September Events:
Note these events are listed for
information purposes only. Dates and locations may be subject to change; see
the source for details. If I’ve missed anyone and you’d like to add to this
listing, please contact me. All times MDT.
Aug 26, 2:00 pm: Calgary Heathen
Meet and Greet in Pearce Estate Park.
Aug 26, 7:00 pm: Family-friendly
Paranormal Investigation at East Coulee School Museum, hosted by Ghost Hunt
Alberta. Sold out!
Sep 2: Muin/Vine Tree Month
begins, according to Robert Graves.
Sep 3: Calgary Pride Parade, and Pride in the Park at Prince’s Island.
Sep 3, 11:30 pm: Rocky Horror
Picture Show at Globe Cinema.
Sep 4: Labour Day. Unofficial end of summer.
Sep 5, 5:29 am: Mercury Retrograde ends.
Sep 6, 1:03 am: Full (Corn or
Harvest) Moon.
Sep 6, 7:00 pm: Calgary Witches’
Meetings Full Moon Circle in NE Calgary. Must have previously attended a CWM
event to attend.
Sep 9, 10:00 am: Calgary New Age
Craft Market at Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Hall.
Sep 16, 10:00 am: Hergest's Magickal Mystery Mathom Sale, Part III. Contact me for location.
Sep 19, 11:30 pm: New Moon. Muin/Vine
Lunar Month begins.
Sep 22, 2:02 pm: Autumnal
Equinox.
Sep 23, 11:00 am: Calgary Pagan Pride Picnic at Edworthy Park.
Sep 23, 11:00 am: VegFest Calgary
2017, Vegan Food and Lifestyle Festival, at Millennium Park. http://www.vegfestcalgary.com
Sep 23, 7:00 pm: “Witches Night
Out YYC” Costumed Fundraiser for Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter.
Sep 29, 8:00 pm: Paranormal
Investigation and Pub Night at Ceili’s Pub, hosted by Ghost Hunt Alberta.
Tickets through Eventbrite.
Sep 30, 11:00
am: Calgary Kinky Flea Market at Forest Heights
Community Centre.
Last
month, I reviewed Shirley Maclaine’s story of her pilgrimage across northern
Spain. This month, I embarked on a
pilgrimage of a different type.
.
As
witches and pagans, we sometimes seek to create ecstatic experiences in our
rituals, transformational whammies that will have lasting effects. True ecstatic experiences are rare things,
and as varied as those experiencing them. It could be you, your team, or a
family member winning the championship.
Perhaps it’s your reaching the top of Kilimanjaro, seeing Macchu Picchu
for the first time, or watching the Man burn in the Nevada desert. More often, we remember the disasters that
mark a generation, when the unthinkable happened: the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Challenger disaster, or 9/11.
.
With
a total eclipse of the Sun, we have the perfect opportunity for science and
religion to come together. We know where and when, and only local weather can
stand in the way. This week, millions of
people in America, regardless of faith, colour, gender, politics, or economic
status, were fortunate enough to be in the Dark Zone together.
.
Many
more got most of it, the older of us not for the first time, seeing the
crescent Sun through our eclipse glasses, building pinhole cameras and seeing
the negative shadows through leaves or a colander. It’s a cool experience, teaches kids about
science, and has us think in abstract terms about what it means in terms of our
own religions. Perhaps you saw the live broadcasts or videos, and the
photographs in newspapers and magazines.
.
In
the Dark Zone, it’s different.
.
At
Rexburg Nature Park, as at several sites around the town, the participants have
assembled: the astrophotographers, the families with their dogs and cats, the
groups of friends of all ages, including a few Furries. A couple of police officers sit under a
canopy, and a group of pink-shirted volunteers have a water station under
another. The sky is delightfully clear (though still a trifle smoky). You know
most of it: the slow dimming of the light during the partial phase, the hot day
getting cooler, the crescent “shadows” under the trees. People are hacking their phones by putting
their glasses over their cell phone cameras. Totality approaches; the thin
crescent thins more and more. I put down
my glasses, and watch my fellow participants.
