Today is the day of the Great American Eclipse! (Or perhaps the not-so-great, if the weather doesn’t cooperate.)

Welcome to the Brew.

Forecast: Gloomy for Some, Good for Others

Along the path of totality, New England is looking the best in terms of clear skies. National Weather Service meteorologist Kwan-Yin Kong thinks a passing front may cut a break for the residents between northern Arkansas to central Ohio. However, this region has the “greatest uncertainty due to potential high clouds.”

Unfortunately, things aren’t looking as good from Missouri and Kansas down through Texas. According to the buzzkills at AccuWeather, the region is looking at cloudy weather, perhaps even rain and a chance of thunderstorms.

We pray for the clouds to part because the lower 48 won’t be seeing another total eclipse like this until 2044.

We also pray for safe travels for everyone traveling to a prime viewing location. Local authorities in many places, including Indiana, have declared a state of emergency due to expected overcrowding, traffic jams, and potential mischief. 

No, We’re Not Under Attack!

For those in the DC area and wider DelMarVa region: Do not panic if you see three rockets racing through the sky right before, during, and after the eclipse. It’s not the apocalypse, or even Russia: It’s NASA, which is launching the rockets from Virginia “to study how Earth’s upper atmosphere is affected when sunlight momentarily dims over a portion of the planet.” The rockets should be visible in the Mid-Atlantic states. 

As if the nation’s nerves aren’t on edge already. Imagine seeing rockets without knowing they were part of an experiment.

By the way, the rockets are part of a NASA mission called APEP, which stands for “Atmospheric Perturbations Around the Eclipse Path.” It’s named for an Egyptian serpent deity, who according to the New World Encyclopedia, represents “chaos, death and disorder.”  

How 2024 of NASA. 

Blinded by the Light

Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun. 
But mama, that’s where the fun is

(from “Blinded by the Light” by Bruce Springsteen … or if you prefer, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band) 

No, it isn’t.

All you eclipse watchers, please, please remember not to look directly into the sun. You can literally go blind. “It can take as little as a minute to create a thermal burn on the retina,” says Dr. Nina Goyal, president of the Illinois Society of Eye Physicians and Surgeons. “And you won’t even feel it.” A thermal burn will permanently impair your vision.

Don’t worry if you did not order special eclipse glasses, though. Dr. Goyal says you can still enjoy the view — oddly enough, by turning your back on it.  As Just the News reports:

With her back to the sun, [Goyal will] be holding her trusty kitchen colander or spaghetti drainer, the kind with big holes, not mesh, to watch the eclipse shadow on a piece of white paper on the ground. The colander acts as a pinhole projector, creating many eclipse shadows.

The Dark Side of the Eclipse

It’s not going to be all oohs and aahs, though, and not just because of the cloudy weather. There’s a dark side to the eclipse. (No pun intended.)

Witches, pagans, and Druids are excited about the astronomical (and astrological) phenomenon. Take John Becket, a Druid in Texas. “These events are powerful,” he told NorthJersey.com. They can, in my experience, speed up magic because the sun goes from bright to dark to bright in minutes, rather than in a whole day. It’s an amazing natural occurrence and something we can look at and appreciate.”

Neopagan Oberon Zell is joining a group of Druids in northern Ohio, saying: “We are planning a big gathering for directing our energy towards planet-healing, saving our Mother Earth and turning the tide of human aggression. We need to rid our planet of the destructive forces. The eclipse is a wakeup call to people to treat each other and the planet better.”

Alexa Braco, a witch from Hackensack, New Jersey, will be meditating during the eclipse with a yellow candle. The way she tells it, yellow is connected to the solar plexus, the place where one’s “inner fire” lives and connects us to the sun. “I’m charging the object with the energies of the day, in order to bring that energy into my home and disperse it out into the universe,” she said.

She adds that the eclipse is occurring during the zodiac sign of Aries, which marks the start of the astrological year, making it a time “supercharged for transformation.”

To counter the occultist spirits and practices at work today, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas will be holding a live mass tomorrow that will be broadcast on LifeSite News. We’ve got the story in “Bishop Strickland to Hold Mass Live on LifeSite to Counter Expected Satanist Activity During Solar Eclipse.”

Six Months After Hamas Attack, Hostages Still Held

Yesterday marked six months since Hamas terrorists unleashed a savage, sickening slaughter of more than a thousand Israelis who were attending a music festival. The attack also unleashed a ghastly flood of antisemitism across our own country that is still rippling.

Sadly, Hamas still holds an estimated 130 people hostages, including half a dozen Americans.

Yet the Biden administration has put the squeeze on Israel for vowing to eliminate Hamas entirely What about our hostages? In stark contrast to the efforts the Biden administration put forth to free an anti-American lesbian basketball star who spent 10 months as a political prisoner in Russia, nothing has yet been done to negotiate their release.

Let’s take a moment to pray that all the hostages may be supernaturally strengthened during their brutal ordeal, and safely, even miraculously, freed. And may the American president act to ensure their freedom above securing his election base in Michigan.

A Dream on The Stream

On Saturday afternoon, Bunni Pounds, head of Christians Engaged, posted a special “Alert: Pray for Our Elected Leaders.” Pounds had what she believes is a prophetic dream about a key leader in Congress who was collapsing under the pressures of public service. Pounds has had two dreams in the past about elected officials, and both came true. In addition, Pounds gives practical advice about how to pray for leaders.

While we’re at it, let’s pray for Pounds. She’ll be heading to Washington in late July, where she’ll be getting the opportunity to pray privately for several members of Congress. Will the one in her dream be among them?

 

Al Perrotta is managing editor of The Stream, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.