Eclipse-Chasers
we set out to see a ring of fire but all we saw was darkness somewhere in my dreams Niagara is still roaring ••• sometimes it still flashes before my eyes the crest of the falls the surprise of it as we took the turn ribbon of white fire careening toward the far pit the way we all careen toward death the green of the water is what I remember green veined with ivory smashed crystal and aquamarine and the endlessly uprising mist like incense, like we were standing before a great altar ••• the ancients thought the gods had at last decided to smite them time to spin the wheel and shed a little more blood in a play for peace now we check our glasses for the proper licensing Amazon is full of scams these days and no one wants burnt retinas ••• I should’ve knelt, should’ve raised my hands then again I think I did I think wonder is worship enough the little boy leaning over the rail flapping his hands like the wings of the wheeling gulls like he was possessed by joy utterly surrendered— he is the priest of Niagara Falls the way a baseball falls upward is the way the water flies down pure foam, the crushing rush pressing out all lapis lazuli into a frothy bridal train the bride of the king of the sky ••• in this the ancients were right: blood is always demanded and there are worse things than seared eyes in this they were wrong: the god of sun and moon groom of the great falls plays no game except justice and mercy we looked for a rim of sun and found it only over the lake a wedding band of burnt gold hovering over the horizon a covenant of stability: where the light was it will be again
my photo — the eclipse over Lake Ontario
Last weekend, my roommates and I drove to St. Catherines, Canada, a winery-studded region of Ontario with the great lake’s shoreline as its northern boundary and Niagara Falls hemming it on the east.
We were chasing a dream: Witnessing a total solar eclipse is one of the very top things on my bucket list (the credit for this obsession goes to the excellent YA novel that captured my heart in middle school, Wendy Mass’s Every Soul a Star). My family was living overseas in 2017, so this was my first chance to make this dream come true—and also my last, at least for a couple decades in this part of the world.
I’ve also never seen Niagara Falls so when I realized it was in the path of totality, I figured why not knock two things off my bucket list? My wonderful roommates were up for the adventure so we found ourselves speeding through the hills of Pennsylvania and western New York to hours of musical theater and our eclipse playlist, “dark side of the sun” (somehow a few songs about Brooklyn appeared on it too—we wanted to make sure Canada’s beauty didn’t make us forget our true love).
The summary of the trip is this: Niagara Falls exceeded my expectations and the eclipse, as much as it pains me to say it, disappointed them.
It wasn’t the sun’s fault, or the moon’s—it was the darn clouds’. I’d found a random orchard on the New York side of Lake Ontario that was hosting an eclipse-viewing party. All the other attendees were locals, wrapped up in blankets on lawn chairs, chatting with neighbors, playing with their dogs. We young city professionals stuck out like a palm tree in the Adirondacks—the farmer directing traffic hollered to the woman checking people in, “These girls came up all the way from Brooklyn to see the eclipse!”
I wanted to clarify to everyone present that we had also come up to see the falls because otherwise we looked rather pathetic—four crazy girls who’d driven seven hours to stare at a heavily overcast sky. We seemed to be in the one part of New York State that wasn't sunny that day. I had known that was a possibility but it was hard not to see the sunny videos of friends back in the city and wonder if I’d miscalculated.
Still, there was something otherworldly about what we experienced. There was no corona, no epic photos, no sliver-moon shadows on the ground. We didn’t need our glasses, it was so overcast. But as you may have heard (or seen, thanks to xkcd), the difference between 90% totality and 100% totality is pretty extreme. Even with the clouds, you’re in for a full-body experience. As totality approached, we could feel things changing even though we couldn't point to where the sun was hiding. The heavy clouds turned an eerie color, like before a tornado, and the already-chilly temps dropped further.
And then it was dark, just like that. It was like a reverse Genesis 1: let there be darkness. The clouds were black, thick smudges of coal, and we were so cold we could see our breath. The only light was a line of gold over the horizon of Lake Ontario, which we could see past the dark, hunched forms of the apple trees. Seagulls and Canadian geese dashed overhead, shrieking at the aberration. The street lights came on, and a car roared past, its headlights blinding pinpricks in the unsettled dusk.
Then, just as quickly, the clouds flooded with a sped-up sunrise, half a minute of orange and pink before the normal gray light of a cloudy afternoon reasserted itself. Somewhere, veiled from us, the sun was shining.
It was cool. Just not cool in the way that I wanted. I'm not checking “total solar eclipse” off my bucket list yet but I did write a poem about it all the same.
But the falls—oh, the falls. We had seen them the day before, when the sun was unobstructed in a perfect blue sky. The water was green, the kind you see in alpine lakes. We had my favorite kind of tourist day, no scheduled plans or reservations, just meandering as your heart leads. We started upriver on the Canadian side, outside for the first time this spring without coats, walking alongside the river. You can tell it’s fast and strong; there are little whitecaps and almost-waves as it hurtles toward the bottleneck of the cliffs.
And then—the earth gives way. This is the insane part about Niagara. The earth just drops out. The water as it falls is pure white because it's all furious foam, and you can't see where it hits the pool beneath because the entire foot of the falls is a column of mist. This mist changes every moment. It’s a shapeshifter, dancing in invisible rivers of wind.
It's hard to describe how hypnotic it is, how hard it is to tear away your gaze. Every few feet you have to stop and take another picture because each angle reveals something new. We walked all the way down to the second, smaller set of falls, which would be destination-worthy themselves if they weren't compared to the bigger basin upstream. We had lunch and then we turned around and walked all the way back up, lingering, unwilling to say goodbye. A rainbow was forming in the center of the mist on the way back, and we saw it grow, the tip of it hovering at first parallel with the tops of the falls and then higher, higher until it was foregrounding nothing but sky. Down the river, we could spy its other hazy half.
We felt it in our bodies, even hours afterwards, the beauty of it. Like we’d tumbled down with the falls and been baptized in them, like we’d been filled up and poured out and made new. The gorgeous weather helped, as well as the fact that we're city girls so any extended time in nature feels precious. We’d all had a quite stressful week leading up to the trip, both individually and collectively, so to see each other's joy, the visible release of burdens, the lightness on our faces and in our steps, made it feel all the more a gift.
The moral of the story: If you've never been to Niagara and you get the chance, you should take it. Go to the Canadian side (this is important) and start upstream (also important) and stare out at the roil of overabundance, so much enough-ness that it thunders in your bones for hours later, grace upon grace.
So the eclipse wasn't what I wanted and the falls were more than I could've asked for, and I am sure there are many lessons and sermon illustrations I could draw from that but mostly what I want to remember is how when I looked at the falls they reminded me of a bridal train, frothy lace falling in lavish folds. And if the falls are the bridal gown, then the whole earth is the bride, and the groom is the king of the heavens, and how lucky are we to be the VIP guests at the wedding feast?
Do you have an eclipse story, either from last week or another time?? Do tell! And enjoy this proof of my excitement despite the clouds. ;)
stay awake ~
Aberdeen