An Adventure on our Doorstep

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;

Psalm 19:1

A total eclipse of the sun rolled through Missouri yesterday. We live only a little way out of the path of totality, so with our friends, Joy and Mike, we drove a couple of hours toward St, Louis. After a very early start (Oh!dark six:thirty!) we reached a rest area just outside of the town of St. Clair, which was in the direct path.

It was perfect. The stop offered shaded seating areas, a place to picnic, and, most importantly, access to rest rooms. Since we had about three hours to wait, this last point was very important! At around eleven AM, we started to notice that the sunlight that appeared through the trees was morphing into definite sickle-shapes.

The temperature dropped noticeably, but the sun still threw off a great deal of light. We didn't stare at the sun constantly. Even though my friend  Joy had used these glasses at a previous eclipse, I'm the careful sort. We checked the eclipse's progress about every ten minutes.

Then when the totality was about five minutes away, we took our position so we could watch the last sliver of the sun disappear. Darkness gathered. The street lights came on. Venus became visible in the southeastern sky. Cicadas, thinking night had fallen, began their eerie song of fading summer.

Then between one breath and the next, the sun was completely thrown into the shadow of the moon.

I've been blessed to see some amazing things in my lifetime. I've flown over the polar region and seen the way the ice cap resembles a cracked egg. I've seen the masterpieces of Da Vinci and Vermeer, Van Gough and Renoir. I've watched with awe as my children took their first steps.

Nothing prepared me for the wonder of seeing the sun completely blocked out. I've known since I was a child that the earth rotates on its axis and the moon revolves around us. And in that eternal do-si-do, we sashay together around the sun. But I'd never seen evidence of that cosmic dance with my own eyes until that instant.

This is not my photo, but this is what I saw.

In those few moments (read: over 2, almost 3 minutes of totality where we were) I had a flash of what Jung would call collective memory, imagining the terror an eclipse must have caused before the reason for the phenomenon was known. The sun was conquered, swallowed up by dark shadow. All light, all joy, all life was being snuffed out.

Then the moon's disc shifted and a flash of Bailey's beads appeared. It was time to don our protective glasses again as the sun re-emerged.

Did you know that Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has a moon of the correct size and correct distance from us to create an eclipse? What an elegant system we've been given.

After this experience, I feel very proprietary about our sun. It's special. And it hurts me to hear people say we circle an ordinary star located in a relative backwater of our galaxy. We have a spectacular sun. It's perfect for us. In fact, the whole arrangement couldn't have been more perfect if it had been designed especially for us.

Hmm... could Someone be trying to tell us something?

Maybe it's "Take those stupid glasses off. You look ridiculous!"

Anyway, we're still crazy excited about our world cruise and are looking forward to all the wonders we'll discover while we're traveling around the globe. But I just thought I'd share the adventure we had close to home this week.

Wonders really are everywhere.

~

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