Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

American Buddhist Perspectives

Home
About

Home
Buddhist
Religion News
A Brief Meditation on Cosmic Wholeness: A Buddhist and an Eclipse

A Brief Meditation on Cosmic Wholeness: A Buddhist and an Eclipse

Last updated on: November 28, 2017 at 12:32 pm by Justin Whitaker

A Brief Meditation on Cosmic Wholeness: A Buddhist and an Eclipse 2017-11-28T12:32:05-07:00 Justin Whitaker

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What can I say about the eclipse – the experience of totality?

When I first looked into the coming total eclipse of the sun, I heard that it would be epic, life changing, a “religious experience” and so on. And I heard this not from hippies or millennials but from scientists, nerds, good skeptics with otherwise sober and sane views of life.

I made my plan to see it, dragging my partner Beth along, quite willingly of course. Coming from Seattle and knowing how horrible traffic along the I-5 corridor is on typical days, I set a course for central/eastern Oregon. I saw that the Painted Hills would be smack in the center of totality, along with stretches of National Forest further east. I followed news reports and warnings, coming to realize that about every camping spot and/or other “attraction” would be filled to the brim. So we packed up my Subaru Outback with a variety of car-camping and backpacking gear – 5 gallons of extra water and 2 gallons of extra gasoline, ready for whatever adventure might be ahead.

The traffic horor reports were wildly exaggerated (one big jam was caused by at-the-gate traffic at a festival), other reports talk of “an extra hour” to drive 200 miles – hardly gridlock – and all of this was west of us. Heading down we saw more traffic than one would on a normal Saturday in central Washington and Oregon, but no slow-downs. Coming back, the only delays we faced were a few minutes in a tiny Oregon town where residents were photographing the line of cars passing through, passing over the Umatilla bridge into Washington, which had been reduced to one lane due to construction, and back in Downtown Seattle, which was at its usual 5pm Monday levels.

Worries of massive crowds were also exaggerated (unless you went to that festival or one of the easy-access towns, especially along the I-5). We changed our plans slightly, as we had left Seattle later than planned and didn’t want to be searching for spots or setting up after dark. Knowing that we were in the path of totality near Spray, OR, we decided to find a spot sooner rather than later. Several spots along the John Day river looked great – but questionable in terms of legal camping and/or crowds. Consulting the map, I saw that just east of Spray was a branch of the Umatilla National Forest.

From our campsite, just inside the forest, and down a couple windy roads, we saw exactly one other car go by (a fire-fighting rig out on a casual patrol). We heard and saw some traffic on our walks toward the ‘main’ dirt road in the area, and saw one other campsite on a walk (about 15-20 minutes from ours). We also had the great luck of being relatively haze-free (we saw some smoke to the south, where we had planned to be; I’m not sure if it was thick enough to make much of a difference).

What we did see was: cows, lizards, a rabbit, an owl, a hawk, lots of smaller birds, and a rattlesnake that was way, way, way too close for comfort. We heard coyotes late one night, yipping into a chorus of shrieks, and I spotted one shooting star from the waning days of the Perseid meteor shower.

Though we had camped in a spot that would have been perfectly adequate for viewing the eclipse, the view from one point on our walk was so sweeping and beautiful that we decided to make the hike there on Monday morning. You can get a small sense of that view in the video below, but, as they say, you’d have to be there to really appreciate it.

The partial eclipse began at around 9:10am, with the full eclipse lasting less than 2 minutes at 10:24-5, and the last of the partial wrapping up at around 11:40am.

DSC_8481-1

9:53 am. By this time the slightest dimming of the sun could be seen on the ground around us, and the heat of the early-morning sun was even more noticeably dulled.

DSC_8491-1

10:22 am. For the last five or so minutes leading to the totality, changes occurred more quickly. The dimming progressively sped up; by this time feeling like a sunset on steroids. A hush fell over the forest around us.

DSC_8502-1

10:25 am. Totality. In the video below you’ll see how tiny this was in the sky – just a dot of blackness with a ring around it. Stars came out, crickets chirped.

DSC_8512-1

And like that, it was done.

DSC_8521-1

On the eclipse itself: the best thing I could probably tell you is about Beth’s reaction.

She’d been pretty mildly interested in the event, I’d say (mostly there to enjoy some adventure and camping and solitude). She, an English major and writer, had laughed at my Solar Eclipse Observing Guide, which told us that “Words alone cannot describe the magnitude and excitement of this rare, once-in-a-lifetime event” and “When rating natural wonders on a scale of 1-10, a partial solar eclipse might be a 7, but a total solar eclipse is 1,000,000.”

Hyperbole, for sure. Or so we thought.

But Beth’s response, and my own, were indeed quite beyond words. It is far more than just a viewing event. Something happens in the body. Both of us were shaking – a fact I didn’t realize until Beth pointed it out to me. She also described an almost-sickness in her belly, followed by a simple sense of ‘just being’. And though the temperature had dropped and I’d done little in the way of exertion that I could recall, I was coated in sweat, feeling very similar to what Beth had described, both smaller and greater than ‘me’.

Afterward, Beth’s first question to me was: “when is the next one?” [hint: July 2, 2019 in South America]

I’d be tempted to say “It’s like entrance to meditative absorption” or “it’s like falling in love” but such comparisons really do fail us. When my sister asked how they compared to the Northern Lights (she and I saw them together in Iceland in 2015), I felt there was a glimmer of similarity. Checking with Beth, I think we’d agree that a good viewing of the Northern Lights is about 10-20% as powerful an experience as the eclipse totality.

(here’s video from the Iceland trip with my sister)

Through it all – in those moments, looking back, and right now, just this: gratitude and wonder.

Support independent coverage of Buddhism by joining a community of fellow learners/practitioners at Patreon.
‘Like’ American Buddhist Perspectives on facebook.

Previous Post

August 24, 2017

A Montana Mindfulness Retreat

Next Post

August 29, 2017 Black Lives Matter rally and march, Seattle WA (Photos)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Academia Activism American Buddhism Art Book review Buddhism Buddhism Today Buddhist Ethics Burma/Myanmar China Christianity Commodification Environment Gender Happiness Health Humor India Interfaith Islam Japanese Buddhism Kant Media / News Meditation mindfulness Photography Poetry Politics quicktakes Running Teaching Technology Thailand Theism/Atheism Theravada Tibet Tibetan Buddhism Travels Uncategorized Unitarian Universalism video Western Philosophy Zen

Select a Month June 2021 January 2021 November 2020 August 2020 July 2020 March 2020 January 2020 October 2019 August 2019 June 2019 May 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 November 2004 September 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz