The Heart of Darkness (Total Eclipse)

Part 1

Total Eclipse from The Dillard House. Photography by Steve Killian.


Lee and I enjoy the pool at the Dillard House. Photo by Karen Killian.





  BBQ 

 

  




  

      View Through Lee's telescope


Manage









Jack Miller

August 21 at 10:10pm · 


Ours is a country of absurdity and ignorance. Try as I might, it is hard not to be condescending rather than sympathetic. These were some of the sweet people here for the eclipse. Everyone here was amazed by it. They realized at last that yes they could stare in awe at the Sun and Moon during totality, with no glasses, filters, or fear. As darkness arrived, as a cool breeze arrived, as that wonder in the sky shone forth, we all felt an ecstasy, no other word for it. No photos will convey it. All who saw today's total eclipse here in North Georgia, will always recall it. Philosophy begins in wonder; we all were momentary philosophers today, young, old, all races, all creeds, humbled by sublime celestial beauty. With Darryl Gossett, Karen Killian, Steve Killian, Jacob Killian, Lee, David, and Carl.









10Justin Waldman, Cathy Autry and 8 others

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Jack Miller
August 21 at 3:28pm · 

As the Moon, this Moonday, leaves the disc of the Sun, leaving us as in a dream state, I am saturated with a sense of eternity. For two and a half minutes we took off the filter glasses, all the cheering and talking stopped, and we felt the bond of sharing a sacred experience of Nature Naturing as Spinoza would say. That image, the Moon, encircled by the Sun's corona will be with me as long as I live. Yes, we shall post photographs, but the holistic holiness is ours and belongs to those of us in the Zone of Totality.


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9Xanthe CL Zeitstück, Tamara Rafkin and 7 others
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Benjamin Head Here (Savannah) the eclipse was doused by rain.


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Jack Miller
August 21 at 10:11am · 

After a gathering in the Killian room, we had a delicious dinner of country ham, fresh lima beans, fried okra ... Then Steve and I whipped out our binoculars and beheld the Milkyway, Scorpio, the big and little dippers, the Summer Triangle of Vega, Deneb, and Altair, Jupiter, Saturn, and bright Arcturus. Later, after a soak in the jacuzzi with Karen, under the starry sky, I happened to see Brilliant Venus in the predawn East from our balcony. The bright Sun this morning promises eclipse ecstasy in a few hours.


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Darryl and Karen enjoy our get together.



Karen Killian

August 20 at 10:07pm · 



3You, Jocelin Hackathorn and Wolfgang Bosch
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Jack Miller
August 20 at 2:52pm · 

After a nice long swim in the pool, I tried out my eclipse glasses on the lovely disc of the Sun. The ancients who worshiped the Sun as a God knew a wisdom we have forgotten.
16Xanthe CL Zeitstück, Lee Maddox-Gayfield and 14 others
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Jack Miller The hysteria over going blind is a good thing for those ignorant of how to use filters and projections. As someone who has looked at the Sun through a powerful telescope, been through a solar eclipse before, and read about eclipse glasses, I think I won't become Tiresias just yet.

Special Birthdays

Married on my birthday, 2004


Some photos over the years:
The One and the Many


Baby Boomer I was born, first child to my parents who married in 1945 when the War ended. 
There were dramatic, interesting birthdays, good and bad, but the special 10 year birthdays stand out like an erect penis. 

At 10, I went with my family to Miami Beach for the first time. I had three broken toes and a cast on my foot that prevented my swimming.

20 found me in my first menage a trois, totally in love, the three of us in Washington, DC together. Months later I withdrew from U.Va. as forlorn as a Simon and Garfunkel song.

30 took me West, to San Francisco and Big Sur. I wrote a short story of our erotic night driving to Tulsa on my birthday.

40 took me to England with my mother, aunt, and two Killians. It was a lark given me by my wife at the time. I especially loved Cornwall and the Lake district where we visited the home of William Wordsworth.

For my 50th birthday, Darryl bought me 50 long-stem roses and 50 bottles of Veuve Clicquot. We had an all night party to remember.

At 60, my ex-wife threw a huge, wonderful party at her home, planned as well by Darryl and Jocelin, attended by a wealth of my friends. We went on to party all night at the Georgian Terrace.

At 65, Maggie and Joce gave me Japan. The place was my choice when they presented the gift of going anywhere on Earth. It was a transformative gift. I did not go, however, until April of 2013. For my actual birthday in 2012, I flew to England to see Joe as Casca in the highly acclaimed production by the RSC of Julius Caesar. Then I returned home for parties galore and a trip to Mt. Pisgah.

This year, I turned 70 at work. But we celebrated Darryl's birthday in Asheville and the mountains along with the Killian brothers. Travel to Cape Cod, where we were married, is a gift to enjoy in the future.

Cape Cod

Jack

The Zone of Totality

In 13 days a total eclipse of the Sun will make a path across the country from Oregon to South Carolina. The path of totality is also known as the Zone of Totality. It is in that Zone that Darryl, Lee, Karen, Steve, David, and Carl will join me for the event. This will be the second Total Eclipse of the Sun I will experience, the last one being in March of 1970 in Savannah when we gathered at 24 West Gaston, our home across from Forsyth Park. Then, it became dark as night, pigeons swooped hither and thither through the oaks and park, dogs howled, and cars stopped in amazement (there was no internet then). We are hoping for a dramatic eclipse at the Dillard House where we shall be prepared with special glasses and a filtered telescope. 

Eclipses are known for their association with war and catastrophe. It was on August 21, 1914 that Europe had a total eclipse, Czeslaw Milosz experienced it. We shall see what this one portends.

