I traveled to be in the zone of totality for the solar eclipse yesterday. It was amazing to experience. Pictures and videos don’t do it justice. If you have the chance to experience one in your lifetime, I strongly suggest you do so.

The partial eclipse through the glasses is cool to watch. But it is the event of totality that is breathtaking. When the moon blotted out the sun the people around me howled instinctually. When the sun returned, they applauded in relief.

I did my best to meditate, and what I felt was the withdrawal of an external opposing force for those few minutes. I felt myself (my ego) blossom in power, when God’s eye was blinded. The guard rails came down. The training wheels came off. The containment vessel disappeared. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

I was sitting in a hot spring at the Balnea spa outside of Montreal, with perhaps 200 other like minded water based souls. Beautiful remote mountain lake. The fact that water is so tightly tied to the moon symbolically was not lost on me, but I wondered how many others that were there understood that they had subconsciously doubled down on the side of the Divine Feminine in the battle we were witnessing.

Solar eclipses are viewed as bad omens and many spiritual traditions urge you to hide yourself during them. The sense that I was unconstrained brought with it the realization that all of the other great apes around me were equally unconstrained and busy howling at the sky.

It passed too quickly to realize it in the moment, but it brought me a deep sense of the importance and fragility of order in our society. How quickly that set of upscale tourist would have become a mob if the Sun hadn’t returned as predicted. How much the rhythm of the Sun and the oppression and warmth of its gaze dictate my choices based on a circadian chemistry and instincts woven into the double helixed fabric that is me.

Jupiter and Venus both revealed themselves during the totality, proving that the universe is indeed a fractal mystery. Even as the Lady blotted out the King, a new Lady and new King appeared to remind us that these archetypes arise at many levels.

I’m told, too, that Chiron’s destiny was to be involved in this, although I could not see it with the naked eye. Chiron is appointed “the Healer” by the dime store astrologists. But it’s more significant than that. Chiron is a centaur and son of Kronos - god of agriculture, king of the Titans, father of Zeus who was defeated and banished by Zeus. Think Gnosticism and the demiurge as you contemplate the relationship between Kronos and Zeus.

Chiron gave his immortality to save his brother Prometheus, who, in turn, gave the gift of the fruit of knowledge to humankind (if you don’t want to blame poor Eve and an apple). Most importantly, Chiron trained Asclepius. Asclepius, the Father of Modern Medicine who, if memory serves, gave us the caduceus and, if Phillip K. Dick’s madness is to be trusted, was the founder of the Wisdom schools.

The astrologers will tell you that the lessons of the eclipse take time to reveal themselves. To the extent that this is a rebirth metaphor for you, they say look to Thursday for the next cycle to begin.

But I don’t necessarily believe that the lessons of the stars are timed in their cycles. I think the lessons of the stars are hidden in the stories we have chosen to tell about them - the stories that have survived the sieve of the human subconscious to become immortal.

Yesterday reminded me that I (and everyone else) have unlimited potential. The universe pushes back on that potential, which is a good thing. The lot of us going around selfishly thwacking each other in the face with our potential is no way to run a society. The sun, with its promise of immanent desiccation should we fail to properly hydrate on a given day, creates a pressure - a joint enemy and a joint icon - around which to organize our comings and goings.

And in the background, always there even if we can’t see them, are the forces of wisdom, love, and generosity. The epic battle that each of us carries on each day between conscious ordered thought and subconscious emotion and desire may blind us to these lesser currents in the ocean of destiny. But they do not leave us unattended.

Most importantly, perhaps, however, is the role of choice. For even when the moon blots out the sun, you remain. You can howl like a wolf (I admit, I joined in) or a terrified gibbon. Or you can assess yourself for what you are and how you choose to behave in the absence of all constraint. In that moment GNOTHI SEAUTON (“know thyself”) might reach fruition with a bit of luck.

Today the sun is shining in a bright blue sky. The birds or singing. Somewhere on the other side of the planet, Mother Moon reflects a tiny sliver of sunlight on human beings I will never know. I look up an remember that there are stars behind that great blue mirror, and planets, and galaxies, and maybe even an intelligence or two beyond my ability to comprehend.

None of it matters. The eclipse taught a very simple lesson I could have given you in far fewer words. It taught me simply, I AM.