In this article, Christopher de Vinck reflects on the celestial event of a solar eclipse and explores the various cultural beliefs and interpretations associated with it.
Together, let’s watch the moon today extend her arms around the waist of the sun guiding us toward kindness, writes Christopher de Vinck.will be the largest metropolitan area in the path of the once-in-a-lifetime total eclipse.
I like it so much how we define celestial events as if we are in charge of nature. At the onset of an eclipse, ancient Chinese believed a dragon swallowed the sun. There were cultures where people believed the sun turned its back in anger over their sins. Perhaps the sun is abandoning us to nourish a more worthy planet. Ancient tribes said the sun and moon were making love in the privacy of darkness. Maybe during the eclipse, the gods are teasing us, dragging a huge eraser and rubbing out the sun. People in Northern Scandinavian countries once believed wolves, during an eclipse, chased the sun away from our view.that the eclipse “spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death. Up there in the skies was also a metaphor of immortality.” If the sun can survive, so can we. If the sun can reappear, so too we can forever rise up against death., agreed with Sagan: “Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become an endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.”When I had my own bedroom for the first time as a boy, no longer having to share a room with my brother, I was terrified of the darkness. The vague image of a chair was a lion with fangs. The closet was ready to open for the monster to sweep into my room, drain my blood and swallow me. I was startled with fright until I said to myself, “OK. I am tired. If you want to kill me, go ahead,” and I fell asleep and woke up the next morning with the soothing sunlight pressing onto my face. I didn’t die. My brother was blind, so he lived in darkness all his life, so I knew early on the treasure of seeing. Without light we cannot see.Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;Even Shakespeare felt over 400 years ago that we human beings are like roses and fountains, with our personal thorns and mud, with the flaws on our own buds, with our lives, like the sun, stained now and then with the eclipse of our faults, and yet the moon slowly moves on, perhaps with our mistakes on its back and reveals, once again, the sunshine of hope, the light that we carry, the survival of our souls. Perhaps we are attracted to a total eclipse because it is remarkable and not so important. No matter what it is, we are attracted to things that don’t happen too often in our lives.Perhaps the world is easy to define in the slant of light, or in this upside-down day when the night, for a few moments, grays the light in the spectacle of hiding the sun. In the light we can see the jagged edges of each continent. At night we can believe that we are all one community needing our sleep, and filled with dreams that we cannot control. Wolves can explain with their howls the comfort of night against our chests.These days it seems as if the world is broken in daylight, filled with strange malice. Together, let’s watch the moon today extend her arms around the waist of the sun guiding us toward kindness.During an eclipse, the moon is a dark shell seducing the sun for a moment. The 18th-century writer Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.” Today in the eclipse they are partners dancing for our pleasure., Contributing Columnist. Christopher DeVinck is author of 17 books. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Reader's Digest. He is a Dallas Morning News contributing columnist.The total solar eclipse is coming Monday. Here’s a last-minute Eclipse Day survival guide
Solar Eclipse Celestial Event Cultural Beliefs Interpretation Christopher De Vinck
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