My first eclipse up in the bordering Myanmar-Thailand mountains was spent with a wonderful group of students. It was a sort of campfire night, but with more practical uses. We made bio-char that evening, and all of us hung around the glowing steel drums, peering to see how our wood pieces were burning.
It was also that fateful night Khomloy the development foundation brought khomloys the sky lanterns. So we set our dreams and hopes up into the skies. We followed the local beliefs, and made a lot of noise to chase away the eclipse. There were sounds of continuous gunshots in the background. One can never be too sure if it was part of the local rites, or whether it was something more sinister.
Eclipse has its purpose. Sometimes a masked truth is better than the true truth.
