The Eclipse

We made it to see the Eclipse in Totality on Monday and I can tell you that it honestly exceeded my expectations in every way. I’m still searching for the best words for the experience!

We originally were going to Fort Drum in upstate New York. I had a room for Monday night as I thought it be more chaotic to drive home after the Eclipse than to drive to it.  I thought maybe people would be getting to their destinations at all different times depending on where they were staying.  I also found that all the hotels were booked for Sunday night but not Monday! As it got closer we realized we were in trouble.  The cloud coverage was increasing and it was predicted to be 80% where we were going by Sunday.  I canceled the hotel as we realized it likely wouldn’t be worth the drive or the money.  Earl started looking at the path of totality and chose a random place in upstate Vermont that looked like it would have good weather.  Gore cemetery!  As soon as he said it I started laughing.  How fitting to watch an Eclipse from a tiny cemetery in upstate Vermont.  We usually prefer quiet places to large events with a lot of people.  We saw fields with hundreds of people on our drive up there. 

It was settled! The destination was about four hours away. Not bad for a day drive honestly.  We got there and it was small!  It was also in a great location! On top of a mountain.  We got incredibly lucky. You can see how blue the skies are.  It was unreal.  That little path of trees is the cemetery. It’s on a dirt road! I told you… middle of nowhere. It was in the middle of a farm field though so there was a little driveway around it and then an electric fence. 

You can see all of it in this photo…a stone or two may be cut off on the left. 🙂  It was beautiful up there, quiet and just perfect.

They also still have snow!! This wasn’t as much as the other areas that we saw. 🙂 You can see that it’s posted.  We never saw any animals but they are beautiful fields.  We had plenty of room around the cemetery. 🙂

This was during the Eclipse.  We weren’t at totality yet but you can see how the color on everything is starting to shift. The temperature was dropping as well. I was so happy I brought a coat! It wasn’t that cold but during the Eclipse it was freezing.  The other thing was that the wind stopped for it!

There’s a close up of one of the pictures we managed to get during it.

You can really start seeing the color shift here.  This is right before totality. We did have one other group join us.  I’m not surprised. There were people absolutely everywhere.

This is taken during it with my camera.  You can almost see how dark it is.  It was darker in person.  So dark in fact that to the left of the sun we could see stars!!! An owl started hooting next to us as well. 

Earl got this picture for me. 🙂 We didn’t want to miss much time. We were far enough up to experience totality for three minutes.  It absolutely blew my mind.  I expected to see the Moon move in front of the sun..the orange how you see in the first picture I showed you.  I expected the Moon to be black with an orange ring around it.  When it got in front of it in full, a beautiful white glow came out all around the Moon… it reached so far around it and it shimmered like a diamond.  It is so hard to describe.  I’ve been struggling since I saw it to find a picture that really represented what I saw and I haven’t. I honestly haven’t.  You have to be there and if you ever get the chance I encourage you to go. I have never seen anything so beautiful and profound in my life.  It was surreal and I hope I can keep this image in  my head as clear as it is now forever.  There is a massive difference between seeing an eclipse and seeing it in totality and all of a sudden it was very clear why thousands of people were all over this path of totality setting up camp all over the sides of the roads.  Because of the traffic we were in the car for over 16 hours for that beautiful three minute view and I would go and do it again today if I could.  It actually brought me to tears when it was over. I definitely didn’t expect that. 🙂  If you ever get the chance to go I definitely encourage you to. 

I hope that you have the most magickal day!

Much Love and Many Blessings,

Jasmeine Moonsong