Some days are subdued and largely uneventful. Tranquil. Similar to the day before. The day after. Other days dish up drama after drama. Today’s solar eclipse and hot air balloon sighting? Definitely the mysterious and dramatic end of the spectrum!
Glen reflected on the eclipse:
When totality occurred, you could hear cheers throughout the whole town. It was so quiet right up to that point. The church bells were ringing as well. There were a ton of people at the ferry dock watching.
I didn’t notice any weird animal behavior, but the minute it went dark, mosquitos (I think) came out. Then were gone as soon as the light came back.
I zipped my jacket back up. Felt like 60’s down to mid-40 in a matter of seconds.
— Glen Gherkins (April 8, 2024)
The lead photo in this post was taken by my nephew, Christoph, as the eclipse was beginning. And the photo above was taken more or less at the moment of totality by Glen who explained, “with naked eye it looked completely different. Was a white hot purple color.” Fun image nevertheless.
As the time of totality approached, both sides of the street in front of Rosslyn were lined with eclipse viewers.
A mesmerizing moment, minutes actually, binding humans with their environment. An immense mysterious connectedness. Shared awe.
“There’s something very mysterious about a total solar eclipse, when literally day turns to night, animals start to behave differently, and we see changes in the Earth’s atmosphere,” Pam Melroy, the deputy head of Nasa, and a retired astronaut who has degrees in astronomy and planetary sciences, told CNN.
“It’s a mystical, mysterious experience. And I love the thought that millions of Americans stood together today, looking up into the sky.”
— Richard Luscombe (“‘A mystical experience’: millions watch total solar eclipse sweep across North America”, The Guardian, April 8, 2024)
It’s reassuring in these troubled times for so many kindred spirits to gather and witness something they agree upon, a collective coalescence around wonder. Around beauty. It’s profoundly humbling. Humanizing. And in some ineffable way, it’s reassuring.
And this brings me to the hot air ballon piloted by our Essex Supervisor, Ken Hughes, and documented by startled-but-always-unflappable Glen Gherkins.
In the second photo, it looks as if the balloon is landing in Rosslyn’s west meadow beside Library Brook. but it was an optical illusion as it turned out. A quick exchange with Ken confirm that the flight had gone smoothly from departure to destination. He also sent me a few remarkable photographs (and a neat time-lapse video) capturing his perspective of the eclipse. I’m hoping to receive permission from him to include a couple of the images here. I’ll update this post if/when the opportunity arrives.
What a day! From hot air balloon to solar eclipse, and we’re only a week into April. Spring 2024 is shaping up to be sensational. It’s increasingly evident that we’ve entered a liminal state, a period of profound transformation and transition. Let the wonder wisen us!
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