For small towns from Texas to Maine on the path to totality, next week’s celestial event will be both a moment in the sun and a moment out of it. One Texas judge has already declared a state of emergency in anticipation of Bell County’s population roughly doubling or tripling in the days leading up to the eclipse. Three school districts in the county canceled classes for the day. And if the past is any precedent, humans aren’t the only ones exhibiting strange behavior. As Carolyn Y. Johnson recently reported in the Post, you might see swarms of fireflies descending during the day or giraffes spontaneously darting through the zoo’s exhibits.
Maybe you’re not planning on joining the solar pilgrims battling highway congestion next week. Maybe you are wondering if people have lost their minds. Why all the fuss about the predictable alignment of the Earth, Moon, and Sun? Aren’t there more pressing concerns, like the pending presidential election, the war in Ukraine, famine in Gaza, or the climate crisis?
Here’s why you should succumb to eclipse mania, at least a little.
A few years ago, I traveled with my mother to Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India, where the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean meet. Before dawn, we stood among thousands of people dressed in red. Pilgrims often wore no shoes or traveled hundreds of miles just to watch the sun rise from that location. When it went up, the crowd gasped, cheered, shouted, and clapped. Their reactions were as beautiful as a sunrise. I felt more connected to humanity than I have ever felt before or since.
What occurred to me at that moment was that the sun is the original rock star, the OG of the protagonist energy on Earth. It’s miraculous to watch the sun rise and set, or more dramatically, be eclipsed and then reappear. It’s also a reminder that the sun makes all life on Earth possible. The effect is naturally more profound if it is witnessed in an exceptional place or situation.
Post-pandemic, many of us feel no longer part of our communities. In a polarized country and a war-torn world, we have no common cause. In this sense of disconnection and alienation, solar eclipses represent not only awe, wonder, and escape, but also an opportunity to connect humanity’s past and future.
For thousands of years, people have looked up to the stars in search of answers, whether it’s to know God’s will or to navigate uncharted waters. Solar eclipses brought omens to the ancient Mayans and ancient Greeks. We can only imagine what that will mean for our descendants in the future, or for the artificial intelligence overlords who may rule them. What we do know is that total solar eclipses will repeat over the next 500 million years, and that as long as humans live on Earth, these events will remain a spectacle, if only because of their rarity. That’s it.
Total solar eclipses occur about once every one to three years, but most can only be seen from the polar regions or the middle of the ocean. Even from a certain place, approximately he can be seen only once in the 4th century. These are the one things about the foreseeable future that will remain consistent with our past, despite dramatic technological and global changes.
That’s why a trip to see a total solar eclipse is a trip home, even for those who didn’t grow up on the path to a total solar eclipse this year. It will be an opportunity to remember our place in the solar system and the universe. No matter how obvious our differences are, we still have something in common.
