Dancing Celestial Lights

© Photographer:Roman Krochuk | Agency: Dreamstime.com

The first time I saw the northern lights, I was in college, walking home from the library late one night. I noticed the sky was glowing to the north, but just wrote it off as city glow, even though it was green and not orange. The next day, I heard on the news that the aurora had been visible the night before. I looked right at it and didn't realize what it was! Chalk it up to fatigue and a cold night, with me hurrying to get back to the dorm.

The second time I saw the aurora was when I lived in the Twin Cities. Even though I was in the brightly lit suburbs, I was able to watch the faint green lights from my balcony. It was a mostly clear night with just a few wispy clouds passing by. But I really couldn't see the lights unless there was a cloud there to act as a reflector. Not a spectacular display, but had I been away from city lights, it would have been.

The northern lights have fascinated and troubled people for centuries. Often the lights were considered omens of coming wars or famines. Elsewhere, they were thought to be the souls of ancestors or dead warriors. But my favorite explanation is that the lights were the reflection of a great treasure: either huge swarms of herring (a belief from Scandanavia) or the ultimate motherlode of gold (believed by prospectors during the Klondike gold rush).

In fact, the aurora originates with the sun and its solar winds, which impinge on the Earth's atmosphere. The beauty of this arrangement is that scientists now can predict, fairly accurately, when the aurora will occur. Check out the link to spaceweather.com. You can sign up for alerts so you don't miss the next great aurora display.

And from NASA, we have this extraordinary image:


It's the aurora borealis from space, taken by the crew of the shuttle Atlantis during a mission this past summer. Somehow it's comforting to know that the northern lights are just as beautiful and ethereal from above as from below.

Lullaby for Grown-Ups - Jacob Miller

The lullaby this week is a song by Jacob Miller (not the deceased reggae singer, another Jacob Miller) called Who We Are. The video is from the BBC documentary Planet Earth and features some stunning nature images. I hope you enjoy this addition to the growing collection of Lullabies for Grown-Ups.

What the Evening Reveals

© Photographer:Mark Ross | Agency: Dreamstime.com

I won't make it a habit to post poetry here, but I was going through a new book of poetry I got - a collection by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke - and his poem Evening was so exquisite, I wanted to share it with you. The translator is Stephen Mitchell.

Evening

The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;

and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;

and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternately stone in you and star.

Lullaby for Grown-Ups - Hem

This week's lullaby is the song Red Wing by the group Hem. They have a bit of a country feel to them. I think this song is so pretty and I love the lyrics. Settle back and enjoy this great song as we head into the holiday week.

Birds Fly to the Stars, I Guess

Well, I had hoped to go out and try to find Comet Holmes so I could give you a report. This comet surprised everyone recently by suddenly becoming very bright, bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye. No one knows why this happened, so it's very mysterious.

But my timing is bad, because we have partly or mostly cloudy skies forecast for about the next week. That's November in Wisconsin. Instead, I put up a link in the links section to spaceweather.com. This is a great site that offers information on auroras, meteor showers, eclipses and other interesting astronomical events. They have a sky map that shows where to look for the comet, so you can go find it for yourself if the skies will cooperate. Good luck!

Besides clouds, I've got Canada geese in the sky over my neighborhood. They're hanging out until the ponds and lakes freeze over and they head south. Sometimes they fly at night, moving from one field to another. I hear their honking as they fly overhead.

Many song birds migrate at night, using the cover of dark to avoid predators. I remember when I first learned that fact about the natural world. It made the night seem more interesting. I had just assumed that most birds slept at night, except the noctural ones like owls. I wondered what other phenomena the night was concealing that had escaped my notice.

Of course, some birds are famous for singing at night, like nightingales. That can be either charming if you're out for a night walk or annoying if you're trying to sleep. Someone I know once threw a pot of water at a nightingale that wouldn't shut up. The bird did not appreciate it. It flew out of the tree, found a nearby tree and resumed singing.

Bird activity at night made me think of the Beatles song Blackbird, so enjoy the video. And as for the title of this post, do you remember where it's from? The movie Moonstruck, with Cher and Nicholas Cage, which is a great movie beyond that fact that it's in keeping with the night theme. "Bring me the big knife!" "It's Cosmo's moon!" Time to update the Netflix queue...

Lullaby for Grown-Ups - LED Throwies

What is an LED throwie? It's simply an LED light, battery and magnet. They'll stick to any surface that has a sufficient amount of iron, such as the building facade in this video. Young people like to use these inexpensive lights to brighten up their neighborhoods, creating their own artistic statements with light.

Technically, LED throwies are considered a form of graffiti. But I have to say, if someone put these up in my neighborhood, I'd be all right with that. I might even help pick them off after they burned out.

Relax and enjoy this video. The song is Heartbeats, performed by Jose Gonzalez.

