2 hours 37 minutes

Maybe it was the fact that so many of us were focusing our attention on the same thing which created a sense of shared experience. Maybe it was simply the novelty factor.  Whatever the reason, my experience of taking in the solar eclipse today was awe inspiring and humbling and brought up a mixture of comfort and heart break… I’m sharing partially because I’m curious if others had a similar experience (if you did, please share with me!) and partially because it feels vulnerable to share all of this and I’ve learned that it’s good to feel vulnerable, often.

I scrambled around on the internets late Sunday night to locate a pair of eclipse glasses because planning for the future is not really my strong point. Of course it was a mom from a nearby neighborhood who saved the day; they are gonna save the whole world I’m convinced. I picked up the glasses this morning, 40 minutes before the eclipse began and returned home and enjoyed breakfast with my daughter, Aida, on the back steps while we waited for the magic moment that the eclipse would begin: 9:02 a.m. I put down a picnic blanket for all of us in the backyard and poured a cup of hot coffee. On my trip home from picking up the glasses, I heard on NPR about playlists they had created for the occasion so I opened the CapRadio classical eclipse playlist (Aida chose this over the jazz and pop playlists) and laughed a little about being “that person who tries to make every little thing a big to do.”  Randy stayed home from work for the morning and joined us on the blanket, alternating between working and checking out the display.

We donned our glasses and turned our faces to the bright sky. I noticed the first tiny bit of obstruction and questioned whether I was seeing things. Aida confirmed that she could see it too. I was astounded that it was exactly 9:02 and predictions these days are just that good. After several minutes, Aida went to her swing set to pretend she was flying a rocket to space and I laid back onto the ground and kept my eyes fixed on the sun. The prolonged staring at the sun reminded me of times I’ve engaged in candle flame gazing meditations, but this time there was an exorbitant flame and it was so far away. The usual life stuff was taking place all around me (different than when I’m typically meditating during quiet times before anyone wakes or while Aida is napping) but I couldn’t really see it since the glasses block out everything except the sun. The glasses sort of do the work of a well trained mind that has impeccable orienting and attending skills. They’re magic glasses, really. I noticed annoyance creeping in quickly as my desire to be fully focused was met with repeated, repeated, repeated requests to look at a daddy longleg spider on the swing set. Of course my request for patience was denied and the calls persisted. Randy to the rescue. I felt some guilt about not being as interested in the spider as I was in the sun. I felt some entitlement to enjoy things that speak to me. The sun and the moon were speaking to me. As Vivaldi and Beethoven and Grieg beautifully accompanied the visual display, I felt a deep sense of relief and gratitude for being so small on an earth that is so big and has a moon that has been orbiting the earth every 27 days for the last 95 million years (give or take 32 million) in a solar system that has existed 4.6 billion years. Literally unfathomable.

Growing up, my dad often quoted scripture from the Bible when he really wanted to punctuate a moment. He would often say “Life is but a vapor” as the shorthand to James 4:14 “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” I feel this truth in my spirit every single day for as far back as I can remember and it is likely the reason I try to hurry up and pack so many meaningful experiences into a given day and then hurry up and slow down so that I can feel the experience absorbing into my cells thereby changing me through the contact. This “vapor awareness” also drives my anxiety/fear/dread/grief about not “having enough time” to visit all of the places, read all of the books, learn all of the skills, hug all of the necks, or bear witness to all of the smiles. This shows up in seemingly tiny ways like not having enough time to frolick in all of the gorgeous highway medians (seriously, the green spaces are so beautiful and I can’t get out of the car to really experience what it is like to be in them and that always feels a little incomplete). It also shows up in huge ways like knowing it’s impractical (and some would say impossible) to keep my nose permanently attached to the top of my daughter’s head so that I can smell all of her smell all of the time.  Life is but a vapor. I know it’s true and I sensed how small I am as I watched the moon slowly creep in front of the sun. Tears of gratitude and sadness flowed simultaneously. I’m not sure which eye was crying gratitude and which was crying sadness but they were mixed tears for sure.

We are here on Earth a short time and we have little to no control over celestial events. We have slightly more control over human interactions, but not much. For several moments today I felt a sense of relief to let go of the human/ego/-created worries of our planet (oh there are so many I have felt almost paralyzed as of late…and I know I am not entitled to paralysis and it is not an option) and to just be in awe that there is a planet. Lots of them, actually. They will exist without us. We will continue to try to figure out how to exist longer and longer and my prayer and the mission behind my work is that we will learn to exist more peacefully and in awe of each other. Not tolerance. Awe. We experienced maximum coverage at 10:17 on the nose and tears streamed down my face again. I felt the air growing cooler as the sun was shielded, and I heard my husband and daughter laughing, and also my daughter fussing and wanting my attention again. I took my glasses off to play with her and noticed the greenish, silvery, eery light bouncing off of the trees and fences and it suddenly felt like Fall. The leaves on the ground even sounded crunchier as we ran around taking pictures and building spider houses.

I returned to my blanket and glasses a short while later and watched the darkness ever so slowly return to light again. Randy and I chatted about the cycle of darkness and light and it’s current implication in our lives. I noticed a deep feeling of loneliness that has been popping up from time to time the last few months. I realized that, in this moment, it was because I didn’t feel joined in this deeply moving experience I was having. Randy was checking in on the eclipse from time to time but was also working on his computer. Aida was running around enjoying herself. Nothing was wrong exactly, but it highlighted a way in which I often feel lonely…when I’m experiencing something so tender and powerful (almost always in nature or when I’m observing another person) and I am so moved by the moment and I get the feeling that those around me are not feeling it in the same way or have not noticed it at all. I long to be able to experience these kinds of feelings with others so that we can co-feel the experience and talk about it and connect more deeply. A few times that I actually have had these experiences just came to mind: when attending my best friend’s birth of her first child, when attending my sister’s birth of her first child. There was a tangible sense of gratitude and wonder by all in attendance. That kind of shared awe is deeply uniting. I want more of that.

As I kept my eyes fixed on the reemergence of the fullness of the sun and expounded, as much as I could, about this existential isolation type of grief I’ve been experiencing, I started to feel lighter. Maybe it was all of the crying. Maybe it was all of the sharing. Maybe it was getting to lie down for over 2 hours to focus my attention on one thing. It felt like some heavy life stuff that has been hanging over my head had been put into perspective and ordered in a way that felt manageable. That’s not really the right word… It actually felt more like “I don’t have to manage it, it will manage itself.” It felt naturally easier and has continued to feel this way all day. Randy went away to work. Aida and I made lunch and sat together on the patio. I held her close and was sort of captivated by the uncountable number of sparkling hairs on her head and the vibrant flowers on the trees in our yard. It felt like I was seeing everything with fresh eyes. Speaking of my eyes, I hope the fatigue I feel in them is from the mixture of tears and sunscreen that was running into them all morning and not signs of damage to my retinas. I guess I’ll know tomorrow. Either way, those 2 hours and 37 minutes of focused awe were totally worth it!