Once in a rare while, the sun reminds us that Earth is not an island but a traveler moving through a sea of charged particles and invisible forces. This Monday night, a geomagnetic storm born of solar activity is expected to carry the aurora borealis far enough south that eleven American states may witness the Northern Lights — a phenomenon most of their residents have never seen and may never see again. It is a moment when the machinery of the cosmos briefly becomes visible to ordinary eyes, asking nothing more of its audience than darkness, patience, and a willingness to look up.