Spring Journal: Eclipse

In a rare occurrence, the valley darkened into early dusk as the moon slid between it and the sun.

During the eclipse, the familiar became strange. Deer emerged from the forest at noon instead of evening. Birds sang their sunset songs with the day only half-done. A peculiar brown light bathed the grass and trees. The perfectly positioned moon blocked the vast radiance that shapes our world—its color, rhythm, and form.

I’ve known other eclipses.

They arrive without media announcements or special viewing glasses. No one marks calendars for their coming, yet they darken days with the same quiet certainty. Depression moves like the moon across the mind’s sky, casting a shadow strong enough to turn day into night.

When I lost the ability to rise from a fall, to walk, to drive, to use my hands, to eat without choking, to speak in my full voice, it was as if these signs of my failing body had aligned, blocking my connection to the world. Everything changed. Deer wandered the property, their tan forms ghostlike in the dim light. The stream wound through the valley, its surface no longer sparkling but flat and dark as slate. Birds called from branch to branch, their voices edged with confusion. It was as if all existed in that peculiar sepia half-light of the eclipse—colors muted, edges softened, warmth diminished.

My mind darkened like yesterday’s sunlight. At the edges of the shadow, I might glimpse a crescent of joy or wonder, a thin gold arc reminding me of the full brightness lost. Of course, I knew the light itself had not dimmed—the sun burns as fiercely during an eclipse as at any other moment—yet shadows pooled around my feet from where I sat, and the air cooled against my skin.

But here’s the truth about eclipses, whether of sun or spirit: they pass.

The sun and moon continue their journeys. The alignment shifts. Light returns—first, a diamond brightness at one edge, then a growing slice of blue, until the ordinary miracle of daylight suddenly spills across the land again. The sun never stops shining; it is only briefly obscured from one vantage point on this madly turning Earth.

I take comfort in this. When the heaviness comes, when colors fade and warmth retreats, I remember: I am experiencing a shadow, temporary by its very nature. The smaller thing cannot forever block the greater light.