Northern Lights

With social media and smart phones came the ability to know when you might be able to see the Aurora Borealis. It has always been a dream of mine to witness it. I thought maybe I would be somewhere in Finland, my ancestor's Motherland... but it seems with social media understanding we want phenom from the skies, and news picking up on this...well, we are now aware at a grand scale when we might be able to see it.

After the total eclipse of the sun this past summer and looking at it with my naked eyes (not directly) and then taking photos and seeing the difference in person, I realized that we could be experiencing these things without knowing it...if we did not have smart phones and social media to rely on telling us it is there. BECAUSE! Yes, because where I lived it was a bit hazy, and only become slightly darker out. If I had not known, I would not have KNOWN.

The same COULD be said for the Aurora Borealis. We NEVER heard on the news, even 10 years ago that we might see the Norther Lights, but since I have been married (6+ years) my husband and I have been on the chase of clouds, eclipses, and mostly the Aurora.

Last night he woke me at 9:30 and said, "Let's go find the Northern Lights. People are already reporting it in on the news in Massachusetts." So, I hemmed and hawed a bit but got up and we headed out. I was not very convinced, since we had recently returned from a trip to Nova Scotia and we thought we would see them there, but did not get a glimpse.

We drove up to the local farm stand where we knew we would get the best view. Since the late 1800's and the regrowth of forests in New Hampshire, even driving to the tallest hill we cannot see the horizon. When we got there the parking area had about 10 cars parked there. I was grumbling about man made light and it was windy as heck, and a bit cold.

We saw that there was a lighter tinge to the sky to the north, there was a bit of cloud cover, but we could still see stars in the gaps. The sky looked hazy, but it was actually lit up by light. We could not see any color yet. We looked longer and waited. it was heading towards 10 pm. We knew that the best time to see them is between 11 and 1. Midnight being the magic hour. We could discern a light coloring to the left of us in magenta and in front of us a light tinge of green, and as my husband was saying, "red to the right", but nothing like what you see in photos.

We decided to sit in the car and warm up for a bit, then we saw a white light spike up from the ground into the skies, or maybe from the skies to the ground? I wanted to get back out there, so we went. The sky was looking brighter, and I was praying really, really hard like a child to see them, to really see the true northern lights...almost immediately there were rays of light all around, faint tinges of magenta and green. It was hand holding time, it was kissing time. It was putting hands in the air and saying thank you to the Great Father.

We took a few photos with his iPhone, and I pondered how we could not see the lights the way a camera can. It is kind of sad. So, I had the struggle with thinking we really miss a lot with our human eyes, and I turned on my heart eyes and turned off the camera lenses of the world and how I thought I was fooled into believing the lights would look like what everyone was sharing on social media. No one was saying, "We cannot see it with the naked eye". Which, in my naivety, I thought you actually could.

My husband has told me that if you are in a optimal viewing spot you can, or you most possibly can see it like a camera sees it. Since I have NOT witnessed it, I just have to go on faith that you can see it if you are in the REAL North: Alaska, Cananda, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia etc... I know I left some out, but in the Artic, or close to it.

I have to believe if you are in the path of the total eclipse that you would not need a camera to KNOW it was happening. After all, the world did not always have cameras, did they? It is relatively new in the timeline of humanity. So, I have been, since last night, teaching my heart that our menial vision is okay, that I just had to have patience, pray and look with faith to the heavens, and I would be granted the vision of what I believed.

Nothing can replace the witnessing without the camera lens. We walk with them attached to us, yes even those of us who really cannot stand them, but they cannot replace the human witnessing of the awesome thing you are witnessing at the moment. The concert, the carnival, the fantastic thing called life. Do not let it flash before your eyes by looking at it through the lens of a camera, witness it with pure human faith. You will be much happier for it in the end. Take a break from sharing on social media. You will wonder why exactly you are taking that photo. Is it something you really need to snap, or can you forgo it to witness the phenomenon in person with no evidence that you saw it, do you still have the capacity to hold something dear and valid and wonderful in your heart, that you witnessed alone, or shared with another that it is a memory, a snap shot in your soul...shared by looking into another's eyes, instead of their phone to see the photo you both look at through a camera lens.