I had set my clock for 1:45 AM, taking up residence on the
couch so as not to awaken my Husband when the alarm went off. As excited as I
was, my sleep had been fitful. These celestial events don’t come around often. But
I knew if I didn’t get a little slumber in before the big event, I’d be sorry
the next day.
The most difficult part of the evening would be extricating
myself from the couch when my iPad alarm went off. My Lo-Cats, Shiloh and
Willow, were sleeping on my feet. That’s a major accomplishment for all three
of us. I have been working hard with these two former ferals for a couple of
years to help them domesticate me. They didn’t cede any ground and I was only
able to rise from the couch under feline protest.
I decided I’d try to keep watch from the deck just outside our sliding glass door in the back. I took a candle with me to signal to my psyche that I was there to meditate, reflect and pray. I would take up residence in a nook behind one of my plant shelves where I hoped that the motion sensor would not pick up my presence after awhile and leave me in darkness to ponder the heavens. It worked but only for awhile.
My candle with its three wicks flickered. Under the blackening skies, the darkness of the world seems far away in this backyard sanctum, the statue from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil at the edge of the deck where I sit. As I begin to relax, I am feeling safe in this place we have worked so hard to make home.
As the edge of the moon starts to disappear into darkness, I
begin to pray:
O G-d, source, ground and destination of all being. Be with us in this time of cataclysmic change. As the brightness of Sister Moon is covered by an interposing of the Good Earth in front of Brother Sun, we, too, feel the light subsiding from our world.
We know this enshrouding darkness is not forever. But it
is frightening. We don’t know what to expect, who will be harmed, what will die
without hope of resurrection. We also know that darkness is not to be abhorred,
that it is necessary for a wholeness in creation. We know that without darkness
light makes no sense. And yet, like ancient peoples, we see this eclipse as a time
of chaos and danger. And we tremble.
Be our light in the darkness, Holy One. Help us to
remember that darkness is not darkness to you, the light and the dark are
alike.
As I pray a falling star blazes out across the western
horizon.
I continue….
Sister Moon, you have nearly disappeared. Your
brightness now an orange brown dullness. The eclipse is nearing completion. Soon
your light will once again peek from behind the interposing Mother Earth. Can
we hold our breath that long? Can we wait in darkness and silence trusting in
your return ? Can we trust that our lives together will regain a sanity that
tonight seems so far removed from us?
Hoping for a better view, go out to my front yard just
inside the green wall of the Jungle sheltered from the brightness of street
lights. As I crane my neck to see the now fully eclipsed moon, the smell of
orange blossoms surrounds me, perfuming the cool night air. I stand barefoot in
my Jungle in this place where I offer my prayers each morning, my stone Buddha
looking on in silence, where I turn clockwise, reiki charged hands moving
clockwise to point in every direction. Prayers for the sick and suffering emanate
daily from this plod of Earth’s surface I have been lent for my lifetime to
love.
Somehow it feels safe this night even as Sister Moon is now completely obscured, smothered by the interposition of this beautiful blue and green planet, our island home. Other than the occasional car on the nearby expressway, it is still. The birds that will soon sing the sun up are still sleeping. They neither toil nor spin. And they do not fear a darkened moon. They trust their Creator. Can we do likewise?
I come back into the house to see if the local television news
is providing a better view of the eclipse than my little cell phone can
capture. The first channel to appear is the local PBS station. Bill Moyers and
Joseph Campbell are talking about the power of myth. Have we human animals who became
fully human through our ability to see life through the lens of myth lost our
desire to claim our souls? Will we lose our humanity in the process if not our
planet? And will there be a PBS to remind us of what we have lost?
Moyer and Campbell are talking about the hero who must die to be reborn. Is this where we are this night? Must the world as we know it collapse and die before it can be reborn, not as a reanimation of the old world which no longer works, but as something new, something that hopefully will retain the best of the old? Campbell reminds us, without death there can be no rebirth.
This seems so risky, so dangerous. What if the chaos does
not subside but only spreads to encompass everything? What if the darkness of
the eclipse does not end? Surely I am not the first human being to wonder if
the world was ending even as rebirth seems so far away.
The sliver of white is now growing. I feel my heart lift. Maybe things will be OK. It will be a long wait. But I sense that the current suffering may just be the beginning. Even so, there is hope for what lies on the other side of this sea of anxiety this night.
With the rebirthing process underway, my anxieties now spoken,
my prayers said, my awe and respect to the natural world paid, it is time to
return to bed. There will be battles to fight tomorrow. But for this night, we
have come through the cataclysm.
As I head to bed, I find myself saying familiar words from the
Evening Prayer service from our Book of Common Prayer:
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.
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Harry Scott Coverston
Orlando, Florida
If the unexamined life is not worth living,
surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth
holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.
Those who believe religion and politics
aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi
For what does G-d require of you but to do justice,
and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d? - Micah
6:8, Hebrew Scriptures
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's
grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated
to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi
Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)
© Harry Coverston, 2025
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