| What makes it wonderful? |
The dazzling colors appearing mysteriously across the night sky have inspired generations of myths and stories, often associated with life after death! For the Inuit, the lights were the spirits of the deceased playing games in the sky! For the Vikings, they were the spears and helmets of the Valkyries leading the souls of the dead to the afterlife! Others saw the spirits of slain animals, the torches of good giants, and the reflections of an abundant catch of herring. Good prophecies and bad ones! Some Native Americans even believed that you had to clap to keep the lights in the sky, while if you whistled, they would sweep down and take you away!
I’m not sure how much of this is true, but it still feels like a spiritual experience standing under the Northern Lights! The lights ebb and flow over 11-year periods depending on solar activity; right now, we’re coming down from the weakest high in a century! When I saw the lights in Seward, they were very faint and needed a long shutter speed to see them, but it was still spooky knowing they were there! |
