The Wonder Chronicles: 1
The Wonder Chronicles: 1
On the Total Eclipse of the Sun
Photo by Robert E. Rutledge
This is the first of a series.
We need wonder.
At first I thought it was cats meowing because the sun was disappearing behind the moon as we approached the solar eclipse totality. Of course, pets would freak out. How were they to know.
But the sound I was hearing wasn't meowing. It was people in the neighbourhood gasping in wonder!
And you know what? Seconds later, as soon as I took off the protective eclipse glasses I’d been wearing to watch the new moon totally eclipse the sun, wonder overtook me too and I found myself clapping and cheering, instinctively, a primal urge, a keening to be lost in awe overtaking me.
We had about a minute of totality in which we could see the corona around the sun and wow wow wow!
Fucking incredible.
Video by Robert E. Rutledge
There are so few things that at age 56 make me instinctively clap and cheer like that!
Stunning!
It was like being kids—the pure joy of it!
And every video I see of people experiencing totality is the same—clapping and cheering, lost in wonder.
Photo by Robert E. Rutledge
We needed wonder! I came to Montreal from New York City to experience the first total solar eclipse of my life. The day before I left NYC, we had an earthquake—4.8 magnitude, epicentre New Jersey. That was more awe than wonder. That was more terror than delight. That was one of those communal events that had us all asking “Did you feel the earthquake?” for the rest of the day but none of us had clapped and cheered for it.
Isn’t that a strange conundrum: two natural phenomena, each eliciting starkly opposing emotions: one a fear of dying, the other a determination to intensely live.
Wonder.
Wonder-full
Wonderful.
Full of wonder.
I want to hold onto to those few moments of losing myself to the wonder of it all. It was like a delightful reset to my mind. And I want to find more reasons to live with intensity.
And so here are the Wonder Chronicles—a new series to leave you feeling wonder full.
My goal: that you are found by wonder.
My wish: that you intensely live.
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Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. She is editing an anthology on menopause called Bloody Hell! And Other Stories: Adventures in Menopause from Across the Personal and Political Spectrum. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.
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