SOLAR TIDES: ECHOES OF THE AURORA

The camera, still lingering on long exposure from the previous night, was set to capture the rare gift of an aurora in New England. Solar winds had hurled charged particles from the sun, colliding with the Earth's atmosphere, setting off an electric dance of fuchsia and green across the sky. The storm from the sun had traveled millions of miles, finally igniting the heavens with its ethereal glow.

I had hoped to catch those fleeting colors again, but something else had taken the stage. The ocean, as if responding to the same cosmic disturbance, moved in a way I had never seen before. Singular crescent waves raced toward the shore with unnatural speed, as though the ocean itself was caught in the solar storm’s grasp, convulsing, as if ancient creatures stirred beneath, summoned by the sun’s invisible hand.

The air was sharp, the wind carrying the remnants of the energy that had generated the aurora. A strange unease settled in with the descending temperatures, each gust piercing deeper, whispering of the unseen forces above and below. The sky and sea, both restless, reminded me of the delicate balance in our world, how a storm on the sun’s surface could ripple through the atmosphere and all the way to the ocean's depths.

I tried to capture a piece of it, lighting a moon scribbled heart in the sky, initials following, a fleeting attempt to leave a mark amidst the cosmic interplay. But standing there in the cold, beneath the aurora’s afterglow and the ocean’s unexpected surge, I realized how the earth hums to its own ancient rhythms, influenced by forces beyond our control, yet profoundly affecting the world we inhabit.