An Eclipse of Another Kind – Standing Down

We just had a full eclipse in my neighborhood. There’s more that needs to be eclipsed though.

Eclipse This

My spouse and I went to a presentation by Sasha Sagan. Most of us recognize the name Carl Sagan. He was Sasha’s father. While Carl was a scientist, Sasha is a writer and podcaster.

In her presentation, Sasha told many stories about eclipses. One of those stories was about the battle of the eclipse of Thales in 585. Lydia and Medes had been at war for about six years. There was no end in sight for their conflict.

But on May 28, 585, their world turned dark in the middle of the day. The fighting stopped.

Inspiration of Another Kind

I was so deeply moved by this story. In many ways, it was more inspiring than my witnessing of a similar event in 2024. Though we were not too far from the “total” part of the moon coming in front of the sun, we are in the Finger Lakes region.

What I mean by that is that it’s too often cloudy here. When the moon first started to cover the sun, I could see it happening through my eclipse glasses. But a minute later, the clouds completely covered the drama in the sky.

Fortunately, my wife was away at an event where she could get an interesting photo with her iPhone. Whatever else is true, the light changed even with the cloud cover. And our dog came running to find me when it seemed like dusk outside in the middle of the day.

Stories

But now back to that story. Since I heard it, Sagan’s story has filled me with wishful hopes for our times. Imagine the places in our current culture and political wars that need the kind of transformation those soldiers experienced in 585.

Let your imagination run wild. Who needs this kind of change? How will we eclipse hatred and greed in our time?