The Aurora

The Story:

The Aurora is the most personal song on the record. After my brother died to suicide, I was undone.  He was my person.  The one constant connection and losing him felt like losing the shape of the world itself.  I was left with anger, questions, and a weight so heavy that functioning as a human being became difficult.  Words failed.  Explanations meant nothing.

Over time, my attention shifted outward.  I began listening to the wind, watching the trees, noticing the land again.  In those quiet moments, I would hear fragments of his voice, catch glimpses of his face in the woods.  I dreamed of him often, trying to speak, trying to understand.  Until one dream changed everything.  In it, I didn’t just see him.  I recognized him in the aurora itself, moving within the green, red, and blue light above the frozen ground.

Across Alaska and Arctic Indigenous cultures, the Aurora Borealis is deeply tied to ancestral belief.  It's often seen as the spirits of the dead communicating, guiding, or watching over those who remain.  This song lives in that space between grief and knowing.  Not closure, but certainty.  Not peace, but assurance.  A moment where the loss doesn’t vanish - but it does become bearable.

The Lyrics:

Wind moves soft through the frozen pines,

Carrying echoes of old bloodlines.

 

We were two boys carved from the same cold stone,

Shared our scars, never walked alone.

My brother’s laugh held back the dark,

A fire in the snow, a pulsing spark.

 

But life cut deep and drew him down,

One winter night he could’ve drown.

 

He took the road I couldn’t find,

And left me here with half a mind.

 

I’d trade my breath for one more day,

Beside him where he walked away.

 

He stepped into greens, into reds, into blues,

A rippling light where the lost pass through.

I saw him there in the dream he gave,

Walking calm toward a brighter wave.

 

And I woke with a heart carved clean in two,

Wishing I’d have walked through the lights with you.

 

Weeks went by and the cold grew strong,

Nights felt stretched and far too long.

Then I’d hear him call in the drifting snow,

A voice I knew from years ago.

 

Saw his face in the spruce and stone,

Felt him near when I stood alone.

Grief and fear in equal part,

Fought for the seams of a breaking heart.

 

Yet every whisper eased the weight.

As if he’d found a kinder fate...

 

He stepped into greens, into reds, into blues,

A doorway shaped by the life he knew.

I saw his smile in the wind-lit haze,

Heard him speak from the ancient blaze.

 

And I knew in the glow of that colored sky.

My brother lives where the ancestors lie...

 

The night he returned was burning bright,

Aurora dancing like living light.

His voice on the wind said, “I’m alright…"

"I’m waiting for you when it’s your time..."

"Brother..."

"...but not tonight."