Aurora

 "I never saw magic crazy as this, never saw moons, knew the meaning of the sea." 

- Nick Drake, Northern Sky

I've yet to drink my fill on annual astrological events. The solar eclipse here in Central Pennsylvania was about as ephemeral as they come, with a four second glimpse through a window of cloudless sky in a sea of gray being my only sighting. The northern lights made an appearance back home in May, and I spent some time looking for them while out striper fishing, but a slight drizzling rain had persisted all night. Yet this October night was crisp and cold and clear enough for the aurora's second coming to shine on through bigger and better. 

    I didn't even know they would make a showing along the East Coast until my roommate informed me of such a thing right before sundown. Any other personal responsibilities for the night were soon demoted to the shadows of afterthoughts, and I raced off for the Penn State Arboretum. 

    Upon arrival at sundown, pink striations were already lighting up the sky. I laid down in an empty grassy field and looked up. People always forget to look up. How horribly incompetent our species is at contemplating vastness! Perhaps that is why we ogle so profoundly at major changes in the sky, that we're just so unused to the macrocosm, the idea that our world is so much bigger than us.

    My loner facade soon began to crumble, however, as my friend Matt and his brother soon joined us, and I then linked up with my friends Ethan and Mar, and we watched the striations pulse along and away across the Big Dipper and beyond. 

    At first, they were mostly pinks and purples, which slowly gave way to muted blues and grays and finally greens, life-green bands that lit up the sky every which direction, full of magic. 

The pictures taken in this article were captured by much better photographers than me, most specifically my friends Ethan Feldman and Mar Escarcena