May 3, 2006 , 2006 -- Wow!!. With apologies to John of Patmos, a total solar eclipse is the most participatory of celestial events. It must be shared and then savored with companions and friends. Each eclipse thus develops its own context to the present and by virtue of of the saros (a related series of eclipses) the past and future.

We came for the eclipse and found the early Church and a Greco-Roman world wrapped in a tapestry of Islam overlain with a vibrant modern Turkey. Neither my pictures nor my memories can do them justice.

...Now lets see there is a 2 minute eclipse in Mongolia in 2008, a 6 minute eclipse at Bikini Atoll in 2009 and then there is Easter Island in 2010.