Birth, life and fading of the Northern Lights over Lake Inari

 1st picture 9:48pm, Lake Inari, North-East

 Due West

 Due North

 The Lights grow stronger..

 ...and stronger...

 ...and start undulating.

 Peak of activity, starting around 10:30pm

The dance is starting, impossible to capture with a still picture

But 'tis engraved in my memory 

We can now feel the activity is much less intense, the Lights are fading. It's about 11pm 

The last fringes of the first Northern Lights I ever saw slowly fade into space.

I will never forget.

Across Inarijärvi / Lake Inari 25.12.12

  Early morning, around 10am

 I have yet to identify this bird

 Late afternoon, around 2pm

Man I must be healthy...

"Walking is man's best medicine."

Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine (460-377 BCE)

1st night in Inari, Finland

 Traditional Finnish food I - starters (pour Chab : tout ce que je sais : il y a des airelles, du rêne, des betteraves, du saumon aux câpres, du chou...le reste, je n'm'en souviens pas !)

 Traditional Finnish food II - the trout was excellent

 Moonshine over Hotelli Inari

 Night sky over Inarijärvi / Lake Inari - no Northern lights this time...

The moon, the moon!

Moderation

"Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some, and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some."

Robert Fulghum, author (b. 1937)

The other self

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)