August 21, 2017
722 miles from home to totality if we haven’t been lead astray.
238,900 miles to the moon.
15.81 light years to the sun.
It’s helpful to have this kind of perspective.
“Did it snow three times after the last eclipse? Was there an active hurricane season?”
“The next eclipse is in 2024 and you’ll be able to see totality from Central Texas.”
“Maybe by then they’ll be a train to take us to the Davis Mountains.”
As totality approaches the ducks swim their evening lap. And then their morning lap as totality ends. In the course of three minutes, an entire day.
Nature spurred a community of people to help each other be in awe together. Salty potato chips and gatorade were communion.
I took my shirt off while the sun was still out and made my way into the lake to cool down and wash off the sweat from a hike. At totality I was cold enough to want warm clothes.
Through pinhole viewers and with special viewing glasses we all gaze. If an alien culture had seen us they might think we were cultists.
How fortuitous that we would have all found this spot by the lake together to watch what it’s like to see the sun burn out.
Then the sun expressed its dominance and we were all reminded of the ordinary things we must set out to do in the ordinary sun.
Did anyone carry enough of the moment away to have it stay with them forever? Did anyone catch anything from the eclipse that they can take back? Was the trip a hero’s journey like the old myths that gave men fire? Were there things that should have been revealed to us that we missed? What was it that we saw?
I’m a little frightened and bewildered.
We all hope something will leave us inspired on some level that we can not verbally express.
I feel a call to let myself be led astray as part of the adventure.
The uncertainty in my gut also makes me feel alive.
My head beckons me to make sense of it all and settle my gut.
I’m not sure my mind and body are cooperative forces and in a moment the feeling in my gut eclipses the thoughts in my mind and I’m sick enough to wretch but not to vomit.
I think something did awaken in me. I feel inspired. I was able to “witness the beauty and fathom the power.” I float to the car rather than feel the ground beneath my feet.
We fly higher than the birds do home as if we are rubbing their beaks in our divinity but there is nothing special about this compared to what we have just seen.
I’m going to try to take this feeling back with me and if I can’t at least I’ll grab one end of a universal string and run with it until I reach the end at which point I fully expect the string to become a spiral with infinite ends which all of you can grasp at upon my failing.
