Seeking the Sun - A guest post by Sally Cunningham Kane

While I'm taking a break for relaxation and recreation, I've invited some of my fellow writers and bloggers to fill in with guest posts. This week's is from my friend, neighbor and fellow Artworks Second Monday Writers member, Sally Kane. Recently, she and her husband Mark traveled to Kentucky to view the total solar eclipse. Here are Sally's thoughts about the experience.

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A Total Eclipse Pilgrimage
by Sally Cunningham Kane

Sally Kane

​​On average, a total eclipse is visible from any one spot on Earth about once every 375 years.  On August 21, a total solar eclipse cut a seventy-mile wide swath, coast-to-coast, stretching from Oregon to South Carolina. 

My husband, Mark, wanted to experience this event at a one-hundred-percent-totality site.  

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Really? I thought. I''l just watch it at home in Michigan, even at an 82 percent totality. A road trip to the steamy south in August, for a more or less three-hour event and a little over two-minute viewing of totality? No way. Besides, August is my favorite summer month in Michigan.

​But Mark persisted, so I jumped on board. 

​We checked Internet maps. From our home in Newaygo, Michigan, one of the closest places for totality was Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The longest opportunity for totality occurred there: two minutes and forty seconds.    

The path of totality in the US for the 2017 solar eclipse (stock image)

Eclipse 2017 (stock image)

​​The spiritual pilgrimage metaphor emerged when I began researching the eclipse online and looking for lodging. Webster defines "pilgrimage" as a special journey to a sacred site. This eclipse event had taken on epic proportions, engaging millions of people across the entire continent.  

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Communities pulled together to offer public viewing opportunities, some complete with porta-potties. (Photo by Sally Kane)

Communities in the path of totality, large and small, were planning for a massive onslaught. Farms, parks, university campuses, libraries, city squares, rooftops, schools and neighborhoods were supplying public viewing areas or renting parking spaces. A few venues supplied safety glasses and porta-potties. Some communities generated live music and food booths, creating a festival flavor. Others organized drum and chant circles, creating an indigenous, sacred atmosphere.  

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​A wide range of research would be conducted, from animal and insect responses to solving more mysteries about the sun.    

​In this time of excruciating polarities, of amplified splits in ideology and purpose, of divisiveness and hate in our nation, this magnificent natural phenomenon was unifying hearts and minds toward a common purpose. Something stirred inside me. I felt privileged that we could make this journey, that we could join with folks from across the United States and Canada. The more I read about the eclipse, the more I encouraged friends and family to experience this event, wherever they would be.  

Finding ISO-certified viewing glasses was a challenge (Photo by Sally Kane)

​Locating ISO-certified glasses, safe for direct viewing of the sun, turned into a challenge. Many distributors had sold out. First I ordered glasses that I later learned were not certified safe after all. Last minute research revealed that our local Lowes store carried them, along with a great informational booklet, Get Eclipsed.  

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​Pilgrimages do have rest stops. For two days, we connected with some of my cousins in southern Indiana and toured historical Vincennes. Then, the morning of the eclipse, we arose before dawn. Grabbing coffee from our Airbnb kitchen, we proceeded the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Hopkinsville. As we moved closer, traffic increased, but moved right along. Outside of Hopkinsville, we stopped for a quick breakfast at a Cracker Barrel. The busy restaurant buzzed with co-pilgrims and eclipse talk.     

​I began noticing license plates. We saw vehicles from Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Minnesota and Ontario, Canada. We cranked the air conditioner to stave off the climbing heat index.  

The destination (Photo by Sally Kane)

​During our drive, I told my husband I would prefer to view this event in an open field. We had reserved a pre-paid parking spot on the campus of Murray State University, about which we knew little. I visualized being confined to a paved parking lot hotter than a pancake griddle. As the GPS directed us to our destination, we turned down a road flanked with soybean crops and hay fields. A few low-rise classroom and industrial buildings nestled between the fields. We swung into a parking area surrounded by a wide acreage of grassy commons dotted with trees. Ah--perfect.   

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Eclipse viewers came prepared (Photo by Sally Kane)

Sheltered in a small tent, a security man and a few student volunteers greeted us and took our e-tickets. "We are sold out," the security man told us.  

