The “Awe”-some Experience of a Total Solar Eclipse
In the past few decades, scientists have begun in earnest to study the emotion of awe – that “Oh, wow!” feeling you get when you see a beautiful sunset, hold a newborn baby, or hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony performed live. Awe takes you out of your ordinary day-to-day consciousness and generates a new open-mindedness and sense of reverence. Awe is exhilarating. Awe is inspiring. Awe is, well … awesome.
Eclipse chasers know all about awe. It’s what drives them to travel the globe seeking the chance to see totality again … and again … and again. Some dedicated (addicted?) umbraphiles have seen twenty or more total solar eclipses.
What is it about this phenomenon that induces awe? At the center of the experience is the magnificent view of the solar corona. Observers over the past several centuries – both scientists and ordinary folks – have described the sublime beauty of this sight using phrases such as “euphoric,” “transcendent,” “otherworldly,” and other superlatives. Many say that it is difficult to find the words to adequately describe the feelings. Photographs, as striking as they may be, do not do justice to actually seeing the corona in person.
The sudden onset of almost total darkness during the middle of the day is another awe-inducing part of a total solar eclipse. This unnatural “midnight at midday” has a disquieting effect on humans and nature alike. The dramatic darkening accelerates in the few minutes before totality until at last the Moon’s shadow, moving at more than a thousand miles per hour, sweeps across your location on the Earth.
Seeing this motion of the umbra, along with knowing that you are positioned in perfect alignment with the Moon and the Sun, often gives way to a
visceral understanding of the vast physical scale of the event. The Sun (about 93 million miles away) is casting a shadow of the Moon (about 240,000 miles away) across a path on the Earth (no more than a few hundred miles wide) where you, a single individual, are standing.
Finally, the rarity of the experience can impart an expanded sense of time as you recognize the fleeting nature of the moment. A total solar eclipse can serve as a reminder of the arc of one’s lifetime in the context of these regular cycles that have been repeating for millions of years.
As a result, a total solar eclipse can provoke very intense feelings of awe. Many experience a renewed child-like sense of wonder, not only about the eclipse but about the world in general. Indeed, witnessing an event on this scale can make you feel very small, and at the same time very connected.
I encourage you to get in the path of totality on April 8, 2024, and
be prepared for a glorious experience of awe.
—Bryan Brewer, author of ECLIPSE: Experience Awe in the Path of Totality
#getinthepath #2024totalsolareclipse #awesomeeclipse #awe #experienceofawe
ECLIPSE: Experience Awe in the Path of Totality, by Bryan Brewer, is now in its fourth edition, which has been updated especially for the
April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse. Author
Bryan Brewer has traveled to witness six total solar eclipses over the past few decades, and has served as an expert speaker on eclipse travel expeditions and for numerous science museums, planetariums, libraries, and bookstores. Bryan enjoys sharing stories and talking about all aspects of eclipses, and has done many media interviews (TV, radio, podcasts, online, and print) to help people get the most out of this rare and truly awesome spectacle of Nature.
