Total Eclipse of the Sun
On Monday, April 8th, 2024, I stood with my family in the field behind our house and watched as the moon inched its way across the sun, until we found ourselves standing in totality. The whole thing — mysterious, marvelous, and real — was unlike anything else I have ever experienced in nature, both what I expected it to be and not.
There is, of course, a very practical, exact, scientific explanation of the eclipse: how it happens, when it happens, why it happens. It’s not that I’m not interested in facts; it’s just that I find myself more interested in reality, which is often facts, and then a kind of something else, caught up together in a moment. My primary experience of the eclipse wasn’t that it was something that could be calculated and explained — it was that it was a gift.
In the instant that the moon totally blocks the sun, a strange quality of light covers the earth. It was not like nighttime, not quite like dusk or even sunset. It was simply shadowy. Simply, and also complex, because the sun is blocked, yet its rays, being so powerful, still shine through.
In that moment, the sky turned a dusty shade of periwinkle, the trees and the branches on them, just beginning to burst with spring, became silhouetted against the horizon in the middle of the afternoon. The birds kept chirping, the dogs kept barking, the sirens across town kept wailing, and the world kept spinning, yet it seemed like it ought to have stopped. I looked up, and what I saw — a magnificent white corona around the moon — seemed to me a crown for Mary, who had wrapped the world in her blue light. In it I heard her asking us to receive, as she had received, the word that God was speaking in the sky. I could think only of how much it looked like a monstrance, huge and declaring, a symbol and proclamation of love, mercy, and greatness. It all seemed nearly a transfiguration, to be able to gaze at the sun, clothed by the moon, and not be blinded by its light. What I thought would feel borderline apocalyptic felt instead surprisingly tranquil and still, yet I was aware the phenomenon was fleeting. That, too, was part of its beauty — that the world would go on, whether or not we willed it to; that, in fact, it was because the world was going on that this was indeed happening to begin with. It was outside of us, but also happening to us, and the whole thing was such a feast of reality that it can only be summed up in one word: gift.
So I want to say thank you, God, for the stars in the sky and the sand at the seashore and the birds of the air, for yes, you have numbered them, and you have taken care of them, as you also have taken care of the flowers of the field, and have numbered the hairs on my head, which stood for four minutes in your magnificent mastery of both shadow and light.
I knew it would soon be over, and through my glasses I saw the moon moving along, allowing the sun, bead by bead, to dispel the shadows and shed its life-giving light. On went the moon, on went the sun, on went the day, leaving us only to relish the light.
“No longer shall the sun
be your light by day,
Nor shall the brightness of the moon
give you light by night;
Rather, the LORD will be your light forever,
your God will be your glory.” - Isaiah 60:19
A shortened, edited version of this essay first appeared in the Hearth and Field email newsletter under the section titled “Noted” on May 10, 2024.