Intentions are funny things. You can mean them when you say them and still not fulfill them. Say them and not mean them. Not even recognize them and still carry them out. You can recognize them ad hoc, post hoc, and everywhere in between. There is a term in the legal field, mens rea – a guilty mind – a necessary prerequisite for the conviction of certain crimes. Specifically, where a criminal act has been committed, a necessary and corollary assessment is into the intention of the alleged criminal. A messy and fraught inquiry, occasionally impossible, sometimes fabricated, periodically known. There is, additionally, a chronological component to intention; was this an impulse acted upon in the moment, or calculated over time? It all matters.
For most of us, however, these assessments and related intentions are more benign. Many days, I intend to go to the gym, or intend to clean my apartment, and my failure to realize these is largely without consequence, in the immediate moment, though the accumulation of too many of these failed intentions may have detrimental effect. These day-to-day failures may ultimately work at cross purposes to deeper intentions I feel, like that to live a healthful life, with proper awareness given to genetic proclivities that might, if I were to bring a more mindful perspective, dictate my behaviors.
The trick here is my ability to see what is coming, which, naturally, I can’t. When I’m sitting in the doctor’s office, and he’s telling me that I have these risk factors for heart disease based on strong family history and some early markers already measurable in my own body, it’s damn easy to intend to heed these warnings and forego all alcohol and red meat, and to exercise, diligently, daily. In the days that follow, it’s easy to fall out of my own head and back into a life in which I feel perfectly healthy and the risk of real harm seems disarmingly distant. Here, knowing and doing are out of sync.
Would we act differently if we could see what is coming, clearly and definitively? The advent of genetic testing has put this question somewhat to the test. The emotionality of the question, do you want to know?, weighs very differently for different people.
Tomorrow we experience the first total solar eclipse in the United States since 1979, and the first to cross our entire country from one side to another since 1918. Such a phenomenon won’t grace our skies again until 2024. Thousands upon thousands of people have traveled to what they’re calling the path of totality, where the new moon will completely obscure the mid-day sun. Thousands more will witness a partial eclipse. In my town, well distant from the heart of the action, we’re projected to see anywhere from 76 to 82 percent coverage, which still strikes me as a great deal.
Eclipse fever has taken us over. The internet warns, apparently rightly so, of internet blindness, and to be wary of charlatan vendors selling fraudulent protective eyewear. Weather forecasters give notice of impending cloud cover. In the Pacific Northwest, with prime viewing through part of Oregon, there are concerns that smoke from raging wildfires in British Columbia will obscure viewing, where hordes of eclipse seekers are camping out with expectations ranging from astronomical to astrological.
I am, now, many hours ahead of the main event, envisioning the moon and sun already on their collision course, neither having any foreknowledge of how many people are anxiously awaiting their fated intersection, simply following their celestial trajectories. The sun, burning, flaring, currently warming the faces of our brethren across the globe. The moon, dark tonight, tracking steadily, arcing as it has for more millennia than we have tools to measure.
This, to me, is where much of the interest lies. The path is already set.
A few days ago, we gathered as a family to witness the second anniversary of my brother’s death. One of the things we talked about was to what extent we materially extended and hopefully improved—though that supposes a value judgment on our side—his life, by simply loving him, supporting him, and whatever all else we collectively did for him, to him, and because of him. We talked about the inevitability of his death.
Two years later and I miss him in ways that stop by breath and confound my ability to understand, but I don’t and can’t begrudge him for his decision. I believe his path was set.
My intention for my brother was always to hold him up and away from the light so he could fly, but this was my intention, not his, and truthfully beyond my capability to achieve. My intention in his absence is to reclaim my life as my own, as I know he’d want me to do.
What will this eclipse bring? Is it the capping off of two years of tumult and transition in my personal life? Is it portentous of a larger global shift, with many (myself included) eying Mr. 45 and the chaos he and his band of marauders have wrought? Does it precipitate great things, or merely the passing of these hours of the day, insignificant to its actors, our sun and moon?
Intentions are funny things, with so little in our control, and the reality of our existences being so minute in this cosmic sense. My intention—for myself, and for my world—is to embrace an open heart. I will breathe it in, I will witness it, and I will try to bring a mindful presence. I will know that on the other side of the dark the light will return, and the sun will have no idea that is has been missed, its intention being merely to burn and to light, while the moon continues its lazy track round.
caroline ridgway 