My home was far from the path of totality during the last eclipse, but I have friends who live in or traveled to areas of the country where they witnessed totality. Our experiences were vastly different.

I chose to walk my dog while the eclipse was closest to my state (Wisconsin) to experience it and see if the dog displayed any unusual behavior. The sun never dimmed—evidenced by the denseness of our shadows and the crispness of the edges, which did not change. However, the atmosphere felt heavier, and the blue of the sky was perceptively darker. This heaviness lasted for 10 or 15 minutes until the brightness returned. The dog trotted along, undisturbed.

This made me think of how differently people over centuries have experienced nature’s phenomena and the sacred rituals and beliefs that arose from them. Fear and awe can be indiscernible, especially when nature appears in unusually powerful ways. Earthquakes. Tornados. Hurricanes. Eclipses.

We may learn of different weather patterns through family, friends or weather reports, but if we do not experience them first-hand, we only dimly understand the impact they can have.
Perhaps this is why people flock to places they know something unusual is about to happen. We want to see for ourselves. And there is often a bonding that occurs among witnesses.

This led me to wonder if this isn’t true for every human event? We cannot possibly experience everything life offers up, whether wonderful or dreadful, so we rarely give this much thought. Yet we come loaded for bear when people challenge what we have seen because their experience is so different and every bit as real to them as ours is to us.

We listen with interest and awe to spectacular events. Why not to one another?