What Can the Total Eclipse Teach Us?

Immersing ourselves in awe and wonder

Here in the Texas Hill Country, there’s total fascination with the total eclipse (happening tomorrow). Due to eclipse-mania, we have about triple the number of people we typically see here. There are hundreds of events, festivals, and marketing campaigns in motion to help us make the most of this spectacular cosmic occurrence. Apparently, we’re all ready, watching and waiting, for an event just like this one.

We’re anticipating a delicate dance of the sun, moon, and Earth as they come into a most precise alignment. I started asking, why am I — why are we — so captivated by the total eclipse?

Beyond its relative rarity in terms of our being able to witness it, I think it has something to do with the ideal of alignment — enticing and confounding, a source of motivation and frustration. Alignment is one of those ever-elusive states we are all searching for. It’s balance. It’s the idea that we’re in the right place at the right time. It’s our values in practice.

Maybe it’s also something to do with that deep craving we have to be amazed — to let go of the self and be immersed in awe and wonder. We all need these moments that reveal some deeper truth that we are part of something big, incomprehensible, yet connected.

Here on Earth, everything seems so off-kilter (even more so if you follow any kind of mass media). Perhaps like the Egyptians of ancient times, we seek ma’at. Maybe the eclipse is that time-worn concept of making order out of chaos. There’s so much beauty in that dream.

But while the stars and planets are able to attain it, can we?

My hope is that this day will remind us to have a multi-tiered awareness, helping us to recognize our infinitely small yet significant presence and role in the vast, uncontrollable unknown. To look up to the heavens, seeking beauty, embracing awe, and understanding that there are mysteries so much bigger than us. The eclipse could remind us that we can let go, let go of that which divides us or traps us or devastates us or keeps our heads whirling, and get excited for the journey. While none of us may achieve perfect, individual alignment in our lives, we can achieve it together — for a few glorious minutes — as earthlings.