So many of us get excited by celestial phenomena, and I’m mostly on that train, having repeatedly found myself shivering in my nightgown while standing on a back deck covered in snow – at 2:30 am in sub-freezing temps – in order to glimpse the dark red orb of a lunar eclipse. Or standing out in the middle of the road in the middle of the night, looking for the aurora borealis when it was only a lightening storm (see Aurora – 7/14/2023). Meteor showers. Rainbows. Sitting on the porch waiting for a tornado. So getting geared up for an eclipse was a given, although I honestly had to wonder what all the mega-hype was about surrounding this particular solar eclipse compared to others. While planning on checking it out, I was not particularly over-excited about it and had a tiny bit of Eye-Roll Attitude regarding all the hoopla.

Somehow, it seems that past ones were not generating as much attention….. do you think that’s true? Perhaps the media blitz surrounding this one has been necessary in a way, providing a badly needed shift of our collective gaze in order to focus away from some of the dauntingly difficult happenings occurring on earth; directing our eyes instead to an awesomeness we have no control over in the sky, if only for a few moments. Perhaps it has also been a way to promote tourism and commerce? In any case, it has been an Ultimate Distraction nationwide. I will admit that over the past number of weeks during the buildup to it, I have had this incessant earworm going on and on in my head – “Waiting for the Sun” by The Doors.

Can you feel it
Now that spring has come
And it’s time to live in the
Scattered sun

It’s true there are myths, legends and beliefs concerning the celestial phenomenon. The gods are angry. The sun is being devoured by the moon, or a dragon or a squirrel. The moon is a demon head flung across the sun. Or the sun is sick. Bad omens. Can you imagine what it must have been like in ancient times to experience one unexpectedly – before widespread information and science lent explanation?

The first one I experienced as a child was linked to a mildly traumatic – but vivid – familial event, which I mentioned here years ago. (see Circle – 8/21/2017). Those memories were brought up once again during the solar eclipse of August 2017. And yet again this past week.

Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun

During the 2017 one, I stood out on The Urban Porch by myself, marveling with excitement. The birds had suddenly silenced. The light had taken on a strange glow. Altered sunlight filtered through the hanging plants, creating a carpet of crescent shapes that shimmered across the porch floor, while hundreds of dancing sun-moons were cast upon the street, caused by the light streaming through the leafy trees.

Prepared with my trusty spaghetti colander to use as a filter, it was awesome to project tiny crescents of shadows and light.

Yes, it was cool. But I still could not imagine why people were taking hours-long road trips where they would be sitting in heavy traffic, or actually flying to “path of totality” viewing destinations at great cost – risking the possibility of overcast, cloudy skies – for something that would span a couple of hours but only peak for about four minutes.

Waiting
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting

The sun was going to be about 95% obscured where I live, which felt sensational enough for me. Despite an invitation to a local Eclipse Party with friends, it seemed being perched right out on my front Urban Porch – facing west and with a birds-eye view – would be an ideal and comfortable place to be. So I picked up a couple of pairs of solar sunglasses from our local library, brought the porch chair cushions that had been stored over the winter down from the attic, and settled myself outside with a bowl of very yummy leftover farro salad, a thermos of ice water, and a package of Le Petit Ecolier dark chocolate cookies. I was set to just enjoy the day fully indulging myself….. and then my neighbor wandered over.

I don’t really know the newest influx of neighbors very well, although they seem friendly enough. We wave from afar, and if we do run into each other, we tend to make small talk, but that has pretty much been it. My neighbor immediately next door wasn’t planning to watch the eclipse, but her job had been unexpectedly cancelled for the day. Since I had an extra pair of eclipse glasses to share, I waved her over to come watch with me for a while. We ended up spending at least two enjoyable hours together on The Urban Porch, with future plans to go out to dinner. We might not have made a connection otherwise.

During the slow trajectory of the moon, little social moments kept occurring. Another fairly new neighbor from down the street saw us and strolled over to chat and take a peek through my glasses. The mailman was out there delivering throughout the whole event. He said he didn’t have any eclipse glasses, so I invited him up on the porch to look through mine. I’m glad he got to see it. Afterwards, neighbors kept stopping each other on the street to discuss their thoughts and experiences about it. Friends and family called, texted and sent pictures from afar.

Can’t you feel it
Now that spring has come
That it’s
Time to live in the
Scattered sun

So we hung out, ate cookies and chatted, while repeatedly putting on and taking off the glasses, exclaiming “Ohhhhh” and “Ahhhhh” and “Wow!” and “How cool!” as ever-larger cookie-bites kept getting eaten out of the sun.

It never became totally dark here, but at about peak a beautiful, thin sliver of a crescent was revealed. The incessant raucous of our resident house sparrows suddenly ceased – save for one oddball that gave a few more short, surprised peeps before quieting. The road was empty of cars; all action stopped. Amidst that weird and almost magical silence, the light got strange, the air becoming cold enough that my neighbor put her sweatshirt back on. There was a palpably odd, physical shift in my head that I can’t quite articulate. I would not say it was “trippy,” but maybe “briefly altered” would be a better description. Maybe it was the light, I don’t know. Maybe it was too many chocolate covered cookies. “I’m getting this sudden, weird feeling,” I said. She concurred – “Me too.”

As the moon continued it’s trajectory past peak, the crescent tilted until it looked like a grinning Cheshire Cat smile, lingering long after the cat had vanished.

This is the strangest
Life I’ve ever
Known

The photos that have begun flowing in from friends and acquaintances via email and social media are awesome – even the ones that are not of professional quality still resonate for me. I loved the photo my sister sent from California of the partial eclipse shadow on paper from her yard. I love the photos of all my grandkids together wearing their cardboard glasses, faces lifted to the sky.

None of the eclipse photos I’m sharing here are from my camera, as my attempts were blurry and rather pathetic. A few friends in the path of totality in Texas mentioned how you could see the stars the same way they show up at dusk.

A social media connection posted this photo taken in the Adirondacks, on Lake Clear, NY, which is where my son-in-law’s family lives. This would have been the exact same view happening from their back deck. In only a very small way I almost wish I had gone up there to see this total, mysterious, glowing dot in the darkened sky……. although I heard the traffic to and from was horrendous.

This one was taken by an acquaintance while she enjoyed the magic with her young daughter. I feel greatly moved seeing both of these photos, and was further touched by the brief descriptions of what they felt during those moments. Whatever feelings viewing the eclipse brought out, I would have to say there is something fundamentally primal about it.

Regardless of the hype concerning the eclipse, what I am hearing from others and observed myself was not just about the brief celestial event, but the connections people made surrounding their shared experiences, the bonding that occurred, be it travelling together or watching the sky together in awed silence. Even those who ended up having their views obscured by cloud cover shared a special day.

While there will be other total solar eclipses happening throughout the world in the not so distant future, there will not be another one in the United States for another twenty years. You never know, but I don’t expect to be around for it.

Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun

Waiting for
The sun

“Waiting for the Sun” – The Doors – Morrison Hotel 1970