From Totality to Togetherness
The Magic of Collective Effervescence Unveiled in the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse
I live just outside of Cleveland, Ohio, which was named one of the best places to view the 2024 total solar eclipse. Initially unsure of how big of a deal this actually was, I can confirm that being in the path of totality lived up to the hype.
My three children, husband, and I viewed the eclipse from the football field of a local college campus near our house. From where we sat, I could see our neighbors lined up in their driveways, a group of older folks in soccer parent chairs on the other end of the field, the college kids (Youth? Young people?) on blankets strewn across the quad; a few brave ones perched atop the gymnasium roof.
As we approached totality, the temperature dropped, and the energy around us shifted. People began to murmur, and phones were pulled out.
Then it happened. And as we — neighbors, elders, children, college coeds — sat together in night-like darkness, we began to howl. All of us. Cheering, shouting, and clapping. I have goosebumps now just thinking about it. A moment of collective magic; a sacred communal sense of awe.
Lest you think it was just the rowdy college kids in my neighborhood, nearly every video of totality I’ve seen on…
