There goes the sun

This 6 am sun, beaming over Bamburgh beach this morning, is the same sun on which our friends in the United States will be concentrating hard today. We wish them a magical eclipse experience, which we believe will be visible from Oregon to South Carolina from 15.00 hours GMT.

Kemo Sabe remembers well that in 1999 she and Uncle Johnny looked up from their work and watched dusk fall at noon, the birds’ chatter stifled in their confusion. That was a major solar event. Since we moved here there has been a partial one, given special significance because we felt its effects within a still, noiseless environment quite different from the bustle of London streets. It was like a visitation.

The natural cycles of our universe never cease to astound, and our little doggy lives are utterly dwarfed by them in many ways, yet comfort always lies in these predictable wonders – like this solar eclipse to which folk have long looked forward. No need to tremble, nor to attribute terrible omens to such occurrences, as Edmund rightly pointed out.

As someone famous once said, the world is all that is the case. All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.