Cosmic Miracles
Paying attention to life's eclipses, big and small
What was the last time you were truly surprised by something? I’ve started to find, now that I'm in my 30’s, that my life has a lot less of the unexpected than it used to. I guess it makes sense. Your early years are filled with new experiences: your first time riding a bicycle, your first job, your first kiss, you first crushing rejection because you were so bad at kissing.
As you get older, the odds that something you’re experiencing is novel decreases. I also think, as you get older, you tend to settle into routines and gravitate towards the familiar: your favorite bar, your favorite vacation destination, your favorite brand of dishwasher detergent (seriously, how often do you switch up dishwasher detergent?). If you’re not careful, you could go years without experiencing anything new.
If you’ve never seen a solar eclipse before, I guarantee it will surprise you. I was lucky enough to see one earlier this month in my hometown of Austin (the second one I’ve seen), and no amount of reading about it can prepare you for the experience. Hell, even seeing the first one didn’t prepare me for the second one.
Watching it, you immediately understand why ancient people threw virgins into volcanoes, ax-murdered their kings, and just went absolutely crazy town banana pants, in general. The Sun is not supposed to look like that and nothing can override the lizard part of your brain that’s staring up at the moon-dark sky thinking what in the sweet hell am I even looking at right now, bro? Which is the diction lizards use when they think to themselves, I assume.
What’re the Odds?
It wasn’t until this past month, though, that I realized just how cosmically miraculous total solar eclipses are. Here’s all of the things that have to go right in order for you to see one:
For starters, you have to be a sentient being on a habitable planet, which is already a rare thing in and of itself.
You also have to be on a planet that has total solar eclipses. Mercury and Venus have no moons and therefore no eclipses. Mars’s moons are too small for total eclipses. And the gas giants are so far away (and the sun so small in their skies) that total eclipses there are absolute nothing-burgers compared to eclipses on Earth.
But just being on Earth is also not enough. You have to exist on Earth during the right epoch. The Moon is slowly getting farther away from the Earth, which means that, hundreds of millions of years from now, long after we humans have wiped ourselves out and giant radioactive super-roaches have taken over the planet, Earth will cease to have total solar eclipses (sorry, super-roaches).
Humans happen to exist during the temporal sweet spot where the Moon and the Sun appear to be almost the exact same size in the sky. The fact that the Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon but ALSO happens to be exactly 400 times farther away than the moon is a WILD COSMIC COINCIDENCE. I don’t know how many habitable planets there are in the universe, but I doubt a high percentage of them have a sun-moon combo as perfect and cool as ours (sorry, aliens).
We’re also lucky to live in a time of human history where we understand and can therefore predict solar eclipses. Any one spot on Earth experiences a solar eclipse, on average, once every 375 years (Carbondale, Illinois has gotten two in the last 7 years, lucky bastards) so odds are there won’t be one where you live in your lifetime. You’ll have to travel to see one.
But even if you were a human lucky enough to experience one 10,000 years ago, it probably would have been utterly terrifying, on account of not knowing what in the sweet hell was going on. So you would’ve soiled your one good loincloth, and you’d have to go wash it in the loincloth-washing spot by the river. But, OF COURSE, there would be a line, because everyone in the village ALSO soiled their loincloths during the Great Sun Vanishing of 8000 BC. So you’d be standing around in your soiled loincloth for HOURS wondering why the sun disappeared for five minutes (probably because the King has lost his magic).
And that’s assuming you weren’t one of the virgins that got thrown into the volcano to appease your tribe’s sun god, Azularathotep. Point is, in 2024 we can predict, travel to, and enjoy solar eclipses without soiling our loincloths. And that’s pretty awesome. Thanks, science.
Nerding Out
After seeing this recent eclipse, I started wondering about the mechanics of solar eclipses.
Do solar eclipses happen during a specific phase of the Moon?
Why don’t solar eclipses happen every month?
How many virgins must we sacrifice to Azularathotep to prevent another sun-vanishing?
Answers:
Yes, during a new moon.
Because the Moon orbits the Earth at a slight angle so it’s rare that it lines up perfectly between the Earth and the Sun.
Five (margin of error +/- 5).
I also started wondering about the Moon in general.
During a new moon, do we not see it at night because the side facing us is not illuminated or because the Moon isn’t up during the night?
Do we always see the same side of the Moon?
Should we ax-murder King Zanthor now that he’s lost his magic?
Answers:
BOTH! A new moon rises around sunrise and sets around sunset because it’s on the same side of the Earth as the Sun. Thus, it isn’t in the sky in the middle of the night, nor do we see it during the day because the side facing us isn’t illuminated by the Sun. Similarly, a full moon rises around sunset and sets around sunrise because it’s on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun.
Yes. Also the “Dark side of the Moon” isn’t always dark.
Yes (he was kind of a dick anyway).
Some of this stuff I already knew but had forgotten. But the part about a new moon rising around sunrise and setting around sunset, and a full moon rising around sunset and setting around sunrise? I never knew that!!! How did I not know that?!?!
I knew the Moon didn’t always rise right after sunset, but I never once thought about why. I just figured the Moon be like that sometimes. I’d look up and say, “Yup, Moon be moonin’ tonight.” But now I know why the Moon be moonin’ the way it be moonin’! That’s dope!
My Point
If it hadn’t been for this solar eclipse, I might never have bothered to truly understand the phases of the Moon. And maybe that doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things. But I think that newfound knowledge is pretty cool. I unlocked a sense of curiosity about something I had long taken for granted. I’ve probably seen the Moon rise and set hundreds of times, and never thought to question it until then.
Experiencing something out of the ordinary sparked an entire thread of discovery and creativity — which resulted in this very post. I didn’t grasp this until now, but it’s the same reason why, in The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron recommends going on “Artist Dates” — weekly experiences that break you out of your usual day-to-day routine. They don’t all have to be cosmic miracles — an artist date could be going into your backyard and noticing a plant with weird leaves that you hadn’t noticed before. It doesn’t matter. Eclipses are everywhere.
On my flight back from Austin, the kid sitting behind me had clearly never been on a plane before. His parents were coaching him through what to expect, “We’re going to start going really fast. It’s going to get really loud. And the plane is going to start tilting up.” As the plane shot off the runway and into the sky, the kid screamed “Whoa! This is amazing!”
And you know what? It was. We were rising through the air at a couple hundred miles an hour, thousands of feet above the ground in a giant, roaring metal bird. People in 1900 would have murdered someone for that experience. And yet, on any given flight, I find myself yawning and wondering how much longer it’ll be ‘till I’m in Phoenix. PHOENIX! Is Phoenix floating above the clouds, 30,000 feet in the air? No it is not. It should be with a name like Phoenix. But it isn’t. So maybe just enjoy zipping around the sky for the incredible modern luxury that it is???? Phoenix will be there when you get there. Jeez, dude.
That said, I’m going to try to make more of an effort to appreciate life’s little cosmic miracles. I invite you to do the same.
And if you’re able to travel to see a total solar eclipse, do it. It’s worth it. Just try not to soil your loincloth.
Comments
Have you gone on any artist dates recently? If so, what did you do?
What other “cosmic miracles” have you experienced that are worth seeing?
What’s the best way to get stains out of a soiled loincloth? Asking for a friend.
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Thanks!
Great post
I love how your mind works Carlos. Perfect balance of humour and wisdom. Just beautiful. As for your question… I am religious about my “sacred coffee time” first thing in the morning when I read inspiring poetry (in English, Italian or Spanish) before I get on with my various duties as a single mum. I have learned the hard way that this is the best way to ground myself. Last week I’ve been to two poetry readings, tonight is a writers meet and greet.