04/20/2024
Happy Earth Day and here is a piece I wrote on April 8th for the Eclipse
When the vast plan and the incredible rhythm is revealed in a universal event, the world pauses in awe. People travel thousands of miles to witness the moment when the daily round of light and dark, day and night, sun and shadow, shifts and changes into something rare and magnificent, a moment of stillness.
The heavenly bodies conspire on spiraling paths that dance and merge, supporting this moment of passing which creates a deep shadow in the arc of totality. The shadow rolls over the landscape, unstoppable, and all things feel the reverberation of the universe in its enormity.
Crowds turn out, pleased with themselves and each other for bearing witness to the wonder, the birds quiet, the animals stop, the very ground quivers with the shift of energy as the sun’s light is blocked by the gentle small moon, and the earth is enveloped in darkness for a moment.
That it is predictable is amazing. The movements of the celestial spheres are embedded in the most ancient program and unfold without flaw, bringing a sense of harmony and balance to our small corner of chaos. We are part of this great unfolding and part of this eternal rhythm that creates and destroys all things in a measured flow.
The enormity of the event surpasses our petty disputes and polarized lives so that for one brief moment, one short day, we are all influenced and aware of a higher order. This order can bring meaning and purpose, it can be inspiring and awesome, and it is terrible in its gigantic power that has no mercy.
Like sailors in a sea, we are alive striving to make sense and to have control, but we can be tossed into darkness or baked in the bright heat of a sunlit day with no way to influence the greater movement that determines our life. Humbling and bonding, we can honor that which surpasses our ability to imagine and rejoice in our small lives lived by the grace of the larger world.
With all its challenges, it is a beautiful world, full of mystery and wonder. And we all feel that together, as one, from the smallest butterfly winging through the sunlit air and caught in a world of shadow in the next moment, to the people who celebrate with their glasses on and a day off, tracking the shadow across the ground, hoping that it will reveal the higher order and meaning in their own unique lives, the greatness in their moments here as part of some divine plan, the magnificence of their own being as some reflection of the vast unfolding.
Let’s hope this shared moment of awe can bring into perspective our drama and disorder, so that we can offer our dreams and hopes up to something bigger. Let’s hope the passing of the shadow can bring with it a renewed sense of our own ability to move through our shadow into the light of love, where we can really appreciate the magnificent wonder of this gift of being alive, alive on a day like this, where the world pauses in gratitude for the light and the darkness, the day and the night, the sun and the shadow, and the enormous, unstoppable order of things that includes us.
Maria Cook
April 8, 2024
