Fourteen months after Hurricane Helene’s winds stripped entire mountains bare, leaving only skeletal trees along Elk Mountain Scenic Highway north of Asheville, the sky decided to answer back.
On the evening of November 11, 2025, social media and my Aurora Alert app lit up with word of a severe G4 geomagnetic storm. Badger was skeptical – Western North Carolina on November nights is, at best, meteor shower country – but the solar data looked too good to ignore. I grabbed my camera and headed to a familiar pull-off high on Elk Mountain, a spot where I’ve shot sunrises and sunsets from for years, now ringed by Helene’s lonely survivors.
Just before midnight, the real show began: towering curtains of emerald and magenta, pulsing and breathing across the sky, crimson bleeding overhead while the stars shone straight through. I stood alone among the broken trees, pressed the shutter once, and knew the universe had just handed us proof that beauty gets the last word.
I am just a native of Fountain City who traded a suit for a camera so I could point it at breathtaking things, but on that ridge, under that impossible sky, I felt — for one quiet moment — that beauty was pointing back.
A few days later, my friend, the poet Philene Alvarado, saw the photograph (which I had temporarily titled “The Helene Trees Meet the Aurora”) and asked if she could try to put words to what she felt. What she sent back left me speechless.
With her permission, I’m proud to share both the photograph and her poem here together for the first time.
SON OF WINTER ~ A true Story about Thomas Mabry
By Philene Alvarado © November 17, 2025
Son of Winter and of Stars,
in the land of snow and ice,
he wandered over the mountains
into the valleys, and back up again
to the highest mountains he could find.
There ~ a dream unfolded before him,
such as never was before ~ until this night.
Aurora Borealis came charging
into this primeval landscape,
in a magnificent energy of
highly charged particles from the Sun.
They collided upon Earth’s Atmosphere,
presenting its beauty
in layer upon layer of shimmering curtains,
arcs, and pulsing gemstone colors.
Son of Winter was ready to capture it all,
and he did it so well, in the silence
and mysterious darkness of the night.
The depth of the bands of color
seemed to be like an ethereal plane
halfway to Heaven ~ but visible on Earth.
The lonely trees left standing
from the ravages of Helene,
the cyclone that devastated
lands and its people –
appeared swathed in the glimmering
robes of the Auroras.
All the while the stars shone
in their assigned places.
Such is the life of the Universe
Such is the life
of the Son of Winter and Stars,
Thomas Mabry,
Photographer Extraordinaire.
Photograph © 2025 Thomas Mabry @honeybadgerimages – All Rights Reserved
Many of the HoneyBadgerImages are on display at instagram.com/honeybadgerimages.
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Extraordinarily beautiful of both artists. My family has properties in Wilson Creek NC so this touched me and all others affected by Helene in this area.
Badger: Expect the headless horseman to appear any minute.
Let me introduce myself ~ I am Philene Alvarado ~ Poet and Author
I would like to thank Thomas Mabry for this incredible opportunity,
to publish my poem that I wrote expressly for this picture, as it is
about his life. We are both creative souls, that seek beauty in everyday
life. This post is a combination of both of our talents.
Also I want to say thank you to Knox TN the source for news, for
publishing this post today. I am so honored to be a part of
Thomas Mabry’s incredible work as a contributor of poetry.
Lastly, I want to thank everyone involved in getting it posted today.
Thanks for allowing me the honor of using your poem with Helene Trees meet the Aurora, Philene. This was a perfect pairing!
Dearest Knox TN,
My highest gratitude to everyone there. This is by far the best publication, I personally have read yet.
Congratulations to both of my dearest friends Thomas Mabry (Son of Winter) and Philene Alvarado, whose poetry is truly words of art.
I could feel the chill in the night air as Thomas made his way up to the dark high ridge of Elk Mountain. His heart rate climbing with the anticipation of not knowing what he may find. I have followed the devastation of Hurricane Helene through Thomas since day one. Then, when God showed him the beauty of the Aurora’s dancing behind the few standing surviving trees, he was there to capture that beauty for us.
When I found out Philene Alvarado had wrote a Poem to go with this magnificent photo I was beyond excited!! Just as you can picture him, the Son of Winter, hiking through the dark hills and valleys to get to the highest peak. Knowing how Hurricane Helene devastated, not just the land, but the people of the land, and there it was, a glimmering ray of hope.
This story, the photo, the poem, all brought me to tears. It is such an explosion of how wonderful these two artists work so well together!! I am truly honored to be acquainted with them!!