Northern Lights from the Woods Out Back 11-11-2025
Beauty is the harvest of presence. David Whyte (Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words)
Mystery cannot be unraveled by thought. … Mystery keeps its secret to itself. Through its reserve it invites us ever nearer to the hearth of truth and belonging. … A life that has closed off mystery has deadened itself. … The wonder of presence is the majesty of what it so subtly conceals. John O’Donohue (Our longing is an echo of the divine longing – essay in Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Hunger to Belong)
Light is the greatest unnoticed force of transfiguration in the world: it literally alters everything it touches and through colour dresses nature to delight, befriend, inspire and shelter us. … We dwell between the air and the earth, guests of that middle kingdom where light and colour embrace. … The spectrum of colour is the reservoir, the broad band of color that is always present. But the human eye can never behold the whole visual/non-visual range of that spectrum. John O’Donohue (The Colour of Beauty in Beauty: The Invisible Embrace)
Most people don’t look …
The gaze that pierces – few have it –
What does the gaze pierce?
The question mark.
(Henri Cartier-Bresson quoted in Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Hunger to Belong)
This blog morning finds me in awe and wonder of as well as gratitude for the beauty that surrounds me. I’m blessed to live in a landscape that wraps me in its cozy blanket of beauty whether I’m present to it or oblivious, having turned my attention somewhere else. The ever-present beauty of this place gives itself without regard to my focus, my gaze.
Last night the northern sky invited my attention in the midst of a strong geomagnetic storm. At last, a dream long held unfolded before my eyes (and the much sharper camera lens). I was seeing the Northern Lights. The aurora borealis right here standing on my deck in the woods out back, watching as I rode waves of feels – joy, gratitude, awe, excitement, satisfaction, and more.
On this morning after my excitement, I’m present to deep gratitude for the experience, and for the mystery, wonder, and beauty of the cosmos. Life, Gaia, and beyond is simply stunning, inviting us to know that we each are integral parts of a greater whole, even, perhaps especially, in the midst of chaos and crisis around every corner (and, perhaps, knocking at your door). As I step into the wonder of this ‘dream come true’ event, I find wisdom in the words of John O’Donohue and David Whyte inspiring me to deepen my reflection and my appreciation.
You may not have witnessed the Northern Lights last evening, but what beauty did you encounter? What tickles your attention to allow mystery, the great unknown, to live comfortably within just as it seeks to comfort you, not with answers, but with its very presence? What on this day will you invite to ignite your gaze to pierce the cloak of the obvious and embrace the beauty and wonder that is Life?
Dawn — The Morning After 11-12-2025