How to Survive the Eclipse
It’s eclipse season again. January 31st will be a total lunar eclipse, while February 15 we have a partial solar eclipse. Here are five tips to get you through the eclipse season.
1. You will survive the eclipse. That is the most important thing to know. You have the roots of an old aged wizened grandfather tree. When the tide comes in and brushes up against you, you will not fall.
2. If the tide stays in too long you will adapt. You are adaptable like the tupelo tree, which lives in the swamp, and whose roots grow up toward the sun instead of down, nubs peeking above the water to catch a breath of the oxygenated air. If the upheaval is too much, too long, you will change the way you grow. But you will not surrender. You will not die. You will survive the eclipse.
3. In surviving the eclipse you will find meaning in all the little things, the way your coffee cup stains your table into a circular crescent moon shape. You will see the eclipse everywhere, and you will know the great meaning, the great shift it will make in your life. You will say upon seeing the brown stain of your coffee cup, “Ahh, that is just the eclipse. The eclipse is everywhere but it does not scare me. When I see it everywhere I know that I, along with it, are just part of the great fabric, the great tapestry of life.”
4. You will unfold. The eclipse will press in on you, like the healer presses the knots in your back. You will unfold and let go. Do not tense your muscle against this pressing in. If you are gentle, if you are soft, the eclipse can do its work easily and kindly.
5. You will survive the eclipse. Eclipses will come and go. Every year of your life, four times a year. Sometimes you will see them, see the shock of the blood red moon or the darkness covering the sun, but many times you won’t. Many times they will be half a world away, and just felt by you as a tiny ripple. But each of these, you will survive. The eclipse will come and go, bringing changes, causing disruption, but only for a while, only for a time. And you, you will remain.
