The Ethereal Clockmaker
CHAPTER 133
The Ethereal Clockmaker
The story for the total solar eclipse time:
Apr 8 – Apr 22
MOON DETAILS
New Moon
Solar Eclipse
19°24′ Aries
Apr. 8, 2024
2:20 PM EST
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11 MINUTE READ
Do you believe in destiny?
Truthfully, I think a part of me always has. Even when I insisted that all the world was just some combination of matter colliding and chemicals reacting, a part of me believed.
I felt it knocking at me — destiny.
Had the strong sense that there was something I was supposed to be doing.
In college, I was convinced I was supposed to write a book about how we messed everything up. At the time, I was studying physical anthropology, and as I was learning about the domestication of animals and the changes in the fossil record as we crossed the Neolithic divide, everything in my body screamed that we made a mistake. That this was the source of all our woes. That this was the moment we kicked ourselves out of the garden.
I didn’t even believe in the garden of the bible or god or anything like that, but something in me pushed harder, stronger than rational thought.
It was around this time that I started having seizures.
Most of the time, I didn’t even know they were happening. I was just left with a throbbing headache and nauseous belly, and I closed the blinds and turned off the lamps and tried to block out every source of light in a world that felt too bright.
But sometimes, I knew it was happening. I could feel a renegade electric burst spreading through my brain as I lost the ability to speak, and when I looked at the air in front of me, I saw little white lights dancing — dot dot dot — but when I reached to touch them, my hand couldn’t move.
Caffeine was a trigger, and if I drank a cup of coffee or downed a bottle of soda, I’d have a seizure. And so, for years, I avoided caffeine completely.
I got used to the many ways that my body was different than other people’s bodies and adjusted my life accordingly.
Then, I started meditating, and in the silence and stillness, I saw things in my mind. Afterwards, when the things I saw came true, I started to think that maybe — maybe — there’s more to this world than just matter and chemicals. Or maybe, there’s magic in the matter and chemicals. Things we have yet to fully understand.
As I made space in my heart and mind for the possibility of magic, the seizures stopped. I started being able to enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning without fear. And while I have no proof of this, I often think that those electric bursts were magic all along. Like magic itself was sparking inside me and going haywire in a mind that refused to entertain its existence.
And as my mind opened and my body healed, I felt destiny again — knocking at me, showing me images of a lush green world, making me feel like there was something I was supposed to be doing, like there was a path I still hadn’t found — in my brain or somewhere else — leading me back to the garden.
Years passed, and then, I saw them again: the little white lights — dot dot dot — dancing across the sky, inviting me to dance with them.
But this time, I didn’t get a headache. I didn’t become momentarily paralyzed. I didn’t experience any discomfort at all. Save for the lights, I had no reason to be concerned, and truthfully, I wasn’t concerned. Because in the absence of all that pain, the lights didn’t seem remotely troubling. And in my newly forged mind, which had now been open to magic for years, that’s exactly what the lights appeared to be — magic.
Throughout 2019, I saw them consistently every time I meditated and channeled, and sometimes, I just saw them — floating in the air above a friend’s face, sparkling across the clouds, and tiptoeing along the branches of trees. Like all the world was full of little dancing lights. Like it really was as bright as I feared it was when in college, I closed the blinds and cowered in the dark.
And I don’t know why it took me five years, but last week, I remembered the lights, and I looked them up, and I learned then that in Buddhism, observing little dancing lights (especially post-meditation) is a well-known phenomena.
It’s called thigle, which means “drops,” and in Buddhist philosophy, these dancing drops of light are believed to be the ground substance of our reality. Seeing them is thought to be the result of opening one’s heart to the true nature of the universe.
☆
You must open your heart completely to open your mind.
You must open your heart completely to open your mind.
You must open your heart completely to open your mind.
☆
In the fall of 2016, I was hypnotized by my own breath.
My eyes were closed.
I was lying in a chair.
And a man’s voice was guiding me down a long flight of imaginal stairs.
He was leading me through the doors of my subconscious, presumably to uncover past-life memories, but somewhere along the way, I stumbled upon a door — not into the past, but into the future.
I opened it and found myself living in a small house in a small town. The kitchen had a small bar, enough for two stools, and the bedroom wasn’t much bigger than the bed. The walls were slanted towards the roof, and the town itself was adorable, quaint, settled at the bottom of a hill.
In this future reality, the man I had recently started dated was lying in bed next to me. We were married.
Six months later, in my fully-conscious waking life, he and I boarded a plane to Ohio, to a place I’d never been. I met his family for the first time, and on the second day of our trip — on April 8, 2017, to be exact — we drove fifteen minutes to a place he thought I’d like. The moment I stepped out of the car, I realized I was facing a big hill. It swooped down towards the most adorable small town, and I was gobsmacked — this was the town from my mind.
Two years later, we got married.
Two years after that, we moved from New York to Ohio.
