Week 4 Reading (Northern lights)

I love the imagery in the beginning of this. The author starts of with a very broad view of movement that, as he gets farther down to where he's standing by the ice, is very similar to the movement and imagery of the ice. Of course, the ice and the lights have different feels to them but he describes both as never ceasing and never the same, which gradually gives the overall setting for the scene and brings the reader deeper and closer to what the author is about to do. The similarity between the lights and the ice soon becomes important as the author uses the imagery he created at the beginning to merge himself, the ice, and the lights together to communicate to the reader effectively what the experience felt like to him. That also makes it easier to understand his references to more similar experiences he has had. Even the exhausted exhilaration the author feels laying down on the ice is explained well by his choice to ramble on about science that just makes me want to read it fast but excitedly, like he probably was writing it. As the author gets into more specific examples about the paintings and the Chippewas, the previous experience the reader has had with the earlier descriptions helps with understanding the examples that probably otherwise would have seemed more like cliche northern lights descriptions. This is where the author can really start to persuade the reader of his views of the northern lights as a mystical and not scientific occurrence. The author comes back to some of his previous imagery at the end, but without the lights, which gives the reader the feeling that the experience was a special one that not many people get a chance to have. The reader, however, after reading this has had that privilege and leaves with the same mindset as the author.