The recent solar eclipse of April 8th was applauded by many as a singular event, and the most viewed astronomical event in history. For humans who gathered in droves along its “path of totality”, the event was spectacular. People reported being “overwhelmed with joy”, “moved deeply”, and “feeling connected to all that is”. Across North America, humans gathered with other humans, to live the event together, and experienced “communal awe”.
These descriptors of people’s eclipse experience are also ways to talk about having a mystical experience. Such experiences, Matthew Fox says,
“touch on all three I’s that a mystical experience is about: Immensity; Intensity; and Intimacy, when we “are awakened by Father Sky doing … wonders”.1
Father Sky’s wonders showcase Brother Sun and Sister Moon dancing across the sky, in such a way that their alignment with earth has reverberations that are felt on earth: the darkening sky, the stillness, the anticipation, the movements of birds and beasts. In a moving video clip, ABC News was able to capture some of this “mystical spirit”.
In other news … The day after the eclipse, on April 9th, a CBC news article noted that the European Court of Human Rights had ruled in favor of a group called Senior Women for Climate Protection. This 2,500-strong European group of elderly women claimed that Switzerland’s failure to properly tackle global warming constituted a threat to the health of seniors everywhere.
As the CBC article notes, the European court’s decision:
“could have a ripple effect across Europe and beyond, setting a precedent for how to deal with the rising tide of climate litigation”
based on human rights infringements. The court has said that governments must cut their emissions more to protect human rights.
“This included a failure to quantify, through a carbon budget or otherwise, national greenhouse gas emissions limitations.”
As the article also notes,
“the Swiss government had failed to meet its past greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, by not putting in place measures to ensure the goals were achieved.”
At this juncture, the question rises: How is it that humans respond so whole-heartedly to a solar eclipse, – a Father Sky event, and need to be legislated to protect Mother Earth? Our common home?
Which brings me to the “frothing at the mouth” political theatre going on in Canada at the moment. Numerous Provincial premiers, plus the Leader of the Opposition, are mocking the Federal government with slick slogans and no plan of their own on how to address carbon reduction and the climate catastrophe which is already upon us. These ostensible leaders, seem to have no idea of the immanent danger to our planet and to us all. Their ignorance (performative or real) is high level incompetence.
These two sequential events are both jolting and encouraging. If humans can go to such great lengths to place themselves along the path of totality, to experience such genuine awe and wonder, how is it that us same humans seem so resistant to seriously addressing the distress of our beautiful planet home?
I am grateful there are clusters of old women around the world who continue to chart a sane course for humanity. As Gloria Steinem says,
“Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age. … One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the Earth!”
May it be so. May it be soon!
Veronica Dunne is a Sister of our Lady of the Missions (RNDM), who has primarily worked as an educator and counsellor in institutional and community based settings in Canada. She has also served with the RNDMs outside of Canada in Senegal, Peru, and Aotearoa New Zealand.
A 2002 Doctor of Ministry graduate from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto School of Theology at the University of Toronto, she subsequently served as director of the Doctor of Ministry program at St. Stephen’s College at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Her current research interests are in eco-theology and cosmology, and their intersections with indigenous cosmologies and spiritualties.
She presently serves on the RNDM leadership team in Canada.
