Yo, Where'd The Sun Go?

🎤It's a Total Eclipse of Substack🎤

Apr 09, 2024

Image taken with phone behind eclipse glasses!

Hello, Hello Fellow Musers!

This is a quick, rare, impromptu Musing’s post celebrating the Total Solar Eclipse that happened earlier today on April 8, 2024 here in North America! My state of Texas happened to be one of the states in the Path of Totality. Although the area of Texas where I’m located was only partially in the totality path, I wanted to celebrate this beautiful event and share some photos with y’all of the eclipse and the effects of being in partial totality taken at where I work because an event like this won’t be happening again in the U.S. until 2044 and 2045!

I wanted to release this earlier but I got distracted by kitty cats who wanted attention and then my stomach demanded to be given attention to as well soooo that’s why it’s getting released now! :D

In between my photos and video clips, I also wanted to mix in a few eclipse articles from Substack writers, written today and over the weekend in preparation for today’s event!

(Okay, so I googled a few-it still counts!)

Enjoy!

Jeanine Kitchel

What’s Eating The Sun?

I wasn’t in totality but we did get to experience a little bit of a darkish sky today!

The Cosmic Almanac

The 2024 Aries Solar Eclipse EXPLAINED

How I’m Navigating the Aries Solar Eclipse

<Be sure to have your sound on for the very short clip>

Rich DeMuro

The total solar eclipse, explained!

Articles Of Interest

On the Eclipse

<Be sure to have your sound on for the very short clip>

Laura Erickson

Eclipse!

One of my coworkers commented that she could see why, before modern science, that ancient people use to think that the sun was getting eaten by a monster and became terrified! As Jeanine writes in her article, some ancient cultures such as the Maya viewed solar eclipses as bad omens, and they kept a good track record of when any kind of eclipse would appear. However, not all ancient cultures viewed eclipses as bad omens-some cultures believed that the “omens” could be good in addition to bad, or just signify that something significant may be about to happen that year.

The ancient Mesopotamians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks also kept track of and predicted eclipses, as well as ancient Indians (India) and the Chinese. This article by Mayank Vahia provides a good explanations of the beliefs of the ancient cultures about eclipses, as well as the evolution of eclipse beliefs in ancient India that went from myths to science!

Okay, so the lyrics aren’t exact, but I’ve literally had this in my head since I saw the halo. Thanks Beyoncé!

I asked my mom and my sister if they would send pics for this post. My mom was not able to capture the eclipse via phone camera but she did send this beautiful image:

Photo credit: My mom took this pic <3; It’s a brighter halo!

My sister was closer to the path of totality and sent me these images. I’ve grouped them together so as to get past that pesky photo limit I’ve heard Substack has. Enjoy!

Photo credit: My sister, Sara <3; This was part of a video that she sent me and so I took a few screenshots that should be looked from left to right

Photo credit: My sister, Sara <3; These were not part of the video and sent as individual pics

To my mom and sister:
Thank you both very much for helping me with this post by sending those pics! Love y’all! <3

To everyone who was in the path of totality in both Mexico and the U.S., I hope y’all got a great view and that those pesky clouds didn’t get in the way!

In my part of Texas, we’re suppose to be getting some rain and hail either this evening or tomorrow, and the clouds made sure to remind us of that today while allowing it to also be a nice day to be outside for an 80% experience outside of the path of totality!

I remember back in my early college years seeing a solar eclipse at dusk with my mom and neither of us realized it until later. I just remember seeing the sun really big with a shadow in front it and asking my mom, “Was there an eclipse today?”

The last solar eclipse I saw was the one in 2017, and before that I remember seeing at least two lunar eclipses-one from my college dorm room in 2009 and one when I had moved back to my mom and stepdad’s house a few years later.

Also, a while back, I happened to put in my phone at that time to be in one of the cities where the totality would occur. Completely forgot about it until…

Flash forward!

to last week when I received a reminder of this from my phone but it was too late to ask off. Ooooops, my bad!😂🤣😂

Ima leave y’all with this lil’ ditty that I attempted to base to the tune of Bonnie Tyler’s song “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. The first line is suppose to go with the first verse, and the rest is suppose to go along to the tune of the chorus. One of these days I’ll come back to this post and add a recording me singing it…maybe…we’ll see. Anyways, use your imaginations and enjoy!

🎤🎤🎤

Total Eclipse of Substack 2024

Turn around, look up!

Don’t look directly at the sky!
Put those glasses on and see
The moon and the sun
Doing the dance that they allow people to see
Every so often in a path of dark totality!
And to think
To our ancient ancestors
This use to be terrifying!
And they’d feel that it was the end of the world!
So they sought to understand
The thing that terrified them in that moment
They faced their fears and figured out this shit happens multiple times in centuries and years
Now with modern science we can
Watch this event anywhere in the world
And artists will draw and photograph to record
And on a writing platform
Writers will write about it
The total eclipse of Substack!