Totality

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A slow build up as the black disk of the moon bites into the solar glass orange of the sun. Still too bright to look at as the air cools and the light dims. Even a mere sliver of sun still overwhelms the eyes.

Not 50%, not 90%, not 99%. 100%. Totality. A pulsating ribbon of light: the corona around the moon. And then darkness out to some far horizon where dim light still strikes the earth outside of totality. A black disk with a living white outline where the sun use to be. Staring straight at the spot where the sun should be trying to sear my retinas, after a lifetime of being told i would go blind.

Not of this world. Beautiful. Preapocalyptic, apocalyptic, post apocalyptic glimpsed all at once. Knowing but not believing. The naked Truth revealed in a fleeting moment. The urge to tear up: to humility? Respect? Awe? Beauty? Surrender?

The moon surrenders its purchase on the sun. A beautiful diamond ring as the first rays of sun poke through a crater on the flawed surface of the moon. The day returns. The ordinary continues. The magic disappears into the recesses of memory. Like a miracle, i later wonder if it really happened: not the seeing of it, but the way it touched me.

Totality. Too big for a photo or a video or a telling. Seek totality. Whatever it takes, see one in your lifetime.