Or, Three reasons why we’re fascinated with the Total Solar Eclipse and NASA LIVE VIEW LINK starting at 1pm EST!
Happy April 1st! Just kidding!
One of my patients said, “Everyone else is out there looking at the sun, and here you are, sitting inside, looking at the moon all day.” LOLOLOLOL
It’s not April 1st. It’s April 8th. Did I do the same joke for April Fool’s last year? I don’t remember. I meant to do it on April 2nd, and then it was the 3rd, and then I thought, I’ll do it a week late, and then I thought, I’ll do it on April 8th, the total solar eclipse day.
The country is abuzz with excitement. Some people may say, “What is the fascination?” We were supposed to go to Austin, TX with family to view the eclipse, but, as luck would have it (literally, because it happened on St. Patrick’s Day), our second daughter was just born. It would be a trek to bring a three-week-old to a town expecting hundreds of thousands of people. There are t-shirts! There are solar eclipse glasses! There are musical performances! But, most importantly, there is the fascination. Why the fascination?
As I’m sure you’re now aware, the last solar eclipse was in 2017 and my extended family has been planning to view this 2024 one ever since. Only 15 total solar eclipses have been visible from the continental U.S. in the last 150 years. The next one will be on August 23, 2044. My kids will be in their 20s and I’ll be in my 60s. So the next time we may get any answers is in two decades. Who wants to wait that long? There are three reasons why we’re fascinated with the solar eclipse–though, conceivably, there are more. A total solar eclipse totally (pun intended) hits all of my interest buttons– art, science, and the occult. Why are you intrigued? Tell me in the comments.
Art: It’s beautiful. Photographs of the solar eclipse as it moves through the sky show a glowing disk that becomes a crescent and then only a luminous halo during totality. This year, because the sun is in a solar maximum, the solar corona, or flare, should be even more amazing. The official NASA website explains better than I ever could so I’ll just put the link at the bottom, but getting a total eclipse image while the sun is flaring at its max would be a breath-taking, literally once in a lifetime moment.
Science: It’s nerdy. Aside from being beautiful, the astrophysics behind a solar eclipse is so cool! Obviously, a solar eclipse happens because the moon’s shadow is blocking the sun. But the fact that the moon’s path varies because of the slight variation in the orbits of the sun, moon, and earth; the fact that slight slowing of the Earth’s rotation over the last 3,000 years can be calculated from images on Chinese artifacts, and the fact that the patterns are predictable, and, the fact that scientists can do a lot of research about gravity, light, and space, all during a total eclipse… I mean, isn’t that awesome? From my end (pun intended), I’ll be sitting at work, but I built two state-of-the-art eclipse viewers from cereal boxes so that my daughter, our nanny, and my wife can try to see it at home… and I’ll try to see it from work.
Mythology: It’s mysterious. I love that the legends vary but have several main themes– some large creature or being is swallowing the sun, and must be scared off; the moon and the sun are lovers, and have to be pulled apart; gods show their displeasure with humans by plunging earth into darkness; the sun is dying and must be rekindled.
I’m not so much into thinking that an eclipse is a sign of the end times– so many things were purportedly signs of the end times– Y2K, the floods, the locusts– and none of them came to fruition. Besides, if the world really ended today, who cares? What could we do about it? The world is already engulfed in war, disease, and famine. But what I love about the legends is that each one of them has a sense of human agency–if only briefly, and falsely, people feel that they can do something about the sun being eaten, and save it. So we banged drums, made loud noises, sang ceremonial chants, made peace with our neighbors, lit fires, and shot flaming arrows, for the few minutes during totality, and when the sun reappeared, we believed that we humans had something to do with it.
And did we? The wisest of all seemed to be the Navajo people who sat quietly in reverence until the sun reappeared. We are so small and only a tiny part of this Earth. Nothing we do or don’t do makes a difference. But the fact that we keep doing these things- light fires, make peace– shows that we have hope, and hope makes us human.
Georgia isn’t one of the states in the path of totality, but estimates are that 85-99% of people in the U.S. should be able to view at least part of the eclipse. I decided at the last minute that I care, long past eclipse glasses being sold out, hence the cereal box eclipse viewers. Check out Lance Bass’s safe viewing of the eclipse video… when the sun, moon, and earth and N’SYNC… so you don’t say ‘Bye Bye Bye’ to your vision. (Their jokes, not mine!) But whether you care or not, amidst so much infighting in the U.S. that the gods are surely displeased, the eclipse is, at least, something that brings us all together.
Things I’m reading:
Organized a Save the Booties! Fun Run/Walk as the Outreach Subcommittee Chair of the ASCRS Young Surgeons Committee— in Baltimore, MD, in June, if you’d like to donate.
I was interviewed for a Medscape article about Surgery and Superstition… and have the last quote. LOL.
The Surgery and Superstition article I wrote
Going to Las Vegas in a week to talk about healthcare marketing, here’s my panel link.
I love this piece and wish I’d written it.
My friend Martha’s Substack, about Peter Pan.
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If you’d like a free subscription to my friend Karyn’s Substack, please message me. I have three to give away. Until next time!
Always go black tie.