(Courtesy/Ella L. from Johnson’s Island)

As someone who is fascinated with the sun, moon, and stars, I am fortunate enough to attend a school that encourages this love, and no event emblemized this more than the Total Solar Eclipse on Monday, April 8.

Academy hosted two Eclipse-gazing Parties, one led by Arnav N. on campus and another hosted by faculty and students at Coffman Park in Dublin, which was in the path of totality.

The moment felt like poetry. Totality both stretched forever and was gone in an instant. The sky turned dark and silent, the air chilled, and life felt like a movie. I looked up and watched the moon inch by. After it ended, I was desperate to experience it again.

I’m not the only one enthralled, though. There’s a lot of historical significance behind these astronomical events—before, and even after, ancient cultures discovered the mechanisms behind eclipses and made fantastical predictions. Some, like the Vikings, believed it was the end of the world from the coming of Ragnarok, while others like Ancient China claimed a dragon had devoured the sun. Theory after theory proved that humans assigned mystical qualities to this moon-crossed sun, ideals of both fear and awe.

I, too, will forever be in fear and awe of the scale and beauty of our universe. Hopefully, in the future, I can jetset across the globe, chasing the thrill of totality.