By the light of the southern aurora

There have been fabulous images of the Northern Lights over three last few days. I haven’t seen any reports of them being visible here, but we have had very cloudy skies, and a lot of rain – in fact it’s heaving down right now! It’s a natural phenomena I would love to see – my dad used to talk about them being visible in Cambridge when he was young, but we never saw any as we grew up there. I went to Iceland twice, and part of the reason was to catch site of the spectacle  – and one guide drove us out into the remote countryside looking for them, and we stood for ages in the freezing cold, looking heaven-ward, to no avail.

The Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis (and the Southern Lights, the Aurora Australis) is something to do with the magnetosphere being disturbed by solar wind, but I’m afraid the science is beyond me. They are so magnificent, and have such a powerful effect on people (not a physical effect, but an emotional and  maybe even spiritual response) which can’t really be properly captured in photos or on film, that I really feel as if I’m missing out! Maybe one day I’ll be lucky and be in a place they choose to visit!

I was looking to see how others had been inspired, and I looked for poems; however, I was surprised not to find any which properly expressed the magnificence and wonder.  I don’t wish to be rude, to anyone, but a lot of the poetry I did find was very pedestrian. What about visual arts? I found ‘Aurora Borealis’, a painting by  American artist Frederic Edwin Church from 1865, and another by Howard Russell Butler, painted in 1919, and there are also many others. Thinking of literature and first thought is obviously  of Philip Pullman’s magnificent novel, ‘Northern Lights’, the first part of his trilogy, ‘His Dark Materials’. There are many other books of course, inspired by or including this phenomena. 

I haven’t properly looked for inspirations from the southern aurora, except this verse from a song by Raul Malo, ‘Be My Penguin’:

At night, by the light of the southern aurora
We’ll navigate northward toward Bora Bora
While you eat the fauna, and I eat the flora
Be my penguin…

I think you might be able to find it on YouTube!! I have no images of the northern or southern lights, nor of any penguins, so my featured picture is of a moony and cloudy night in Uphill.