On August 21, 2017, a total eclipse of the sun cast a shady path 70 miles wide across the United States. It stenciled a line from the Pacific to the Atlantic, progressing west to east over Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. Four short hours after the celestial show had started, it was over.
I had never witnessed a total solar eclipse, so in preparation for the event, I inspected my map and selected the closest, most interesting viewing spot I could find within the path of totality. And that’s how I found myself staring skyward outside the Cavalry Barracks at Fort Laramie National Historic Site in Wyoming on the morning of August 21, 2017.
I waited as the moon edged in front of the sun. The cottonwood leaves filtered sunlight like pinhole cameras, casting crescents onto the lawn, the sidewalk, and the canvas of a covered wagon. As the eclipse progressed, the light dimmed as if clouds were gathering. I peered through my solar glasses and studied the sun’s changing silhouette.
Then finally, totality arrived. A chilly wind kicked up, and the temperature dropped degrees in seconds.
I took off my solar glasses to see the solar corona, visible only during totality. Great wisps of solar plasma rippled outward—a living halo, moving, reaching, and flowing across a wide western sky. The sun felt suddenly close, the moon alive, the earth fragile, the universe complete. It was one of the most astonishing things I had ever experienced. In that moment, in those four minutes of totality, I realized how very little I knew of the universe.
