Two Eclipses and a 0.5% difference
I never know exactly when my older brother's birthday is. Every year there is a 50% chance I'll get it wrong by one day. He knows it and has never held a grudge. It just so happens that on July 11, 1991, there was a total eclipse in Mexico that literally eclipsed his birthday cake.
To witness it, my parents and two other families organised an expedition to Tehuacán, Puebla. Six parents, seven kids, and my older brother — who at 22 didn't quite belong to either group. The grown-ups brought everything needed to observe the eclipse in as many ways as National Geographic suggested.
On July 11 we went to the Reserva de la Biósfera de Tehuacán-Cuicatlán (or San Juan Raya). The place was magical and eerie. A white desert with white stones instead of sand, scattered with bushes and cacti. The sun sat at the centre of a deep blue, cloudless sky, making the ground shine so brightly you had to squint. Protected by a straw hat, I headed off to explore. I collected small sea shells and fossils. This was once the bottom of the sea! My imagination filled the space with fish and squid floating against the blue sky.
Little me in a hat
A loud whistle tells me the beginning is close. My senses are sharpened like a pup's. My body knows it before my mind understands: something unknown is approaching. It looks like the afternoon is about to end. Like a hummingbird in spring, I dart from station to station watching how shadows begin to look like the Cheshire cat's smile. With every passing minute the grin widens. The sun is just a sliver in the sky. The desert starts to come back to life. Birds and critters return to their hiding places. The sky announces a sunset. In my memory there is no other sound but nature — I am alone in that space. The excitement of the moment and the sudden drop in temperature make my skin shiver. Night takes over the sunset. I can see the moon and the sun at the same time, without glasses. Seven minutes of darkness in the middle of the day. During those seven minutes only the impossible is happening. Then, a burst of light undoes the spell. Animals start to wake up. Birdsong fills the air. For the second time, they welcome the day. There is no sunrise because the sun is already high in the sky. The light changes its texture, the temperature rises. The experiments and commotion must have continued, but all I remember is the white desert shining and the feeling of the impossible, nestled in my body for the rest of my life.
When I happened to be in Barcelona for the partial eclipse of August 12 this year, I made sure I could watch it. Carito and I didn't mount an expedition, it was visible just two blocks from the flat. The news said it would be a 99.5% eclipse. Dozens of astronomers felt a chill when I said to myself: how much difference can 0.5% make? A lot, as it turns out. That 0.5% made true darkness impossible. Instead it created a couple of minutes of magical twilight, a portal to another world. The impossible is still alive in me.
An eclipse doesn't fit in an envelope, but a frog swallowing the sun might.
August’s Ink Club Delivery #1: The Frog, the Sun, & the Pigeon
I hope this letter finds you well. You'll receive it in September, so consider this a small time capsule, a letter from the summer.
The last week of July I packed my bags and headed to a coworking space for artists in Barcelona. I planned two weeks and stayed three. It was wonderful in more ways than I could imagine. From that sense of wonder this month's prints were born.
The Frog & the Sun
On August 12th I made my way to the port with some chips, a beer, and no eclipse glasses; they’ve been sold out for weeks. Carito, my roomie, and I intermittently borrowed a pair from the people next to us until a group of friends turned around and handed us two! The universe never ceases to amaze me.
Witnessing an eclipse, even knowing the mechanics, is eerie in the best possible way. It is a liminal moment, existing in the threshold between what was and what will be. The ancient Greeks felt this too: the word eclipse comes from the Greek ekleipsis, meaning not just an eclipse, but an abandonment. A forsaking. Many cultures believed a creature was devouring the sun. The one that caught my imagination was a frog. Both the Vietnamese and Cherokee traditions describe a frog swallowing the sun whole, and people making as much noise as possible to frighten it into spitting it back out.
The Pigeon
Like many, I used to hold a grudge against pigeons. I trained as an art restorer, so you'll understand. But a year ago I let it go. In Barcelona I found a new reason to like them a little bit more. Bear with me.
In front of the flat where I spent those three weeks lived a loft of pigeons. Quirky, funny little creatures. Every morning I'd have breakfast with Carito and watch them. We named two: the newly divorced, scruffy, unrested, clearly going through it, and the heroin, a beautiful brown and white female with a perfect V on her chest. Watching them closely I realized they are ridiculous, resilient, and entirely unbothered. Honestly? Aspirational.
I wish you a wonderful September, full of omens and ordinary wonders.
If you made it this far, the Magic & Chaos Ink Club was probably made for you.
I wish you your own impossible moment.
