Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.
•••
I picked my way in darkness to the shore of Secret Lake — to wait and watch, for hours if necessary. A space weather forecast indicated a northern lights display was likely and I'd missed some spectacular shows the past few years due to clouds or travel. If the sky remained clear I'd be under it, bundled up and settled on a bench.
To my initial delight, a soft auroral glow suffused the northern horizon, a belt 15 to 20 degrees wide. The bright star Capella had just risen, twinkling through the mist of light and the sweeping limbs of spruce and tamarack. But to the west a dark vanguard of cloud seemed poised to advance.
I've observed and recorded 1,083 auroras since the mid-1960s and have contributed detailed observational data to researchers, so I knew this glow might be precursor to a celestial storm or just as likely fizzle, or be obscured by the overcast that I could now see was slowly approaching.
Ten minutes passed and the glow remained static. Twenty minutes and no change, except the western clouds were closer, about to engulf the prominent star Arcturus. Thirty minutes and the glow had stretched a little higher, but was still formless and no brighter. Arcturus had disappeared, as well as the northwestern end of the glowing belt. I braced for disappointment.
At around forty minutes I noticed a brightening spot in the handle of the Big Dipper, and the entire glow seemed "denser." I thought, "Here it comes — maybe." I inwardly winced when the bright spot faded, but four such spots abruptly appeared along the horizon and rapidly elongated into shimmering white "rays" fringed with pale green. All the light intensified. Then, igniting in the northwest, the sky erupted. From behind the clouds auroral "flames" surged for the zenith and in seconds spread across the entire sky. I laughed and thrust my arms skyward — an ecstatic fan — then hustled back up to the cabin to alert Pam.
We deployed lawn chairs and marveled as the sky pulsated in swells of feathery light, a pageant of the northern world. I've never tired of the show, and along with old white pines, icy rivers flush with snowmelt, dazzling fall leaves, loon yodels and other icons of the boreal forest, the aurora evokes a spirited sense of place. Which is odd in a way since the northern lights are not part of the biosphere. Unlike the influence we exert on many constituents of the Earth's life zone, humans lack the capacity to fold, bend, spindle or mutilate the aurora — the rays and flames will sprightly cavort undiminished above the lichened ruins and scattered bones of our civilization.