My original idea was to write about my love for sports and what we can learn from the world of women’s sports. And then the eclipse happened on April 8th. Since I live in Vermont, I was able to experience the total eclipse. Below is an unexpected reflection on the ways the eclipse moved me and what it taught me about God.
On a fundamental level, I didn’t think the eclipse would actually happen. Being in Vermont, there was a lot of build up to the day. Schools were closed and I was off work as our little state prepared for 100,000+ visitors. So, I had been hearing about the eclipse for months. We had all been preparing in advance. Even the weekend leading up to it, there were many signs that it was imminent including all the traffic!
But I didn’t believe it was going to happen until I actually leaned off my balcony around 2:15pm and looked up (with the special glasses of course). And the thing was, I didn’t know I didn’t believe. When I saw the sun actually slightly behind the moon and I saw the tiny beginnings of the eclipse, I realized you can know something is going to happen mentally and still not believe it will happen.
A little while later, my roommate and I welcomed my best friend and their wife over and we all camped out in the parking lot of my apartment. We set up chairs and had some drinks and looked up.
It happened slowly and then it felt all at once. It is very similar but completely different from a sunset. The light around us began to dim as if someone was slowly turning off the lights. We spent time looking up briefly as we saw the sun get smaller and smaller. I felt the air around me get cooler and cooler. One of us commented that we should have brought a blanket out. But, of course, none of us knew what to really expect. And then the sun was only a tiny sliver. It’s wild how much sunlight there still is with so little sun shining through.
And then the time came. I was staring up and all of sudden I no longer saw anything through the glasses. The total eclipse had happened.
I took off my glasses and again looked up as I saw a black hole where the sun was meant to be. I heard a shout from one of my neighbors. My roommate moved quickly to take a photo (the cover photo for this piece). We all were at the same time both transfixed looking up and also trying to capture the moment. It was dark as if it was night but it didn’t feel like night.
It was in that moment looking up I felt on a deep level that I was having a new experience. The glow around the sun was mesmerizing. And then the sun started to bleed through and instantly it felt like someone turned the lights on. Even with only a sliver of the sun visible again everything was bathed in light.
We were silent for a moment and then my friend exclaimed that we must dance. Spotify was turned on and dancing began though I was still stuck in my own way in the moment I just experienced.
We stayed out there for a while, me being the DJ and my friends dancing. And then, like it never happened, the sun was back as it was before.
My friends went home. My roommate and I cleaned up. I went about my day trying to finish the tasks I had set for myself to do.
One thing you have to know about me is that I have a weird relationship to emotions. I don’t feel things truly in the moment, but rather at a later point in time. So, when my roommate and I were lounging watching a movie that evening, I was overcome with emotion. And when I say overcome I really mean overcome. I went from watching the movie to crying.
Another thing you have to know about me is that I don’t cry very easily and I hate being emotional, but in that moment tears just kept coming. My roommate (bless her) tried to ask me questions about why I was crying. But for the next 30 mins all I could really say is that I was so small and everything was so big, bigger than just my world. I felt a tightness in my chest and I felt so small.
I realized a bit later that the primary emotion I felt was an overwhelming sense of awe. The weird feeling of realizing on a deeper level that I am just a little person on a rock in space. This rock, my whole world, moved in a way that doesn’t map onto my past experiences. The sun isn’t meant to be gone at 2 in the afternoon, but it was. The power of the sun to light up the world with just a little bit of it exposed by the moon.
Again, I think because I didn’t on a deep level believe it was going to happen I was overwhelmed when it did. Even now as I try to make sense of my emotions I don’t quite have the words to explain the feeling of humility, fear, and awe that washed over me in that moment.
The next day after my tear filled ramblings I read other people’s experiences and noted that others felt similar to me. I’m especially grateful for the piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer written by my friend.1
But, I am left questioning why. Why do other humans have such big reactions to a very natural phenomena? I’m not the first person to experience an eclipse. This wasn’t even the first eclipse in North America in my lifetime!
Naturally as a queer woman living in VT, I thought maybe the astrologers have some answers here. Astrologers take eclipses to symbolize new beginnings. Some also say eclipses lead to revelations and truths emerging as they force us to rethink the path we are on.2
Okay. Maybe that’s it? Maybe that is what I experienced? I was impacted by the energy of the eclipse and the overwhelming feeling I felt was a push to reevaluate my life and what I need to change. And I think on one level that might be right. I do think the feeling of smallness when seeing space phenomena is freeing. I can’t control the big moves of the universe I reside in. So why should I be afraid of taking risks? It’s not like my decisions will cause or not cause the sun and the moon to do whatever they are going to do. Why fear transition when we can control so little?
But, as I sat with this explanation I wasn’t satisfied. Well, first of all, I’m not that into astrology. And second, where did my sense of awe emerge from? So, I thought some more and my mind turned to the Psalms.
Psalm 8 (NIV) says
Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
In this Psalm of David, my feelings are strangely almost perfectly captured. When I was sitting in my living room in tears, I felt for the first time my inherent smallness and the universe’s bigness. I saw and experienced the majesty of the universe. And the result of that was humility and wonder at the care of the Lord. The humility to realize that God holds all things together. God orchestrates wonders that I can’t even imagine even when I am told in advance about them.
So, where do I go from here? I’m left wondering what other things will God do that I couldn’t even imagine even if I was told in advance about them. I’m left realizing that I did not think the eclipse would happen because I’m often not open to new things outside of my previous experience. I keep thinking of Jesus’ words to Thomas “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” I’m also left feeling such a sense of peace in my smallness. I do think the eclipse, like the astrologers postulated, has led to a new beginning for me. Exactly what new beginning? I think it is too soon to know. But, I don’t want to quickly move past what God allowed me to experience and not let it mold me deeper into who I’m called to be.
Thank you for reading my reflections on the eclipse. My prayer is that you also will be open to what God might be trying to show you in the natural world around you.
https://www.today.com/life/astrology/eclipse-hangover-meaning-rcna147544
Ibid.