Stay Awake!
Letting the Beauty of the Stars Infuse Our Creative Spirits
I've seen the Northern Lights a couple of times before in Massachusetts, where I live at the moment, but never anything like the solar storm that lit up our skies this weekend.
To the naked eye it appeared as a kind of shimmer in the northern skies, with occasional pillars of brighter, ghostly white.
But my cell phone captured another vision entirely: bright violet pillars and vast washes of purple, with greenish tinges down toward the horizon.
It was stunning, in a literal sense...the longer I stood out in the dark, cold meadow, soaking in those star rays and seeing with both human eye and camera eye, the more stunned and awestruck I felt.
Of course, we are bathed in sunlight and starlight every single day of our lives. But to see the rays at night, backlit by pinpoints of more distant stars, was to feel in a visceral way the fact that all of Earth—this rocky, watery, blue-green outpost—came from those pulsing galactic nurseries of energy and Light.
We are both Earth and Light.
Indeed, we are bridges between Light and Earth—we humans and all the other living beings on this planet, from the tiniest bacteria to the stately trees to every furry mammal or feathered bird tending to her young these busy days of springtime.
Was it an accident that this fierce solar storm arrived on Earth for Mother's Day weekend?
Or was it a powerful signal from the Mothers of our Creation, warning us that we need to cultivate our gardens more carefully here on our distressed planet?
Whether it was coincidence or synchrony, last night's incredible light show left me awed and grateful for this reminder of the beauty of our cosmic home and our great good fortune to belong to such a fertile, creative planet.
Yesterday the swallows were singing and chattering as they swooped in and out of the barn, tending to their nests. I saw a fox swinging along the road with a purposeful stride, no doubt out hunting with a burrow of hungry mouths to feed.
At midday the huge vultures soared overhead, the cleaning crew of the skies, and on my way home from the hilltop where I watched the midnight Light show, I saw a big black bear dive into the bushes away from my intrusive car lights, seeking out the velvety darkness and the stars.
Everywhere we look, in the springtime, Life is bursting through the cracks and seams of the Earth. It's a marvelous generative time of year. For me it's an annual time of release, as the academic year comes to an end and I am freed to begin to tend my own gardens again, literally and figuratively.
I will be hosting another in my free online Green Fire Author Conversations series on Thursday May 16 at 7 pm Eastern, this time talking with authors Adrian Dubow and Laura Koffsky about their funny, heartwarming and profound memoir of the Covid time, Good Work, Grit and Gratitude: The Bittersweet Lessons of the Lemonade Generation. Come join us! Register here.
Then I'll be heading out to explore some other regions of our beautiful planet, leading a fabulous memoir retreat in Tuscany, visiting with a dear friend in Umbria, leading a magical Riding & Writing group in Iceland, and then heading up to my beloved Nova Scotia for some recharge time by the sea.
I know that this kind of travel for pleasure is not good for our planet. But having spent some 30 years hardly ever boarding a plane, focused as I was on raising my kids and tending my home life, there are a few places I really want to see while I still have time.
And there is something to be said for the creative boost we get from exploration, from moving beyond our familiar boundaries; there is a reason that humans have always been drawn to journeying and questing, opening ourselves up to the catalyzing energy of the new, the unknown, the surprise.
Last night's surprise gift of seeing the Aurora way down south will live on in my memory for years to come, a portal into reconnecting with the star-cradle of Life on Earth, the Light-lines we all can trace back to our Source.
I close with a Rumi poem (translated by Coleman Barks) that I was moved to remember and look up last week, days before I was aware of the Aurora coming our way:
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
How are you staying awake these days, my friends? How is the symphony of springtime starlight illuminating your creative spirit?
Yours in Light,
Jennifer
Friends, it’s my pleasure and my passion to support you as we stretch towards living our lives creatively and to the fullest.
The motto of my author consulting business is “Writing to Right the World,” and the motto of my book publishing business, Green Fire Press, is “Books that Make the World Better.”
If these intentions resonate with you and you are working on a book, or have one in mind, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Supporting creative people bring their work more strongly out into the world is one way I try to make the world better….
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I love that Rumi poem. And your photos and drawings. Alas, I missed the lights here. I may not have stayed up late enough on Friday and Saturday night was cloudy. But I was out all day today in the countryside where I heard and observed many more birds than I used to in the suburbs!