The strange object – bottom right in the photo – is the top of our folded sun parasol which lives next to our patio table, outside the house.

The ‘shades of lilac’ object in the background began its life as one of the biggest explosions the Earth would have ever seen… And its effects took approximately three days to reach the sky over our garden… not that they were headed for our garden, as such.

It’s the Aurora, of course… The famous ‘Northern Lights’. They are not supposed to be visible in Cumbria; even we are too far south.

We were once travelling on business in Vermont, USA, just south of the Canadian border. After dinner, the regulars in the small hotel made us very welcome at the bar and we ended up falling back into our rooms rather late.

In the morning, a group of fellow residents asked if we had seen the Aurora; that it had been the best they had ever seen…

We had slept through it…

Having so spectacularly missed our one chance to get that kind of view, we were resigned to never seeing the Northern Lights with our own eyes.

Three days ago, I paid little attention to the forecast that the record-breaking flare exploding from surface of the sun would result in a high-probability opportunity to see the Aurora. I was headed for bed when Bernie called me back, excitedly. She and Dean, our guest for the weekend, had just taken the collie out for the late-night necessaries and reported that they could see definite ‘curtain-like patterns’ in the sky.

For the next hour I was busy with the camera. You really need to see the images through the lens of the camera to get the colours. There’s no manipulation involved, it’s just a property of lenses!

Who would have thought it? The Aurora is not normally visible in the north of England. When you consider that two of the photos were taken looking south, the display was remarkable in its intensity.

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Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher. He is the founding Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a monthly Zoom-based gathering of companions, each one on their own, unique journey to the deeper states of them-selves.

There is no charge to attend these meetings.

Guidance will be provided to each person joining the group in the form of conversation, questions and answers. In this way, understanding and companionship are deepened in a caring and sharing environment.

There is an optional extension of this work in the form of monthly studies into the nature and facets of our personalities, how to examine them and the finding of the keys of spiritual return in each of the jewel’s facets.

There are two blog streams:

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk

(mystically-oriented writing)

and

http://www.suningemini.blog

(general interest, poetry, humour and travel)

Contact: STEVETEMEQ@gmail.com