I will probably not see the eclipse here in North Texas next week. None of us will. We’re expecting cloudy skies and rain. The next total eclipse here will be in 2317, when I will either be dead or a brain in a jar.
However, there will be a total eclipse in the Philippines in 2042, and I plan on being both alive and there, then.
I hear from people who’ve experienced it that a total eclipse is awe inspiring, something you can’t understand without being there. That has to be true. People wouldn’t travel all over the world to see it, otherwise. I assume it makes you feel small and reorients you with being on a planet spinning eternally in space; that it reminds you of the vastness of the universe and your tiny part in it.
I’ve had that feeling of awe, lying on my back on my car hood in Arizona at night. I assume it’s something beyond that.
The word “awe” has been watered down in our time. Today it only means good things–you got the job? that’s awesome!–where in its older use, awe was infused with terror. God was awesome, not job offers.
A good friend of mine has a distinctive disdain for eclipses. His father, a taciturn man, loved them, and spent more attention on them than on his own children. I think even if the skies weren’t cloudy this coming Tuesday, he wouldn’t bother to go outside, out of spite for a dead man.
We’ve all seen the night sky. Why would seeing it mid-day matter? I suspect it’s like saying, “I’ve seen a baby. Why would seeing my own matter?”
I hope to find out when I’m 76. It’s good to have things to look forward to.