Thoughts on Totality

Even knowing a solar eclipse is amazing to see, experiencing it from start to finish was a dumbfounding experience. A literal sign of the heavens, the layers of thought you can relate the experience to rival scripture.

It started with less than a blink, our group struggling to see any deformation of the disk through our glasses. The attention of the children quickly waned after the initial excitement. Over the next hour or so, life went on as usual (as much as it can in a campground field.)

Not until the sun was more than half covered did we begin to notice any changes in our environment. It seemed to dim ever so slightly, but to look at the sun with the naked eye, it appeared as circular as ever. Only when I looked for a split second then closed my eyes did I see the negative imprint of a crescent behind my eyelids. However, one thing I noticed was that shadows cast on the ground were hyper sharp. Close to 75% occlusion I could see individual (frizzy) hairs from my head casting their own shadow.

It began to get noticeably darker about then, with three-fourths of the sun’s light hidden. Even then, it was more a change in tint and hue than darkness, mimicking a light cloud cover. The temperature dropped as well, reducing our early afternoon southern sauna to a pleasant autumn day. The kids started to pay attention once more as the environment changed. Birds had stopped singing by this point, and the bugs (who had been constantly squawking), grew more organized in their songs.

Only when we reached 99% totality did our environment undeniably change. And it happened quicker than we thought possible, having been deceived by the slow and steady pace up to that point. For how slow things had gone up to that point, when darkness fell, it took one second to go from blue sky to stars visible. The sun’s light is so powerful that even 2% can get the job done.

The diamond ring hit, and everyone went bonkers, myself included. Day changed to twilight instantly, the temperature mimicked late evening, and a black hole sun ruled the sky. The corona or “crown” of the sun erupted from the instantly black sun, and it wasn’t what I expected. It’s not uniform, it’s oblong, with unsymmetrical wisps leaping off the sides. And at the middle was a pitch black disk in the sky, darker than any night sky I’ve seen.

Time itself stood still while my brain tried to comprehend what was happening. Torn between soaking up memories of totality for myself, taking a video for my sisters who couldn’t be there, checking to make sure the kids didn’t miss it, and looking at the alien environment created by the hiding of light, it was a hectic and awe-filled 2.5 minutes.

Time restarted with the mirror diamond ring, signaling the return of our ever present Sun. With an inaudible whoosh, deep purple turned to sky blue, stars hid themselves, and the field returned to its terrestrial state. Like the last echoes of a dream upon waking, everything in the world remains unchanged. But you’re changed, still on the high of seeing the most beautiful thing thus far in your existence.  

You know the drive home will be rough, and your car might overheat in the journey, but nothing can take away from you what you got to see.

One peculiar thing I noticed in the days after the eclipse concerned the pictures circulating on social media. It was the most photographed event in history, but I found that the more I looked at the pictures of others, the harder it was to keep separate my personal memories from the pictures in my mind. Furthermore, the more I focused on 2 dimensional pictures from others, the less real the event became in my own mind. Almost as if the pictures were overwriting the authentic experience I had already stored in memory.

Said memories of this glorious event are personally valuable to me, so I had to take steps to preserve the overall experience. I have to revisit the memory in my own mind, taking a little time to remember the temperature, shadows, stars, corona, and songs that go beyond a photograph. It’s easy to see why people chase eclipses all over the world, reproductions of the event pale in comparison to the authentic experience.

There’s also a world of difference in 1%. This celestial sign is a great tutor of the difference between 99% and a total effort, both from the sun’s perspective and our placement on the ground.

It doesn’t matter if you are part of the 99% or the 1%, the payoff comes when you become part of the 100%.