I travelled to one of my favorite parks for the eclipse a few weeks ago, a pilgrimage to bask under the totality of an annular eclipse. It was something I’d been looking forward to for the better part of a year, so when my truck began displaying symptoms of a dying transmission the week prior, my sweet partner rented us a car so my son and I could make the trip outside the grip of anxiety.
When we arrived at the campsite on Friday afternoon, my cousin and her boyfriend had already arrived. They helped set up our tent, fed us, tended the fire and entertained us with stories. We sat under a blanket of stars, counted satellites and whispered wishes on shooting stars. The Milky Way spilled above us, a glimmering cloud of stars on spiral arms. South Llano River State Park is a designated as an International Dark Sky Park, a seduction of silky darkness for one who lives under skies forever tinted with halogen and fluorescence.
From the beginning I sat with a deep sense of gratitude, for the people in my life and the abundance of kindness my world is filled with. Despite the annoyance of material trials and tribulations, the fact that I am cared for and supported by a foundation of relative security and loving kindness was not lost on me.
The morning of the eclipse I got up early and headed to the bird blind. I was the only one there until the park ranger showed up with the birds’ breakfast - sunflower seeds and a peanut butter + oat mixture for the suet feeder. The birds had been waiting impatiently, and when she arrived their excitement was palatable; I couldn’t stop smiling at their happy chittering and chattering. For an hour I sat and watched the scrub jays, cardinals, doves and titmice as they went about their typical morning routine.
Sitting quietly in nature and immersing myself in the world of more than human beings fills me with peace and joy. In those moments, I can expand outside my skin and into the world within which we are eternally enmeshed. My thoughts relax, flow out into community, observe stories, relations and behaviors that lie outside human concerns, yet are intimately relatable. We are not dissimilar, we beings who incarnate this earthly plane. All of us seeking the same things - safety, community, connection and nourishment. We welcome the kindness of others, protect those we love, bask under the morning sun, seek shelter from storms.
There’s a natural balance, a dance, between embracing and releasing: turning your surroundings into yourself, like the tree that absorbs carbon dioxide, and turning yourself into your surroundings, like the same tree releasing oxygen.
~Shozan Jack Haubner, “Consider the Seed”
The last time I’d visited South Llano had been the third week of February 2020. Two weeks before Covid became a thing. Two weeks before we bought our first home. In those three years between visits so much had happened. Though it doesn’t seem like a long time, the distance between those years, between who I was and what was to come spans a whole life’s worth of emotions and experiences. This return felt like a closure and a beginning. In many spiritual traditions, solar eclipses are believed to reveal what is hiding in the shadows. That they are energetic portals that bring transformation, clarity and insight. I hoped that they it would bring that for me, because for the first time in a long time, I felt strong enough to face my shadows.
We hiked up to the highest point in the park, to a rocky ridge overlooking the South Llano. Finding a soft place to sit, surrounded by juniper and oak, we got out our eclipse glasses and looked up. I had brought an offering, copal and dried herbs from my garden - rosemary, sage and datura - and the smoke rose and curled towards the sky, carrying our silent prayers. As the Sun and Moon began their slow embrace, the tone of the light began to change. It took on a spectral quality, a crispness underlay by shadow, quiet and subdued. The animals around us had gone quiet, sensing the change more perceptively than us. In the stillness we sat, glasses pressed to faces, witnessing through the darkness of film that shadow too bright to capture with bare eyes alone.
Finally the moon covered the sun, a black hole revealed by a thin band of molten light. The temperature dropped quickly and we quickly reached for the jackets we had abandoned moments earlier. In that liminal space between day and night, light and darkness, we passed through a portal, leaving behind one world and entered the next.
These weeks since the eclipse have revealed a forest of shadows. A globe of shadows, specters of grief, diaspora and injustice that have been nourished on timelines of hate and a belief in revenge. No one has been spared access to the spectacle, media sucking us into a fast moving tsunami of anger and suffering. What is transpiring in the world today is almost unbelievable, and each day I wonder how we have gotten here?
We all are children of God, and we are born to live in the divine state. When we forget it, we live like animals.
~Paramahamsa Hariharananda
I believe in the basic goodness of the atman, the eternal and divine nature of the soul. That we are all born with innate goodness, kindness and desire for love and connection. The fog of forgetfulness, brought about by the distractions of mind, ego and sufferings within this material realm, severs us from our true nature. What is being revealed is these shadows, and as we pass through these portals opportunity for clarity, awakening and collective change are possible. My own shadows would have me hiding in fear, dissociation and distraction but instead, I find myself listening and watching, filled with loving compassion for all beings who suffer in this age of great transition.
My heart is open to it all.
Where I’m finding inspiration in this week
Ram Dass Here and Now #181 A nourishing nugget of wisdom, and at the end Ram Dass sings kirtan which is so sweet and gentle, it brought tears to my eyes.
When the Earth Started to Sing A sonic journey through the evolution of sound on earth by George David Haskell, who wrote the book Sounds Wild and Broken, a deep dive into the ecology of sonic landscapes. Hauntingly beautiful
Satsang with Guruji a nourishing dharma talk honoring the Divine Mother on the final day of Durga Navaratri. Guruji urges us to take responsibility for our spiritual path and reminds us that self realization is available to all sincere seekers.
What I’m Reading
The Story of Immortality: A Return to Self-Sovereignty by Brahma Kumaris - Last month I came across a book at the Goodwill bin’s, buried beneath clothing, old Halloween decorations and orphaned shoes. It’s bright red color and the divine egg call to me, and suddenly it was in my hands and it’s quickly evident that this encounter was no mere coincidence. Written by the Brahma Kumaris, a women-led spiritual sect that practices open-eye meditation and live a life based on the tenets of Raja Yoga. Spiritual text conveyed through a mythic story with gorgeous full color illustrations, powerful heart medicine.
A Land by Jacquetta Hawkes The story of the creation and evolution of the land known now as Great Britain. The author artfully weaves science and prose and paints a fascination picture of geologic and organic processes over time.
Silences by Tillie Olsen I haven’t made much headway here yet but so far an interesting perspective on the periods of time during which and artist doesn’t create, when they are silent or nothing is known. What happens during these silences and their relationship to a creative work is worthy of investigation and I look forward to what is revealed.