Northern Lights Visions Danced Through My Head

 If you live anywhere near the Midwest or the Plains or maybe New England, you are likely pretty COLD today. In fact, as you already know, it's much more than cold. It's painful. Icy. Frightening cold. And until next week, it looks like we are stuck with it.

I've tried thinking warm, Wizard-of-Ozzy type thoughts, but that hasn't worked very well. I've tried eating hot soup and putting on three different sweaters. I've tried staying in bed with the covers over my head. I've tried shaking my hands and wearing hand warmers while driving and my thumbs hurt so much I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep them -- seriously.

Owing to fear of what we'll be owing if we turn up the heat too much, we're trying to tolerate as low a temperature as we can (though 66 feels pretty cold in here). But -- we have heat at least -- so I'm not complaining. Shivering if I get close to the window, but not complaining.

But. If we have to put up with this cold, shouldn't we get something for it? Like, what? Northern Lights?

Well, yeah, maybe. Northern Lights (aka Aurora Borealis) aren't seen around my neighborhood (though I have heard of them appearing up north in Minnesota). But just thinking of them made me decide that one day, some way, I'm going to talk my husband into a trip to see them - even if we spend a lot of time in some lodge, looking up through glass.

What are the lights, exactly? Aurora Borealus are "energized particles" (like I know what that is) from the sun called solar wind. When they bombard our atmosphere, the lights appear in waves of green, purple and red, flowing across the sky. The particles travel along the magnetic field toward earth's poles, and an energy exchange produces them.

The lights are in the northern hemisphere, though there are lights (called Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights), in the Southern hemisphere. To see the Northern Lights, you have to get inside the Arctic Circle in countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Canada, Alaska, and Russia, as well as Svalbard, Iceland and Greenland. If you are withink a 1,500 mile radius of the magnetic north pole, you should be in the auroral zone--which is anything north of the latitude  66°33'N.

Of course, it's very, very hard to predict where and when the lights will occur, and some people make numerous trips to try and see them. What I like about that is that getting far, far north in an icy, frigid land far away is actually desirable for people who want to see these lights.

And that made me feel warmer. Or at least better about being cold. And the idea of staying in bed and looking up at them? Makes me feel even warmer, still.

I'll just close with a Merry Christmas to all the people I love who are celebrating. And a hope that you can see the Northern Lights one day -- if you want to. I found this link about how to see them while you're inside somewhere. That's what I want, when I go:

17 Hotels Where You Can See the Northern Lights Without Leaving Your Bed

Photo by Vincent Guth on Unsplash