A total solar eclipse is seen beside a waving American flag in Houlton, Maine.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Solar and lunar eclipses are known to arouse fear, curiosity, wonder, excitement, and devotion. All societies, whether traditional, pre-modern, or modern, experience these emotions in different degrees and combinations.
North America was a witness to a grand piece of celestial action in its full glory this week. A total solar eclipse swept across the skies from Mexico through 15 states of the United States to lose itself in the North Atlantic. The Mayans and the Aztecs were the earliest people who could predict an eclipse, and the US is now in the forefront of astronomical investigation into celestial mysteries.
The country made the best use of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe the rare spectacle in the sky. About 200 million people who lived in the path of the eclipse, and many millions from elsewhere who flocked there, caught a piece of the action, giving the event the largest TRP ever for an eclipse in the continent.
Much excitement and a lot of euphoria built up in the US in the weeks before the event, even casting a shadow on the campaign to decide the great earthly contest to be held there later this year. Whether it is Joe Biden or Donald Trump who eclipses the other is to be decided, but the US decided to take the eclipse to the market and get its worth in dollars.
Eclipse merchandise, including goggles, chairs, umbrellas, and creams flooded the market, hotels hiked prices and offered packages, and airlines announced special flights for vantage views from the air. Of course, the scientific establishment also posted itself in the path of the eclipse, equipped with balloons, special aircraft, and other equipment to track the event and gain more insights into the play of light and shade.
The eclipse was a scientific, social, commercial, and even a political event in the US.
Trump posted a bizarre advertisement with his head as the moon blocking the sun, plunging the country into darkness. Biden poked fun at Trump who had last time gazed at the eclipsed sun with his naked eyes.
The response to the total eclipse was total—coming from the depths of the mind with its archetypal fears and anxieties and also from its rational penumbra that seeks to explain the world. The passing shadow darkens the world, confuses birds and animals, and plays on the human mind, reaffirming or elucidating mysteries. An occasional eclipse is a window that gives a different view of the world out there, and it has often helped to throw some light on ourselves too.