It has been a long few months. We have witnessed tragedy, betrayal, and divisiveness on a national level. Way too many lines in the sand are being drawn from "good" people and patience is running thin.
Today celestial bodies danced on a stage that is bigger than our imaginations. Their duet cast a shadow on the United States for a few minutes and reminded us of a few things. We are reminded that we are small, we are reminded that life is bigger than any individual, and most of all we are reminded that WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.
This little blue planet is tiny and beautiful and it is ours. We can ignore problems and we can ignore each other, but the sky told us today that for our own sake we probably should not ignore anything.
Like many I couldn't find glasses, either the websites lied on where to find them, there weren't enough distributed, or places simply never got them, but glasses were not to be found (two 7Elevens I went to admitted they never had them to begin with but were told to say "we are sold out"). After researching "life hack" ways to see the eclipse Annapurna and I went to a park to enjoy what we could. While the pinnacle of the eclipse was happening this really beautiful thing happened. A mother of a three or four year old daughter started going around to people and offering their glasses to those who were going without. "Would you like to look through our glasses?" the mother asked and the adorable daughter would hand over her pair of glasses. This gesture touched me more than the celestial event itself. On this special day a mother teaching her daughter about sharing, compassion, humanity, and unity.
I have read similar accounts today, to all those people that shared today for those who had never seen an eclipse before, Thank you. Thank you for reinforcing that we can be WE again. It was a truly beautiful day.