Something Beautiful

Aurora Borealis over Cochnewagon Pond in Monmouth, Maine. Photo by David Wellcome, taken with his cell phone.

I remember working so hard to learn how to spell the word, “beautiful,” reciting the letters to myself over and over again until I fixed the proper spelling in my little gray cells. It must have been a word on Miss Toomey’s spelling list that week. But, whether or not you can spell “beautiful” correctly, you know what beauty is. You knew long before your teacher added “beautiful” to your word list.

For me, the night sky is beautiful. So, last weekend when the aurora borealis was putting on a show here in Maine, my spouse and I drove to the Atlantic Ocean, a few miles from our house, and watched. Blueish-white lights were flashing all over the sky in a stunning display. Later, when we pulled into our driveway, deep red was beginning to be visible to the naked eye. We never saw pinks, greens, or blues, however.

Truth told, most photographs displaying a wide array of aurora colors, including this one, are so varied and vibrant because they were taken with timed exposures. Because the camera shutter is open longer in such a photograph, the camera is able to record colors humans cannot see with the naked eye. I don’t quite understand the mechanics of that. My son, who took this picture, saw the same blueish-white light — and, later, the deep red — that we saw, whereas the photographs he took showed the full spectrum of the aurora borealis colors. And his experience was far from unique.

There must be a lesson here, but I haven’t yet worked out just what it is. Maybe . . . look deeper? Or, beauty is not just skin deep? Or, what you see is not necessarily what you get?

What do you think?

Regardless of any lesson the phenomenon of photography might teach us, the aurora was beautiful and miraculous, even if you saw only the blueish-white light. The colorful photos are stunning, too. We don’t always have to have a neat lesson to tidy up our experiences. Sometimes beauty itself is enough. I’m posting this image just because we all need a little beauty sometimes.

Love,

Sylvia