Circumstances kept us apart; the eclipse brought us together
I'll always remember April 2020. Sitting beside the ocean amidst a sea of people, socially distanced yet somehow all so closely connected under a black night sky. Tonight, the stars fell into the sea - and we were all here to watch them shine. Circumstances kept us apart; bioluminescence brought us together.
I'll always remember August 2017. Eclipse glasses and traffic for days - blankets set in an open field amongst friends and strangers, an anticipated buzz charging the air. We watched in jaw-dropped awe as the moon began to cloak, caress, shadow, cover the sun - slowly, steadily - until total darkness swallowed the late morning sky. Birds hushed, people stilled ~ an electric shockwave of remembrance washed through us all. We will never be the same. Circumstances tended to keep us inside, this total eclipse brought us together.
I'll always remember the way a rainbow stopped traffic.One early evening outside my last home in Mt. Shasta, a rainbow blanketed the sky and every car pulled over. The streets filled as if to witness a miracle - people smiling, hugging, tearing up. The rainbow! It's here! We've made it to this moment! Circumstances keep us in our cars; this rainbow brought us outside together.
If I am a seeker in this life, I seek the miraculous - those moments of awe when the veil of the ordinary lifts and we remember, if only for a breath, that some things exist beyond all opposites.
Maybe that's why I've felt called to speak of angels and holy helpers: because angels, in their many animate embodiments, remind us there's more to life than taxes and sorrows, deadlines and disappointments. And though I've undoubtedly grown more cynically questioning with age and experience, I don't think I'll ever stop seeking the miraculous - searching for those moments that stand beyond debate, where for a heartbeat we gather in the same wonder.
David Whyte once said that poetry is a language against which you have no defenses. To me, these natural phenomena - bioluminescence, total eclipses, unexpected rainbows - are poetry made visible. They are languages of Nature against which we have no defenses, no opposites. Only ever awe. They are transcendent miracles.
In herbalism school this week, I learned that the word Nature traces back to the Egyptian word Netjeru: a name for the gods and goddesses representing elements, celestial bodies, and natural archetypal forces within and around us. What if, when we speak of Nature, we are invoking the Divine? What if the word itself is an ancient incantation?
Imagining Nature as a Divine presence, I see Bioluminescence as a starlit goddess, rising from her sea caves only once in a never-moon. When we least expect it, she glimmers forth - an angel of the deep, reminding us that the mysteries of the sea might just shimmer with otherworldly light.
I think of Eclipse as an ancient harbinger - the space between stars embodied - arriving to veil the sun and remind us that darkness, too, is meant to be seen… and that sometimes even the sun longs to be tenderly tucked in.
I imagine Rainbow as an iridescent angel clothed in every color, every note, every song. A sigh of relief and a covenant of color - a harbinger of hope, a promise who dances through the dark.
Consider a time where Nature caught your breath - when wonder broke in and altered you, even if only for an instant. What if in this moment, Nature was a divine messenger - an angel embodied? What message longed to be spoken? What truth sought to be shared?
Across time and language, people have reached for names and stories to express the same truth: Nature is not separate from the sacred. The Egyptian word Netjeru later became the Latin natura, meaning “to be born, to give birth.” The very roots of the word remind us that Nature is both the divine animating force woven through existence and the continual act of becoming.
Perhaps this is why these moments feel like poetry - because they are Nature birthing itself before our eyes. They are the Divine reminding us, again and again, that creation is not finished, that wonder is still unfolding. A rainbow dancing through thunder, a total eclipse birthing fire with no need of flames, the ocean illuminating otherworldly lights - each is both god and birth, prayer and poem. And maybe the miracle is not just that they happen at all ~ but that we get to be here to notice.
As we welcome another eclipse this Sunday, perhaps take a moment to step outside - feel the air shift, notice if a hush falls, and let yourself be held by the immensity of it all. Pay the sacred currency of attention. And if this expression of Nature were an ancient angel returning to meet this moment, here and now, what would it say? What would it reveal, remind, or reflect? Let yourself participate in the poem!
Love,
Madeline
My upcoming in-person retreat at Kripalu in Stockbridge, MA will serve as a space to commune deeply with the divinity woven through Nature - entering the imaginal currents of dream and myth while allowing ourselves to be reshaped by the miraculous. Learn more and sign up here!