Northern Lights

Northern Lights

By LeRoy Zimmerman (Photosymphony)

Aurora Borealis, also called the Northern Lights, is one of the most
spectacular celestial phenomenon and an amazing nature’s art.

In early July this year, we took a trip to Alaska. As it was still the
land of the “Midnight Sun”, we did not have the chance to see the
fascinating display of colored lights at “night”. We however were
able to have a reminiscent of the aurora experience at a Theater
Museum in Fairbank. It was called “The Crown of Light”, which is a
“PhotoSymphony” production by LeRoy Zimmerman, a renowned
professional photographer for over forty years. His theater program
is the only panoramic aurora presentation anywhere, a show that has
been seen by thousands.

Before the show, we were able to be personally listening to his
presentation. He had traveled the globe capturing images with his
unique perspective and interpretation of the moment light and nature
collide. On October 1st 2007, the United States Postal Service issued
the first ever domestic Aurora stamp. LeRoy Zimmerman of Ester,
Alaska was honored to have one of his panoramas selected.

In the book “The Singing Wilderness”, Sigurd Olson, a nature
writer, wrote his observations of the Northern Lights:

“The lights of the aurora moved and shifted over the horizon.
Sometimes there were shafts of yellow tinged with green, then
masses of evanescence which moved from east to west and back
again. Green streamers of bluish white zigzagged like a tremendous
trembling curtain from one end to the other. Streaks of yellow and
orange and red shimmered along the flowing borders. Never for a
moment were they still, fading until they were almost completely
gone, only to dance forth again in renewed splendor with infinite
combination and starting patterns of design.”

Olson’s description of the Northern Lights is what I saw in the show
“The Crown of Light”, the Aurora Experience at Theater Museum
in Fairbank, Alaska.

Sigurd Olson also had a beautiful meditation of the Northern Lights.
While he was skating along a frozen pond in wilderness lake country
of the Quetico-Superior, he had the incredible experience of seeing
the swirls of color both above and beneath him. He wrote:

“At that moment I was part of the aurora, part of its light and of
the great curtain that trembled above me.”


Yeh Tze