One unassuming October night in 2003 I got a call from my friend who frantically told me something was happening in the sky. She knew to call me as I would know what the heck was going on since I was really into weather and astronomical events. Before I could even ask her to describe it, she blurted out 3 words that made me stare at my Dad with wide eyes and a dropped jaw:
“Moving green ribbons”. It was the Aurora Borealis.
Dad and I ran out into the brisk Chicago night with barely enough clothing to keep hypothermia at bay for too long, but we weren’t going to risk missing our chance to see the Aurora. I had never been graced with the opportunity as auroral activity is not common in Illinois. As we clambered out of the house like 2 kids running down the stairs on Christmas morning, the shadowy figure of our giant entry way lilac bush gave way with each hasty footstep to reveal a spectacle so grand and indescribable that it fundamentally changed the course of my life forever.
The dark starlit sky was alive with long dancing ribbons of neon green and electric blue. The luminous pillars morphed and shifted position with such elegance that would have any esteemed ballroom dancer taking notes. We could barely form words, but we didn’t need to, for in that moment we were completely connected not only to each other, but to the sky, the planet…to everything. I was 12 years old and the magic of the cosmos was revealing its full hand to me. I had no idea how to process what I was experiencing so I just kept watching, and as I did meteors began streaking across the sky, just as the tears began to streak down my cheeks. The meteors had short, but very noticeable white tails which with masterful precision contrasted perfectly against their black and green canvas. Not even the collective hands of history’s greatest artists could paint a better painting then the one I was staring up at. I didn't know it at the time, but this was my first experience with the sublime.
I won't forget that night for as long as I live. The night the sky and the stars danced for my Dad and I.
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The G5 magnetic storm of October 28th 2003 and the cluster of activity that followed it were affectionately nicknamed the Halloween solar storms and were one of Earth’s strongest periods of solar maximum in recorded human history. In the northern hemisphere the storm brought auroral activity down as far south as Texas and Florida. It was for many people, the only time they had and will ever have to see one of nature’s most breathtaking displays. The Aurorae causing X-Class Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs for short) that erupted from the Sun and barreled towards Earth slammed into our ionosphere just in time to be the grand finale to the waning Orionids meteor shower. The Orionids peaked on the night of October 20th that year but still produced meteors until roughly November 7th. The shower whose once tiny white streaks caused 12 year old me to begin crying in confusion of how anything could possibly be so beautiful, have been steadily increasing in numbers over the last few decades and has rightfully earned it's spot next to the Perseids and Geminids as one of the most reliable major meteor showers you can see annually.
Space nerd stuff aside; people love to talk about timeline shifts and I like to think that if that is indeed what’s going on, then maybe on that cold October night, young me unknowingly chose to start the long and arduous journey down a different path. A timeline full of self discovery and countless adventures. I also like to think that many others stretched out across our pale blue dot of a planet who also happened to be ogling at the heavens with tear stained cheeks and transfixed eyes, joined me down that path as well.
When I say that night fundamentally changed the course of my life, I meant it. My entire perspective on life and how I see the world around me shifted. That night is a vital piece of the puzzle that helps define who I am, but I wasn’t conscious of that at the moment. Reflecting on my life is something I’ve learned is necessary in order to truly understand myself. Our big memories are often unassuming when you’re in the moment itself, but yet they replay consistently in our mind like a stuttering film. This is because our brains process important moments as if it were a camera taking photos and it knows before we even do that “you’re definitely going to want to revisit this a billion more times before you finally kick the bucket”, sooo it slaps a big giant “DO NOT DELETE” sticker on it and files it away before you even get a chance to decide if it’s worthy of such a significant place in the highlight reel of your life.
Now I’m going to talk about the importance of art and how it plays a role in some of the biggest memories our brains file as such for us without permission.
I’m an artist and to be honest, when I was younger I never really knew what that meant and why it was so significant. I’d often think “sure, I can draw, but so what? I’d rather be rich...”. It wasn’t until I began to realize the weight that being an artist had on me that I realized it’s not just a talent or hobby, it’s the very lens in which I see the world through. It’s the most fundamental base layer property of who I am.