--Jack

Here is a passage from my novel describing the experience of a Total Eclipse. It is based on the actual experience in 1970:

Going from room to room, David began urging everyone outside. "Even if we can't see the sun, it'll still be dark and weird," he coaxed.
The sky turned an ominous gray, as if a storm were gathering. A hundred or so people had gathered in the park across Gaston. The clouds were still thin, however, and the shrinking disk of the sun was almost visible behind the moving veil.

Then the darkness came. A black shadow fell over the city. Street lamps came on. People gasped. Pigeons took flight and all of the birds in the park swarmed into confused arcs above the trees. Dogs howled. Cars stopped in the middle of Whittaker and Gaston streets. A cold wind whipped through the oaks.
David shivered. He suddenly saw his life in eclipse. His love for Eddie, Charlotte's attraction, Susan's empathy, and Dr. Landry, whom he had met only months before, were the celestial objects swirling in wildly elliptical orbits around one another. His college degree, his opportune job at the Carnegie Library, his family, and the places he inhabited became a spinning cluster threatening to collapse into a black hole. "There is something strange happening to me," David whispered , "and this is just the beginning."

Landry descended the steps of his porch. It was mid-day. It was night. How was this possible? Like David, he felt that the reason guiding his life was ruptured. Anything was possible. His life until this day was no longer a guide for what would come. Like the sparrows and pigeons, Landry’s mind was circling in arcs that went nowhere. He needed the sun to return. It had to come back, regardless of what new order it would bring.
Landry fell to his knees on the concrete walkway. He raised his arms toward heaven. "I believe," he yelled. "I believe."

The darkness lasted three minutes. The returning light dazzled the crowd. Cars started up along the two streets. Charlotte and Susan stared at Landry from the porch, considering whether they should attempt to help him up. Before they could act, he had risen and composed himself. 
"Is that all there is?" asked Eddie as he and David returned to the house.
"What more did you want?" David replied, annoyed by Eddie’s failure to be impressed.
" I wanted to see the eclipse itself; the corona, the moon and all that." Eddie complained. " Now I suppose we'll have to watch it on t.v."

https://savannahflashback.blogspot.com/

Irreversible

When I was born in 1947, WWII had just ended and there was hopefulness and peace in the minds of many. Despite the evolution of the atomic bomb into ever deadlier forms, the 1950s were a time of recovery and prosperity for many; though not for all, as the civil rights struggles well into the 1960s revealed. It was also a time of illusion and ignorance of what was brewing worldwide.The cold war turned hot in Korea and Vietnam. No attempts at isolation by various countries could overcome the global interconnections that spread everywhere, including rising pollution and discontent. I think Einstein's theories became a metaphysical reality we still have not grasped. Human existence has become a blight upon the the Earth, a deadly blight that could erupt in war, pollution on a cosmic scale, destruction of most other species, and eventually our own. The truth is simply too hard to handle; thus most people, including our leaders, retreat into religious superstition, mindless entertainment, or head in the sand indifference. Diogenes, alone and long dead, haunts us with echoes of cynicism: Best never to be born; 2nd best, to die as soon as possible. 
Personally, I remain loyal to Epicurus, enjoy simple pleasures, realize the world is doomed, stop and smell the roses while they last. My last couple of decades I shall devote to what pleasures remain as I accept, gladly, an end to awareness of what humanity has wasted, what beauty lost, what irreversible damage done.

The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 rose some 11 mi (18 km) above the bomb's hypocenter. --Wikipedia.

38 million pieces of plastic waste found on uninhabited South Pacific island

Henderson Island, part of the Pitcairn group, is covered by 18 tonnes of plastic – the highest density of anthropogenic debris recorded anywhere in the world

THEGUARDIAN.COM

--Jack

Impeachment

Below: Andrew Johnson and Donald Trump

DARKNESS at NOON

As we prepare to see the shadow of the moon eclipse the sun this August, I can't help thinking that the total eclipse might be a symbol of the light of reason being snuffed out by the irrational movements of our president. If impeachment becomes as inevitable as the eclipse is, we shall witness American History sinking into darkness as it did with Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. 

Andrew Jackson was impeached to a large extent for his firing of the Secretary of War. He fought with a Congress eager to remove him, and the history of his survival of the Senate Trial by one vote is a fascinating story. 

Nixon did not give Congress the chance actually to impeach him, resigning when it was all too obvious what Congress would do. He was not impeached; but then he was the only president, so far, forced to leave office.

Clinton became Republican revenge. Among other things, Congress impeached him for lying about his affair. Few today think the impeachment was justified. His acquittal after a pompous show trial in a Senate, supervised by a gaudily robed Chief Justice, was a foregone conclusion and wound up adding to Clinton's popularity and approval, much to Republican dismay.

If Trump's collusion with Russians or his obstruction of justice  are proven, he will also be impeached. However, it may be that only some of his associates will be charged with crimes. The new special counsel, Robert Mueller, will determine how far up to go with his investigation. As Senator McCain remarked, the investigation could well echo Watergate.

My hope is that the hypocrisy, the fawning, the greed, and the corruption of the Republican Party will finally be seen for what they are, that Republicans will be soundly rejected by voters nationwide. My faith in the electorate hit an all time low last November, and it will take a lot to convince me that the electorate can overcome prejudice, stupidity, apathy, greed, and naivete in order to elect to office those who care about ordinary people, those in need, and the Earth itself. 

We count on the sun returning after the eclipse, just as we count on reason and integrity to return to our government after the current darkness.

Jack