Good Night, Moon

I don't want us to suffer from moon fatigue, so I'll be moving on to other topics. But don't worry, we'll revisit the moon from time to time.

Before we go, though, one more thing: this very easy synopsis of how you can tell when the moon will rise: The new moon always rises at sunrise, the first quarter moon rises at noon, the full moon rises at sunset and the last quarter moon at midnight. I've always been confused by this, because sometimes you see the moon during the day and sometimes you don't. This is the kind of information you might come across in old novels, when someone has to make an escape at night and waits for the moon to set so it's completely dark. See how handy this stuff is?

Lullaby for Grown-Ups - Starlight Plateau

This week's lullaby is a meditative song featuring a Native American flute melody. I love the sound of Native American flute - so rich and vibrant. I find it very relaxing to listen to. This song was written and performed by Jim Cook, who played both the flute and keyboards.

The Rabbit in the Moon

Here is an animated version of the traditional Asian tale that explains how the rabbit ended up on the moon. I like this story, as it honors kindness while recognizing its limits. I hope you enjoy this wonderful story.

The Many Inhabitants of the Moon

Everyone knows about the man in the moon, a mysterious figure who nevertheless, according to tradition, enjoys a glass or two of red wine. But people in other cultures see different figures in the moon, including a woman, a rabbit, a moose, a buffalo and a dragon (although probably not all at once). It's an example of pareidolia - finding order or structure in random images or sounds. Another example is looking for animals or faces in clouds.

There is a theory that the traditional figures people see in the moon (a man in Europe and a rabbit in Asia) may be related to the latitude of their location, since the moon appears somewhat differently in different latitudes. To explore this idea, follow this link for more information.

Take some time to look at the moon image above and see what other moon inhabitants you can imagine. If I squint right, I can almost see the buffalo...

Halloween Thoughts, and a Real Ghost Story

What is it about the night that enchants children? So many children's books show their characters going out into the night for a great adventure (and almost always leaving their parents behind).

The great fun of Halloween isn't just the candy. It's a chance for children to roam their neighborhoods in the dark, to confirm their suspicions that things really are different at night. That's when the imagination can take over, filling in the gaps left by the absent light.

The origins of Halloween go back to the Celts, who celebrated Samhain, a harvest festival, in the late autumn. They believed it was a night when the boundary between the physical and spiritual worlds became very thin. This allowed spirits into the world to cause problems for humans. To confuse the spirits, people dressed as ghosts and ghouls, hoping to trick the spirits into moving away from their village.

Ghost stories are still with us, of course. A 2003 poll found that 51% of US adults believe in ghosts. Some people have speculated that ghosts are actually time-space anomalies, or some sort of electromagnetic residue. Others view ghosts as psychological projections of our fears.

In celebration of Halloween, take a look at the above video, which is an actual account of an encounter with a ghost known as the Ada Witch. It takes a while to get to the story, so be patient. For more information on this particular ghost, follow
this link and have a Happy Halloween!

A Smooky Ghost Story

Let's take a little break from the lullabies, since Halloween is coming up, a wonderful nighttime holiday. Here's a smooky ghost story, written and narrated by 5-year-old Benjamin, who took the opportunity to practice his counting.

I'll post another ghost story in a couple of days -- a real life one. In the meantime, I hope all the ghosts and goblins you encounter are friendly ones!

The Moon and His Two Wives

For another explanation of the moon's phases, consider this delightful film, based on a tale from the country of Malawi.

The Inconstant Moon

Romeo: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,

That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—

Juliet: O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,

That monthly changes in her circled orb,

Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2. 12

As I was thinking about the lunar cycle and the moon's phases, I remembered a conversation I had with a friend a few years ago who was trying to understand the mechanics of the moon phases, and I realized I didn't really get it either (or had just forgotten).

Well, since we're here, let's quickly and painlessly get up to speed on the moon’s phases. Here's a diagram to help:

That's the Earth in the center with the moon circling. The outer moon figures show the phases as seen from the Earth. It's really just about the positioning of the moon with respect to the sun and the Earth. It also relates to the fact that the moon seems as though it doesn't rotate (although it does, once for every revolution around the Earth).

Well, I don't want to get too technical. After all, it's getting late. The image above of the moon and the Earth's atmosphere is courtesy of NASA, taken from the International Space Station. The NASA images are amazing, and we're just getting started!

As for Romeo and Juliet, maybe if he'd sworn by the moon, things would have turned out differently. We'll never know. The moon may seem inconstant, but it is reliable in its cycle, waxing and waning as it has for millenia. It takes human minds to apply moral judgments to natural phenomena. I'm pretty sure the moon doesn't care.

Lullaby for Grown-Ups - Nick Drake

In keeping with the moon theme, here's a tribute video featuring Nick Drake's song Pink Moon. You might remember it from a Volkswagen ad a few years ago. I hope you enjoy it.