern Canadian, I can't imagine a sky without them. Years ago, while traveling in Scotland, locals told us how they longed to visit Canada someday to see the Rocky Mountains and the northern lights. The Scots helped me understand that we Canadians—even though we've literally grown up with them—must avoid taking the northern lights for granted.
As a young boy (when seatbelts barely existed), I recall lying across the backseat of the family car staring up through the rear window at the northern lights, my Mom driving us home from somewhere. I recall telling her that I thought the northern lights "might be the bottoms of God's curtains?"
Even as a preoccupied teenager, I remember driving on backroads with my friends, pulling over, all us jumping around like Walt Whitman, "yawping" into the night sky as it shimmied like a woman dancing, her colourful dress twirling in slow-motion.
And as a parent, I never missed an opportunity to point them out to my children, to teach them to wonder, to awe.
Our modern world boils over with distractions and strife (there's a sort-of numbing creeping into life), but the northern lights remind us we are alive and more in sync than we realize. Mary Oliver said it better: the northern lights remind us to pay attention, be astonished, and tell others.
Dear friends, notice, celebrate, share. Don't forget. There's a comraderie in any sky: whether it's a lingering sunset, a shooting star, or a sheer-costumed sky, these experiences mean more collectively. The northern lights are unifying, and today, for me, there's a longing in them too, a longing for those no longer here to share the sky—those good friends who forgot or those whose pain was too overwhelming to remember how we celebrated being alive, together, astonished, our feet on the ground, looking up, clapping, whooping, laughing, loving this one short, extraordinary life.
12 comments:
Beautiful post! Yes, we are very lucky to live where we do and have the northern lights in our lives. I would have thought that Scotland was far enough north to see them too, but they don't?
Indeed, notice, celebrate, share. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. This year, the Northern Lights were visible all over the UK twice. Two weeks ago was the latest opportunity to see them. I missed both, sadly but was glad to see so many local friends sharing their photos.
"The bottoms of God's curtains" is a beautiful way of putting it.
@DSWS On a train to Fort William, Scotland we met some people from the UK who lived in the "Midlands." They told us they'd never seen the northern lights, and if not Canada, they hoped to travel to Norway one day and see them there. I was surprised too. Perhaps in the far north remote parts of Scotland, these lights are a regular occurrence as well?
Here in southern Ontario, I never saw them until I was in my fifties, and that was just once. More recently, I have seen them faintly here a couple of times, but quite faintly.
Beautiful my friend. You never forget the kids you grew up with ❤️
That's for sure, Marci. Miss ya.
Oh this is a beautiful post. “Garments of light.” You really bring the wonder of the northern lights to life here, and how wise you are to never forget to be awed by them.
Your last paragraph is quite lyrical and a lesson to all.
We went to Norway a few years ago to see the Northern Lights and they were wonderful, shifting curtains of light. Magical.
Lovely, lovely.
Recently, northeastern Ohio was lucky enough to see the Northern Lights. For once, there was no cloud cover; the night was clear and conditions were perfect.
I missed them entirely.
Sigh. Thankfully, there remain still so many wonders of Nature to be awed by, even on a daily basis. I'm forever grateful to my father, who taught me a profound appreciation of everything in the natural world. It makes every day, as you say, worthy of Celebration.
Codex*clap* This post is awe inspiring as well. I cannot imagine simply having them there as an alternative to plain old stars. ;)
Although not as spectacular, when I lived in Europe for a while, the cloud-rain-sun combination frequently created sun beams breaking through fluffy clouds and right next to it a clearly defined rainbow. I had seen this image in countless paintings and always thought that it was due to artistic freedom.
As to the emotionally difficult incessant dichotomy we are going through; I overheard someone in a grocery store put it in succinct but not eloquent terms. When asked "How are you?", a man responded: "Life is wonderful and absolute sh..t at the same time." I hope it changes again and that this shared experience of constant dichotomy doesn't become our new comraderie.
Lovely post - the world gives us beautiful gifts every day if we pay attention. I would love to see the Northern Lights one day!
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