Across the Universe: Total eclipse of the soul
This column first ran in The Tablet in August 2017. Hard to believe it’s been a year since the solar eclipse… August 21, 2017, marked the first total solar eclipse visible in the continental US in a generation (since 1979). Everyone in America caught eclipse fever. “A total eclipse is a spectacular event,” or so I was told. I’d never seen one myself. The last time I tried to observe an eclipse, the air turned so cold that a rain cloud formed overhead during totality. But even then I recall that the Moon’s shadow spooked the local birds into thinking it was nightfall; and I remember my surroundings looking ominously strange. And so I accepted an invitation from Saints Peter and Paul’s Catholic Church in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where the totality had its longest duration – two minutes, forty one seconds. A town of 30,000 souls, the residents there prepared for another 100,000 astro-tourists as if they were expecting a natural … Continue reading →