After realizing what being an artist really meant, I eventually landed on a couple conclusions about art. The first being that if you’re a human, you are an artist (yes, you’re an artist!) how so? because we create everything in our lives either directly with our hands (a human’s favorite art tool), or indirectly by setting a string of events into motion that slowly over time paints the picture you want to see yourself in. The second conclusion I came to is that everything we see and experience with our eyes in our own life is either an art medium we can use, or a piece of artwork we can enjoy.
I want to tell you about the oldest known human made art. It is a 67,800 year old cave painting of a human hand. The hand in question was the artist’s own hand that they traced onto the rock. It’s honestly a super impactful work of art made by our ancient ancestors and yet here we are thousands of years later doing the exact same thing, albeit on paper instead of rock and now we say “it’s not a hand, it’s a turkey!".
The bottom line is that we are all creators, and our hands allow us to create whatever we want to make. This is special to humans and it sets us apart from the other animals we share Earth with.
The story of our species is told through countless generations of collective artwork. It’s a story passed down for hundreds of years from a source lost to time, or a cave painting that you have a connection to because it feels oddly familiar even though there’s thousands of years separating you from the artist. It’s the language of our reality and just like music, it’s a love language to the soul and captures the very essence of what it means to be alive.
Waking up everyday in a world where everything is quite literally some type of art can be overwhelming because how do you even begin to process any of it correctly? Well, it’s up to the individual to connect with the abundance of what’s around them in their life in their own way at their own pace. That’s it, no further explanation needs to be given.
So next time you see someone staring silently at a fancy art exhibit for several minutes while they hold their untouched glass of whatever red wine the ticket of admission included, remember that it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand how anyone could be so moved by a painting of a banana with tape on it, it’s not your moment to understand.
The point I’m making is that our connection to art, and our perceptions of what art is, is just like our monumental memories. They’re both deeply personal and cannot be fully articulated in words as they represent something that conventional language fails to be able to adequately describe. What you’re left with is more akin to “a vibe” or “state of momentary being” rather than anything you can actually explain. It’s best to treasure these for what they are, transient moments of connection to the metaphysical, rather than dampen it by trying to over explain yourself to someone who frankly doesn’t care. No amount of flowery adjectives or inflection will ever put them in YOUR moment, but that’s ok, they have their own moments that are just as special and beautiful as yours are to you.
I’ll conclude this post by saying that for me, my favorite type of art is the art that the Earth and cosmos makes. From the aurora borealis, to meteor showers, a shimmering blue crystal or an ancient shark’s tooth as big as my hand, even a beautiful sunset with clouds so colorful that they look more like paint strokes than pockets of cooling water gas trapped together by atmospheric conditions.
As I observe Earth’s artwork in these moments I feel truly connected to the world around me and am reminded of the importance of being present. It helps me remember why life is so grand and worth waking up every morning to experience more of. I’ve learned so much about myself by stitching together these moments my brain has categorized as important and insists on replaying for me whenever possible. By recollecting them I get to relive them, and it’s then, as I’m lost in a reverie unbound by the laws of time, that a narrative slowly begins to reveal itself. It’s a book, a razzling story about who and what I am and what my experience on Earth looks and feels like. It’s literally the full resolution download of every molecule of stardust running through my body that came together and chose to make a human.
Before I understood these things I was essentially just reading my own book’s synopsis by reminiscing on snap shot special memories as individual things that happened to me rather than parts of a bigger story. I used to dreamily sigh about how nice it’d be to experience that exact moment again without realizing that I was in fact reliving that exact moment every time I’d think about it. The colors of the dancing aurora, the smells the brisk autumn night carried on its breeze, how cold my arms were and how little I cared, and most importantly the silent understanding I had with my father that we were truly blessed to be right there, right then. Time never took any of that away, it’s all been here the whole time burning itself into the pages of my book.
So whether you interpret this post as a piece of artwork in itself, or as the musings of an autistic person who really loves art and looking at the night sky, let it nevertheless be a gentle reminder that we come here with everything we need. The conscious experiences we have throughout our lives provide us the tools we need to remember that.
-Alyssa Reeves