Eclipse Epiphany

Last night I got to witness one of the most phenomenal natural wonders of our solar system.  Sure, sure a lunar eclipse comes around every 4 years, right?  But this was the first time in 300 some odd years that a total lunar eclipse had fallen on the winter solstice.  I found out a total lunar eclipse is actually a pretty big deal.  It is actually more rare than a solar eclipse.  I heard someone say (so I don't know how factual this is) that it will be another 400 years until a total lunar eclipse on a winter solstice again.  Maybe it was a total lunar eclipse period.  


It was a rare night indeed watching this lunar eclipse in Rosalia, Kansas.  The night started off cloudy and I was afraid I would miss the big event.  As the clouds began to clear away around 11 pm, it was unusually bright outside.  I went out to look at the moon at 12:15 and it was still bright.  No shadow was cast on its surface yet.  I debated sitting outside, but I had scared a skunk off when I opened the door and decided to let him have the back yard for a while.  When I went back out at 1, it was halfway covered, noticeably darker, and the clouds had formed a unique ring or circle opening around the moon.  This time I chickened out of camping out because it was colder and I had just watched Wolfman this past weekend...  At 1:45, it was almost completely covered and a slight pinkish tint was noticeable.  I thought to myself that surely wearwolves cannot get their power during a lunar eclipse, but kind of freaked out when the wind blew through some tall grass behind me.  Finally, at 2:30, when it was completely covered it was nearly pitch black outside and the entirety of the moon was pink.  The pink color came from the reflection of light coming from the earth's atmosphere - a light we provided.  It was eerie.  And cold.  And unique.  A night I will never forget.  


But the reason I won't forget it is not because of the rarity of a lunar eclipse.  It's because while I was standing alone on my back porch, my family asleep inside and my closest neighbors asleep 2 miles down the road, with raccoons and skunks and the cattle in the barn, staring at the moon, so were over a billion other people.  This eclipse that is a powerful display of the complexity and simplicity balanced in our solar system, and our extreme lack of control over nature was something that all viewers around the world were part of last night.  I was a single part of an unfathomably large scale natural wonder in which I had absolutely no affect on whatsoever.  I have never in my life, try as I might, been so in the moment as I was those 5 minute intervals I stepped outside to stare at the moon.  


Filled with the excitement of the winter solstice (I know, major hippie - it's the full moon), while I was reading my book today, I had an epiphany.  I am reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and am finding myself very intrigued by some of the discoveries that she made.  If you liked the movie - the book is far more insightful.  We, as Americans, are so busy with getting things done in an efficient manner in order to put more in our days that we fail to enjoy life to the fullest and to wholly understand our purpose.  Through mediation that is practiced in Hinduism, one is in the pursuit to find connection with their soul, which is connected to God and to the universe.  She compares it to listening to your heart rather than to your head.  I need a lot more of that in my life.  


So I've decided to try meditating.  Just get a feel for it through this next semester.  I also want to look into the practice of Hinduism when I grow up and move to a bigger city.  It is not that I am unhappy with Catholicism - quite the contrary- it's just that I want to explore a more efficient means of practice with the one I have already.  We'll see how it goes....


On a kind of side note:  one of my favorite quotes and lessons in the book was when a friend of hers in Italy tells her, "Do not apologize for crying.  WIthout this emotion, we are only robots."  I'm going to cry freely more often.  No reservations.  And I'm not going to apologize.  


All this stems from feeling so small and individual and part of something so magnificently HUGE.  From what I have read, meditation brings about a similar feeling.  I am on a quest to find it...........