.
Then an Unseen Hand suddenly turns a giant dimmer switch on the
sky. The participants gasp; it’s as if
darkness visibly, quickly falls to earth and collapses sideways into itself. I
quickly look through my glasses as the last speck of sunlight disappears.
.
An
instant later, the Black Sun burns.
They’ve turned off the Sun, and punched a hole in the sky.
.
I
remove my glasses; the crowd is still murmuring, and I start drumming. An older man next to me quotes Genesis or
Isaiah about “darkness covering the earth”. (And wasn’t there darkness in the
crucifixion story, again about death and rebirth?) I look at the Black Sun with my naked eyes,
the corona burning in a roughly triangular shape. The park is lit by the Black Sun and
earthshine. The planets are out: Jupiter
on the eastern horizon, Mercury on the left, the dim star Regulus next to the
corona, then Mars and Venus on the right. It’s surreal; it’s as if the world is inside
out and upside down. So much to look at,
and time is moving rapidly. I grab for a camera, and like a fool go for the
cell phone; I’m not thinking straight. I look at the Black Sun through my
binoculars, seeing a thin rim of red on the trailing edge. Time to go. I try to catch a photo of Jupiter, but the
returning light washes it out. Just like that, the Black Sun is gone.
.
There’s
some light applause among the participants.
I’m breathing heavily, feeling ecstatic, not believing what I’d just
seen. I say to myself, “this must be
what death is like.” I’d missed Baily’s Beads, missed the animal activity, but
it didn’t matter. It’s been over two
minutes since the beginning of totality, but it seems half that.
.
Immediately a few people begin to leave,
trying to miss the traffic, but there’s no way I’ll be able to ground quickly
after this. I continue to rest, watching the light return, the people leave.
After awhile, I get down on my hands and knees, sending energy into the earth.
Realize it looks like I’m prostrating myself before the Sun, but I feel better.
.
It
continues to brighten, more people leave, and eventually a couple of Frisbee
players start tossing a disc near me. It’s almost time for me to go. I chat with a couple of my neighbours,
sharing feelings about the experience, as it’s too profound not to. I approach the young couple next to me, who’d
appeared in some of my crowd shots (with the Furries behind), and I offer to
send them copies of my photos of them watching.
I load up the car, make a last visit to the porta-potties, and wait
until the Moon’s shadow has departed. Then I hit the road.
.
Totality
is an awe-inspiring experience beyond words; that’s why I consider it one of
the Mysteries of our faith. Photos,
videos, and stories can give you a glimpse of what it was like, but it’s
certainly an ecstatic experience that pagans should try to experience at least
once in their lifetime. It’s a visible
demonstration of death and rebirth shared by our ancestors back to the dawn of
civilization. For me, it gave rise to
thoughts of mortality and community; I think, too, that it happening in America
caused me to mimic American behavior and be more open, when I’m so often closed off from others.
.
Although
there are “annular” (“ring”) eclipses in 2021 in a band of remote locations from
Nipigon, Ontario to Iqualuit on Baffin Island, and in 2023 across the
southwestern U.S., I think of these as 360-degree partial eclipses, with a
different effect than totality.
.
Certainly try for April 8, 2024 in eastern
Canada (ironically, it just misses Toronto, the “centre of the universe”), but
Niagara Falls should be awesome –and crowded, as will Montreal (just barely), New
Brunswick, western P.E.I., and Newfoundland.
Or you may head for Texas instead, where it will certainly be warmer.
Reserve early (like a year ahead), and aim to be somewhere where they’re
predicting clear skies. Bookmark http://greatamericaneclipse.com for info. I know I want to do this again; hopefully
with some of you this time.
.
Postscript: I call it the Black Sun, because that’s what
it looked like. I’m also reminded of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”. I Googled “Black Sun” and discovered it’s
another term for the Norse Sun Wheel, so the term may be associated with White
Supremacists. I deplore them, and use of
the term is no endorsement. I’m sorry I have to live in times where I feel I
need to make this statement.
