Hmmm, is April 8th an opportunity to change the narrative and see the light?
Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that next Monday a “once-in-a-lifetime” total solar eclipse will take place in parts of Canada and the U.S. The last time it occurred in our particular area was January 24th, 1925 and the next time will October 24th, 2144.
I did a bit of reading up on the topic. Turns out that a solar eclipse itself is not all that rare. Partial solar eclipses happen two to five times each year. Total solar eclipses happen roughly once every 18 months. But the effect of an eclipse (the moon blocking the sun) is visible only in a relatively narrow corridor each time – a 200 kilometre corridor this time around.
Experts consider a total solar eclipse to be a kind of cosmic coincidence since the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun. The moon has to sit at the perfect distance away from the Earth to make it appear the same size as the sun to people on the ground.
The moment of totality, when the moon completely blocks the sun, will only last about three and a half minutes in this area. You will need to be in specific region to witness the totality. In this area of Ontario the city of Niagara Falls is the place to be.
Niagara Falls is anticipating that as many as a million people will congregate in the city to view the eclipse. A once-in-a-lifetime economic opportunity for a city whose economy is based on tourism. City officials have proactively declared a state of emergency for the day so that they can implement special measures to handle the huge crowds.
A state of emergency declaration is a bit ironic given how some cultures have historically interpreted an eclipse. In ancient China, it was believed that solar eclipses occurred when a celestial dragon attacked and devoured the sun. The Incas of South America believed that a solar eclipse was a sign of wrath and displeasure by the sun god Inti.
The belief of ancient West African tribes is the one I find most interesting. According to their legend, human anger and fighting spread to the sun and the moon who began to fight each other thereby causing the eclipse.
Since I proclaim myself to be The Metaphor Guy, I an inclined to put my own symbolic spin on the event. The totality period of the eclipse when total darkness presides strikes me as a metaphor for those moments of blindness society experiences when one group of people become completely blind to any viewpoint but their own.
There are instances of this point of view totality at play in the world as we speak: Russia’s rationale for their invasion of the Ukraine and the Israel – Palestine conflict. There are profound blind spots in the minds of those exercising power in these conflicts.
And so, perhaps we should use those few minutes of totality next Monday to examine and deconstruct our biases. The world will be a much better place if we experience the eclipse totality as a moment of light in a time when darkness has descended around us in many destructive ways.
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~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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Tags: metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Niagara Falls · solar eclipse · totalityNo Comments