The occultation of the Sun by the moon Cornwall Britain 11th August 1999

The Hurlers Bodmin moor: 10:00 and the first bite from the disk of the Sun could be seen through the thin cloud. In this place, where we stood, layer upon layer the ancient people patterned the mysteries in giant crystalled stones and ceremonies that blow in the wind. Sparkling in rounds, the stone circles known as the hurlers, step up the hill in three cosmic pools toward "Mount Olympus" the crumbled temple of the Cheese Ring. There sandwiched serpent heads, old as the hills, are Gods manifest, looking over the world, through the world in the strata. These towers of mortified majesty are the heads of serpents flying through the hills; their tails stretch to eternity and there heads to infinity.

ACCOUNT:

Looking skyward the clouds gathered as the air cooled, and the morning became dusk. Some thing great was happening as all those disparate hundreds gathered testified. As our day began to end at its beginning, some people clung to their consciousness in various ways of normality. There were the pub cheers of the Djembe cavemen, the nuclear family with Dad sitting nonchalantly while the children played in this miracle, with the pet dog, and near us two women bumbled through a crippled home video documentary. This was all far from normal, and the cloud thickened till all we saw were tantalising glimpses of the last slither of the Sun. By now we were shivering with cold and fear of the impending dark. I looked to the West for the approaching umbra, and there the darkness roared and heaved silently and all that was left of our day light rippled over the hills in tones of violet, pink and gray. Everyone was silent and then it was upon us; the end of the world came, the war and I surrendered . In this last moment, everyone was there. The whole thing boomed and zoomed and we cried for the dead , we cried for ourselves. The Sun had set in every direction and we held each other as we tumbled down a long dark dragon that ate the sun, then we were through. It was morning again for the second time that day. The tide had gone out and we were left shivering on the shore. know this eclipse, and you knows the darkness of this world, the miracle utterance of our precious life.

In the sky dark bands of cloud were eddying in the wake of what happened and we lay not speaking, strewned among the stones.