Eclipse 2017: What's Your Experience?

The Great Solar Eclipse of 2017 will happen on the 21st, and I can’t help but think of how far the event of a Total Solar Eclipse has come in the theology, philosophy, science and culture of humans in general.

According to NASA’s site, there are all types of evidence of the importance of eclipses. Clay tablets, carved rocks, and the beating of drums to “scare the dragon away” in ancient China, each pose superstitious portent on the event. I’ve also read that one of the earliest solar eclipses, according to Live Science, was the Ugarit Eclipse of Northern Syria in 1375 B.C., recorded on a clay tablet. In 763 B.C. the Assyrian empire experienced one during an uprising in what is now Qal’at Sherqat, and the disappearance of the sun was mentioned in the written record of the ancient event, suggesting that the people saw the two occurrences as linked.

In china in 1302 B.C., it was inscribed on turtle shell bones that “three flames ate the sun,” and it is supposed that the reference was to the solar corona that can be seen ribboning around the shadowy moon. But in 1919, a total eclipse happened that lasted for nearly 7 minutes. It was this event that provided time for scientists to prove Einstein’s theory of relativity – describing gravity as a warping of space-time. Before all of this, I wonder what the Cro-Magnon thought of it when the sun disappeared briefly in the middle of the day, how the first civilization developed due to this completely predictable and scientific phenomenon that happens roughly every 18 years.

While long ago the momentary disappearance of the sun was unexpected and feared, and then predicted and respected, today there is a strip of the United States, from Oregon to South Carolina, that will be filled with locals and visitors from all over the world. The Path of Totality is where the eclipse will be seen in full, with the moon covering as much of the sun as possible, the sun’s corona visible like rippling, bright lace at the edges of darkness. This year, that path lies just south of Portland and stretches across the middle of the U.S.

Eclipse memorabilia is being sold everywhere nearby, hotels are cancelling and refunding regular-priced rooms so that they can charge three times as much to those who will pay anything to be in this path at the right time, the special eclipse glasses are purchased, and small towns affected by this influx of visitors have advised their locals to stock-up on food and water before the rush. As important as this viewing seems to be, much of the magic of it has dissipated in the commercialism and sense of impending mob mentality. The godlike attributes, bringing of luck whether good or bad, and accompanying of this darkness with significant events, have not been discussed at all in this August 21st instance. I haven’t even read or heard of any fanatic eclipse groups or Wiccan festivals focusing on it. Instead, the map of the Path and tales of people bracing themselves for a crowd are prevalent when the subject arises. Will history talk about the multitudes of injured and victimized eclipsians during the 2017 event? Will some horrible crowd riot evolve, and then be ominously associated with this solar eclipse just as other events in history have?

I like to think that humans will share this viewing with each other as a part of the majesty of the occurrence. It’s one thing to sit on one’s porch and see the small moon block out the monstrous sun, it’s another to see it while surrounded by a multitude of others who are also stricken by the splendor of the moment. Is that what holds the magic of a total solar eclipse in today’s day and age: mob intimacy? The sharing of a great and rare thing. Becoming a part of history by involving one’s self in an effort that many others are making, even if it doesn’t yield a result, is a palpable energy that can’t be denied. Even if the event being witnessed is something that has happened repeatedly for eons with no physical effect on the Earth, there is an awe about it when it’s shared.

After all, even with its predictability and explanation, isn’t a total solar eclipse still quite spiritual and philosophic? Just because something can be explained as a natural, scientific occurrence doesn’t mean it’s ONLY that. The creative intelligence of human existence, which commonly seeks reason for initially unexplainable events, can make any scientific and natural occasion have more meaning than simply its existence. Even today, when the total solar eclipse is explained in full by documentaries, books, and lectures detailing what angles, physics, and general cosmic routines are involved, witnesses to the minutes of unnatural darkness and ribbons of rarely visible corona have stated that the hair on their arms and neck rise while a spooky otherworldliness settles on them. Logic be damned, it’s still a magical experience.

In the future, these Total Solar Eclipses will continue to happen, and people will undoubtedly gather to witness them. Religion and superstition may or may not play a part in the joy, or even perhaps fear, of seeing it. It’s even possible that technology will eventually find a physical or energy-based change that does happen on the Earth during the minutes of a total eclipse, and depending on what that could be, the quality of human existence may change. Anything is possible, but for now we can simply glean any spiritual satisfaction or elevating awe of science that comes with the blocking of our light of life by the typically lifeless and inert natural satellite of Earth. And with luck, we will be able to see it again in another 18 years.

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