Three months after moving, in a swirl of magical coincidences, we unexpectedly bought a house. I’m writing this story now from our small bedroom, not much bigger than the bed itself. The wall to my right is slanted, leaning towards the roof, and downstairs, our cat is curled up on the couch as two barstools gather dust from lack of use.
And in five days, on April 8, 2024, exactly seven years from when I first stepped foot in this town, a total solar eclipse will darken the sky completely, for as luck or fate or sheer coincidence would have it, I am living in the path of totality.
And while total solar eclipses themselves aren’t that rare (they happen about once every eighteen months), this one is special. Not only because it’s path of totality is crossing over my home but the eclipse itself is happening at the exact point in the sky where the destiny point was on the day I was born.
In other words, on April 8, 2024, as the moon passes in front of the sun, my destiny will be held in the shining white corona of the blazing sun. And as the white flames dance in the sky, they encircle not just my destiny but our entire collective destiny, for on this new moon eclipse, the sun and moon are conjunct both the asteroid Chiron and the north node of the moon (a.k.a. the destiny point for us all).
☆
In the shadows of this new moon total solar eclipse, our collective destiny is crowned.
The invisible is made seen, and the beating, dancing arrow of destiny inside you is felt in full force.
☆
I hear the title for this chapter* in my mind — “The Clockmaker” — and my heart and solar plexus begin to shake.
I google the words and learn that unbeknownst to me, this is the name of a teleological theory.
The theory states that God is like a clockmaker who builds a clock but afterwards, is not involved in its day-to-day functioning. In other words, while God may have created the universe, he** is not necessarily actively engaged with its goings-on.
Moments after reading this theory, I pulled out my phone and refreshed ScienceNews.org. I was scrolling past a story about the total solar eclipse, and just as the word “Totality” rose on my screen, an incoming call appeared from someplace called Providence Forge, Virginia.
It looked like this:
(If you’ve been following The Magic Guide, you might even notice that the stories just below the eclipse story both echo topics recently discussed in the Magic Guide: the color blue and nuclear fusion.)
And the moment I saw the incoming call, the final four numbers of the caller ID jumped out at me — 8511. I immediately plugged them into my planetary mapping software, and my jaw dropped when I saw that on April 8, 2024, asteroid #8511 (which has no name, only numbers) will be in the exact same place in the sky as the new moon total solar eclipse.
As I saw it there on the screen, it looked like an arrow piercing the cosmic map, pointing to the eclipse and the moment of totality:
The word “providence” rang in my ear, as in…to be in the protective care of God.
And in that moment, it seemed to me that God hasn’t left the scene at all.
For God is not a wayward inventor, and the universe is not a ticking clock. It is a fiery furnace, forging providence with every beat of God’s hammer, and he is here for the totality of it all.
We are living in the forge of providence.
The little dancing lights like sparks from the anvil of destiny.
The garden glowing green all around us.
And in the dark of the total eclipse, as the forge’s flames burn across the sky, we are blessed by the knowledge of God.
And we experience a mercy that ripples towards ourselves and each other as we breathe a deep sigh of relief because finally, we stop feeling the knocking of destiny like a ticking clock and instead, agree to let it move and mold us into whatever shape we don’t yet know we were born to take.
Can you hear it? Your heart — speaking like a guide to destiny’s map?
During the eclipse, let yourself listen and then, when you’re ready: speak your heart’s desire. Let it leave your lips like a wish upon the closest star — our sun.
As you do, your wish falls into the flames, and a fierce blow propels you in a new direction as you are initiated into your next incarnation — one that might not fully make sense because it’s forming, it’s forming, and you are melting in the heat of the sun as its golden disc brightens the sky yet again, and —
The tension dissolves.
The remembrance reappears.
And you return to THE FAIRY TALE.
☆
This eclipse is launching you towards the full moon in October like it’s some great magnetic point.
There’s nothing you can do to stop it.
You could try to dig in your heels.
You could try to sink your nails into the dirt where you stand, but you are being pulled by the force of destiny —
remember
remember
remember.
It’s fall.
You look up.
You see the full moon rising. Your lids close softly as tears fall past your lashes and the great remembrance fills your being and your heart is light like a butterfly, fluttering, and dot dot dot — all the world is just like this — and the flames retreat.
And the knocking stops.
And all is crisp and cool as you take in your new form — like a statue, come to life.
You are forged.
☆
To be continued…
* At first, this chapter was just “The Clockmaker.” Its qualifier “ethereal” came later.
** I use “he” here because it’s used in the theory and also because, in this instance, he feels right. Sometimes, it doesn’t. Sometimes, I use she or they or it or avoid pronouns all together. But really, I think, there’s no need to get so hung up on such things. It’s all just God.
LONG STORY SHORT
During this total solar eclipse, we make a wish upon the closest star of all, and our collective destiny — the great movement of the unified being of all the world — is aligned. The past is in the past. We are dissolving now to become something new. In your heart and mind, make room for the possibility of magic. Pay special attention around April 11, and let the momentum from this peak moment propel you towards the fall and the destiny rising inside you that cannot be tamed nor denied. It can only be allowed. Amen.
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