I have a late start today and decided to have a sleep in, so set my alarm for 5.45am. Up I popped…. put a load of washing on and started making lunches. As I was pegging out… I thought something strange was happening to my eyes.

Everything in my vision looked weird. I rubbed my eyes thinking I hadn’t washed my face properly… and still the same. I looked up to see whether there was a cloud front coming from the east… and NO… no clouds. I thought perhaps there was a temperature inversion and a lot of moisture had been trapped obscuring the sun. I pegged out the whole load of washing …walked inside and then the penny dropped.. a total solar eclipse!!!!

I picked up my cuppa and went outside and sat in my favourite spot looking to the east and just soaked up this incredible atmosphere. It was much darker than it should have been at this time in the morning. It felt like it should have been after sunset, as the sun slipped behind the mountain in the west…… but the sun was to the east.

The light was grey and soft. The greens of the leaves of the bush were subdued and calm. The birds calls were different. There was this sense of cautiousness and anticipation in the air, as the only bird calls were the occasional alarm call; when normally the air would be filled with a cacophony of joyful morning birdsong. There was no wind.. not  a breath of air moving… there was this incredible stillness and softness of light, as if someone had pulled a shade blind down in front of the sun. The shadows were sharp yet not as different as usual from the sunlight on the ground. It was quiet.

I sat and instead of doing a meditation with my eyes closed… today I just sat quietly and drew my awareness to the stillness and experienced the feeling of the different light at that time of the morning.

The thought floated through my mind to take a photo..but then I thought..”take a photo of what?”.. so nup.. no photos. This was time I just sat and felt. This was a time I just acknowledged the Moon and the Sun… and the Earth….. and once again recognised how little I knew.