“Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane.” This poetic analogy from author Annie Dillard captures the profound divide between a partial and total solar eclipse. While both are extraordinary astronomical events, experiencing totality is utterly unparalleled.
A partial solar eclipse, where the moon passes between the Earth and sun but only obscures a portion of the sun’s disk, is certainly a marvel to behold. The sun’s brilliant light fades as the moon’s dark silhouette encroaches, creating eerie shadows and lighting effects. Birds may go quiet, temperatures can drop, and the world takes on an unusual hue as day seemstransitionally to turn into night. It’s undoubtedly a memorable phenomenon.
However, as Dillard articulates through her vivid comparisons, a partial eclipse merely hints at the profoundness awaiting in totality. It’s akin to an introductory gesture, whetting the appetite for something far more consequential lying ahead. Just as a first kiss is an enticing prelude to marriage’s covenantal intimacy, or an airplane flight can’t foreshadow the terrifying free-fall of jumping out mid-air, so too does a partial eclipse only skim the surface of its total counterpart’s depths.
During the fleeting minutes when the moon entirely blocks out the sun’s light along the narrow corridor of totality, the world undergoes a metamorphosis like no other. Dillard’s quote contrasts the total eclipse’s uniqueness by anchoring the familiar – kisses, airplanes – with their respective life-shaking counterparts of matrimony and plummeting from heights. By such comparisons, totality emerges as an almost otherworldly, paradigm-shifting event.
When totality strikes, day is obliterated in an instant, replaced by an ethereal twilight glow surrounding the revealed solar corona, the sun’s incandescent outer atmosphere. The tenuous corona, extending millions of miles into space yet normally obstructed by the sun’s blinding brightness, streams like a heavenly crown encircling the blackened lunar disk suspended in the heavens. Surrounding stars and planets materialize in the striking negative sky. Dillard, speaking from experience, has witnessed grown folks “turn and squall with oversuffered tendernesses” when confronted by totality’s dizzying effects.
This sense of being transported to another realm, of something extraordinary enfolding one’s existence, is what sets totality apart from its “kissing” cousin, the partial eclipse. The latter may be beautiful, but can never prepare the psyche for totality’s sensory overload and utter transformation of the familiar heavens. The two phenomena occupy entirely separate phenomenological universes.
Like a first kiss versus marriage, or routine flight versus existential free-fall, the total solar eclipse represents a singular, almost mythical boundary realm. Its awesome imposition of cosmic forces makes onlookers feel part of something greater transpiring around them. As Dillard conveys, totality disturbs our rational moorings, allowing a breathtaking glimpse beyond the veil of everyday reality into the sublime mysteries unfolding above.
Undoubtedly, even reading vivid descriptions or seeing stunning images and video cannot substitute for the visceral, perception-altering experience itself. But Dillard’s eloquent analogies provide profound entry points to begin comprehending totality’s grandeur. Only by metaphorically situating the total solar eclipse alongside those rarest of life events – marriage, plummeting through the void – can one conceptually grope towards its world-upending gravitas.
So while a partial eclipse may be deeply moving in its own right, it is but the opening act to totality’s astonishing main spectacle. The former merely scratches the surface of the holistic dissolution of boundaries and merging with the cosmos that totality offers. For those longing to encounter something truly elemental, to be shaken to one’s existential core by the cosmos’ rhythms writ large, a total solar eclipse stands in a category by itself. As Dillard reminds us, nothing can quite prepare us for that paradigmatic plunge.
Note: This post was written mostly by Anthropic’s Claude 3 Sonnet. It began with me searching for the word “eclipse” in my Readwise highlights database. The first quotation found was the excellent one by Annie Dillard that’s cited in the first paragraph. I used this prompt with Claude:
You are an expert writer of blog posts that are simple, clear and to the point. Write a 750 word post musing on the following quotation: “Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane. Although the one experience precedes the other, it in no way prepares you for it.” (Annie Dillard, The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New)
Where I live we will only be experiencing about a 35% of totality solar eclipse later this morning. Here’s to those of you from Texas up through the American Heartland into eastern Canada who will be experiencing totality (including Dayton, Ohio where I mostly grew up).
I also note this from FlightRadar 24: Air Canada flight 1070 will fly entirely within the path of totality for the total eclipse – from Dallas to Montreal.
You must be logged in to post a comment.