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Seeing the World in Perspective
A reflection on a moment of extra-worldly beauty as we get ready for the change in seasons and our never-ending political dramas
Five years ago, my son took this photo of me and my wife during the middle of the total solar eclipse that crossed the United States mainland that day. We were standing on top of a high bluff in the hills of eastern Wyoming, somewhere west of Casper, and we had an unobstructed 360-degree view of the horizon as it suddenly faded to sunset red. Above us the eclipsed sun stood coolly against the dark blue sky. I’m not sure anymore, but I think we could also see Mars and Venus off to the right, and I had this sense that I was seeing our Sun in clear perspective, just 93 million miles away, a real object that we could almost touch, set against the distant stars of the rest of the Milky Way. The feeling didn’t last long, but while it did, I thought: now I see exactly where we are in relation to the rest of the universe!
If you are someone who tries to pay attention to the news, it gets harder all the time to maintain perspective, I think. Sometimes earthly events being us back to ground: yesterday I helped my cousins put their 98-year-old father to rest. Born in 1923, he had made it almost to 99, and nearly all of those years in robust health other than…
