On the Eclipse

An alignment of the spheres

A tiny break- this not about fashion, per se. But what is a trend other than something that everyone is talking about? Here’s a little tidbit about the sun, the moon, the earth, and the shadows they cast on each other.

---

I just want to let you know that there’s about to be a solar eclipse. 

I don’t want it to surprise you like it did Louis of Bavaria, who wasn’t expecting the solar eclipse on May 5, 840. When he looked up and saw the sun disappear from the sky, he was so shocked that he keeled over and died on the spot¹. 

An eclipse can be really rattling- for individuals, and also in the larger scope of history. When Louis of Bavaria died, he was the head of a great and sprawling empire. He was, after all, the son of Charlemagne. In the aftermath of his untimely eclipse-fueled demise, his three sons then began to argue over his legacy. Their quarrel ended with the Treaty of Verdun, which divided Europe into three large areas: what would become France, Germany and Italy.

The eclipse has proven important to the story of the United States as well-  in 1504, Columbus was in the midst of his fourth and final voyage to the new world when his aging ships were wrecked on the north shore of Jamaica.

Initially the European castaways turned to the locals for food and shelter, but as months passed, their appetites proved too insatiable for Jamaican hospitality. So, understandably, the Jamaicans stopped accommodating them. 

Columbus’ crew mutinied and attacked the Jamaicans after days on end without food, and the Jamaicans rose up to defend themselves. Columbus, looking end the unrest, consulted his astronomical almanacs he used for navigation. He found that in three days, on the evening of February 29th, 1504, there would be a total lunar eclipse. At those moments the moon takes on the reddish color, which is sunlight filtering through the Earth's atmosphere. Astrologers call it a blood moon. 

Columbus assembled the Jamaican chieftains, and told them that God was angry that their people weren’t feeding his men. He warned them that God would inflame the moon with his wrath, so that all would know his displeasure. Sure enough, that night, when the moon finally rose, the Jamaicans  looked on in horror as the moon turned the dark coppery color of blood.

The chieftains pleaded to Columbus to make it stop, to which Columbus replied that he'd need to retire to his cabin to pray on their behalf. 

Columbus retreated to his cabin, and watched his hourglasses. His almanac said the lunar eclipse would last 48 minutes, and he wanted to wait it out for full dramatic effect. After 48 minutes, Columbus stepped outside and proclaimed that God had answered his prayers. He would forgive the Jamaicans provided they once more brought food for his men. And they did. 

Almost four hundred years later Mark Twain repurposed this plot, in the story of a time traveler who visits the medieval knights of King Arthur's court, and scares them into thinking he can control the eclipse. This theme was also reinterpreted in the Adventures of Tintin comic book, Prisoners of the Sun, when Tintin similarly scares Incas into thinking that he can control the eclipse. 

This storyline is always posed as a battle between science and mysticism: it pits the well-educated, modern westerner with the scientific tools against the simple heathens who don’t understand how the world works.

But it wasn’t really that way at all- certainly not in the original story. Columbus totally lucked into his eclipse timing. 

Remember, Columbus thought he was in Asia.  He believed the earth was a quarter smaller than it is. It was only by pure luck that he found the Caribbean approximately where he expected to find the coast of China. He completely misestimated the difference between his local time and the clocks back in Spain. He should have been off by hours. Columbus also misread his almanac, and couldn’t accurately keep local time using sand in an hourglass. And yet. All of his errors aligned in the eclipsed moon up rising over the ocean almost exactly when he expected. It was a complete and utter coincidence.

Eclipses generally remained something to fear for a very long time. As late as the 1960s, eclipses were seen as dangerous- a way to blind yourself or at least burn your retinas irreparably (which is still true, if you don’t use eclipse glasses or look through a pinhole). But in the 60s, safety precautions were taken to extremes, as children were urged to stay home and close all the windows and watch the eclipse on TV.

Historically, whenever there has been a push for rationality and logic in larger society, there has been a simultaneous expansion of divinity and spiritualism. For example, it was during the enlightenment period in Europe that tarot cards turned from a game to a divination tool. In America, this twin divide was never as crystal clear as it was in the 1970s. This was the decade that developed the integrated circuit, the laser, fiber optics, and modern computing- as well as the new age movement, and a resurgence in the popularity of tarot and astrology. 

In the 70s, whether because of new age-y ness or new interest in the cosmos and science, people started wanting to see eclipses. And actively went out of their way for them. In 1972, there was a total eclipse 900 miles off the coast of New York- and the first public cruise ship was chartered to go see it. In 1974, the first commercial flight was chartered for amateur eclipse chasers in Australia.

Eclipses were such a hot trendy thing in the 70s, Carly Simon’s vain ex-lover charted a jet all the way to Nova Scotia just to see one:

And indeed this decade of scientific innovation and new agey reawakening culminated in a total eclipse of the sun, on February 26, 1979

Author Annie Dillard witnessed that eclipse, and was dumbfounded. She didn’t write about it until two years after it happened. She need that time to process what she saw. She wrote:

“Usually it is a bit of a trick to keep your knowledge from blinding you, but during an eclipse it is easy. What you see is much more convincing than any wide eyed theory you may know.”

The eclipses seem to be the stalemate between the poles of the spectrum of rationality. Yes, the eclipse is science. It’s extremely predictable. We know when it will happen. You can explain what actually happens- that the moon comes between the sun and the earth, and there are a few insane minutes of night before daylight is restored- but the event itself seems to  elude description.

Most people on earth have never seen an eclipse. But in the immediate future, these next 20 years or so, eclipses will become a periodic part of life- and more and more people will gather to casually observe the event that stunned Louis of Bavaria to death. We will watch the grass turn silver in the moonlight, and hear the birds quiet and awaken, feel the night come and go in a matter of minutes.

Eclipses are moments when scientists wax poetic, and mystics rattle off precise markers and statistics.  A time when the scientific get mystic and the mystic get scientific. And everyone in between is dumbstruck. It is the literal alignment of the spheres of belief and rationality, hovering above us.

A major source of this information was the book Sun Moon Earth by Tyler Nordgren. I recommend!

1. This is the legend but he actually passed away on June 20. The cause was probably stomach or esophageal cancer in connection with bronchitis- but the severe shock of the eclipse did not help.