Umbrellas provided much-appreciated shade (Photo by Sally Kane)

​Erected round the slowly-filling parking lot, on the grass and under trees, stood colorful shade umbrellas and tents. People, representing many ages and ethnicities, were assembling their lawn chairs, coolers and cold beverages. Realizing we forgot to bring a ground cover or chairs, we snatched our yoga mat and raincoats, some snacks and water, and secured a spot under a shade tree. Mark wasted no time getting horizontal for a nap. The thermometer registered ninety-four degrees, still climbing.  

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Mark catches some zzzzzzs before the show starts (Photo by Sally Kane)

A young viewer tries out his eclipse glasses (Photo by Sally Kane)

I pulled on my sun hat and walked around the area, talking to people and snapping photos with my iPhone. A vigil this was, and we had arrived plenty early. I counted vehicles from at least ten different states. Some families sat around camp tables, playing games and cards. Children pranced around the grounds. I overheard two older elementary-age boys discussing how they got excused from school for the day. 

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All sorts of cameras, from homemade to high-tech, stood ready to capture the eclipse. (Photo by Sally Kane)

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​All around the grounds stood cameras. High tech cameras mounted on tripods, lenses covered with dark film. Hand-made cardboard box cameras. People tried out their safety glasses, through which the sun became a dark orange circle against a black background.  ​

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Ready with a camera set-up (Photo by Sally Kane)

Another eclipse-watching contraption (Photo by Sally Kane)

Sally checks the sky (Photo by Mark Kane)

​​Noon. I joined Mark on our shady, makeshift ground cover. We ate a snack and gulped down water. I tested out my safety glasses. The sun was a complete, round, orange ball. I ducked back in the shade. Twelve fifteen. A tiny Pac-Man bite showed in the top right section of the sphere. Someone shouted, "It’s starting!" Over the next half hour, we kept checking. The Pac-Man effect increased and the air began cooling, even though the sun cast shadows. By twelve-forty or so, standing in the sun no longer felt intolerable. 

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The Pac-Man phase (stock image)

Ready for the show (Photo by Sally Kane)

​By one p.m., the sun appeared as a slivered, orange crescent. One-fifteen. Like sentries on cue, several hundred people wrapped their eyes in safety glasses, bent their heads back, and stared skyward. ​

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​Slowly, the orange crescent grew into a tiny chunk, almost disappearing into total black. Just seconds before the moon totally covered the sun, creating a black orb encircled by a ghostly white ring, a brilliant, diamond-like starburst of light shot out the top right section of the sphere. The moon slid into place. A magnificent ring of rays, sparkling like white flames, encircled the black orb. The corona!  

Phases of the eclipse (stock image)

​"Ooh, look at that," I gasped. The crowd erupted with simultaneous clapping, cheers and whoops. I pulled off my safety glasses. We had two and a half minutes to look without them.   

​The light had muted to a dusky glow. "Look at the sunset all around us," Mark shouted. I turned, doing a 360. The entire horizon glowed in peach and mauve tones, outlining puffy cloud shapes. Streetlights blinked on in the distance. The air had cooled and birds stopped chirping. An eerie calm descended. Overhead, a few stars and a planet twinkled. I tilted my head back to look at the flaming white corona with my naked eyes. In that moment, all time and activity around me seemed suspended in total stillness and awe.   

Mid-day sunset (Photo by Sally Kane)

Streetlights winking on in the momentary darkness (Photo by Sally Kane)

​Then, slowly the diamond flashed on the left side of the black orb, and I secured my safety glasses. As the moon and sun moved away from each other, the white corona disappeared and a chunk of orange reappeared in reverse. First a sliver, then a slim crescent. Here and there, a bird chirped, like it was morning. The welcome coolness remained for a little while longer. 

​Later, heading north out of Kentucky, battling bumper-to-bumper traffic for five hours, with the sun radiating our heads through the car roof, despite air conditioning and guzzling mega cups of water, I barely had a brain to process this pilgrimage. Was the event sacred?  Did a message lie in this event and journey? 

Now, back home in Michigan, I have had time to reflect, time to ponder, and time to listen to others' stories about their experiences. I have concluded that this Total Eclipse Phenomenon could be viewed as bearing an opportunity. 

The eclipse brought people together. Whether viewed as a partial or total eclipse, people gathered in small and large groups to experience it. People set aside their differences, their divisiveness, to unify in enjoyment and appreciation of this event. It offered community building and celebration. It offered opportunity for research and deeper understanding of the natural world. Most important, it offered a magnified sense of wonder about our natural world.  It showed us the vital interconnections between all living things. Collectively, these dynamics made this event greater than sacred and needed medicine for our time as a nation.