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by state. Restrictions apply. Seasight for

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details. I'm

0:34

Clara Moskowitz and this is Science Quickly.

0:37

I'm here in South Texas hoping to catch

0:39

a glimpse of the eclipse this afternoon. The

0:42

feeling of a total solar eclipse is

0:44

intense, and the sights, sensations

0:46

and emotions can overwhelm you even if

0:48

you think you know what's coming. And

0:51

so I sat down with Kate Russo,

0:53

a psychologist, author and eclipse chaser, who's

0:56

seen 13 total solar eclipses over the

0:58

last 25 years, to talk about what

1:00

to expect. She

1:02

explains the experience of an eclipse in

1:04

4 minutes and 25 seconds, the

1:07

exact length of totality here where we are

1:09

in Texas. I

1:18

started chasing eclipses in 1999 and since

1:20

I became so obsessed with them, I've

1:23

tried to see every single one that

1:25

I can. A total solar

1:27

eclipse happens once in every 18 months, somewhere

1:30

around the world, we have to chase them. And

1:32

so I try and get into the path

1:34

every single time. And so that's the default

1:37

setting, I will always try and be there.

1:39

But you know, sometimes life happens, sometimes the

1:41

circumstances means that you can't travel, you have

1:43

to miss it, it might be too expensive.

1:46

So I have missed one or two of them. But I

1:49

tell you what, I will be chasing for as long

1:51

as I can until I can't do

1:53

it anymore. That's the plan. If you think

1:55

about it, the celestial mechanics is the same,

1:57

right? The moon slowly moves in front of

2:00

The total eclipse happens and then the

2:02

moon continues until they're not connected anymore.

2:05

But there are so many differences. So

2:07

the path of totality always goes over different

2:09

areas and you could be in

2:11

a position along the path where you're seeing it

2:13

at sunrise or in the middle of the day

2:15

or at sunset. And so sometimes you're looking right

2:18

up, sometimes you're looking on the horizon and you're

2:20

seeing it and you can see the moon's shadow,

2:22

the cone of the shadow. Other

2:24

times it's cloudy, other times it's

2:26

brilliant sunshine. We're also experiencing

2:29

it with different cultures and people you've

2:31

never met before. So we don't

2:33

just visit a place, we visit them often. You

2:36

experience culture and how people make sense

2:38

of it. Every experience is

2:40

unique and different and wonderful. And

2:43

even though you know what's coming, it still

2:45

takes you by surprise. And it's like an

2:47

embodied experience. And by that we mean that

2:50

it happens to us on a very physical

2:52

level. And a few

2:54

years ago now, about 10 years ago, I

2:56

did a survey on equestration. And

2:58

I asked them, what emotions do you experience

3:00

during totality? And the

3:03

interesting thing I found in this survey was

3:05

that everybody was saying the same thing. There

3:07

was a similar pattern that people were going through. And

3:10

so it starts with that thing called you're

3:12

watching the partial liquids. It's really interesting that

3:14

there is a moment that you notice that

3:16

something's gone a little bit wrong, that sense

3:18

of wrongness. The light doesn't quite look the

3:20

same as what it normally does. The

3:23

moon's just a bit weird. There's this darkening in

3:25

the sky. The wind kind of picks up or

3:27

changes direction. And then you're really starting to

3:29

think, this is not how the world is.

3:32

And you really start to pay attention. And

3:34

then moments before totality, if you're in

3:36

that part of totality, moments

3:38

before you get this ominous feeling that

3:40

something huge is coming and you know

3:42

it's the moon's shadow. And even though

3:45

you know it's coming, it

3:47

really just is so unexpected.

3:50

The chaser's actually used the word primitive here.

3:53

And for me, the hair on the back of my neck stands

3:55

up. I always get goosebumps at

3:57

that point because it's so overwhelming. And

4:00

then when totality happens, then we have this

4:02

moment of awe. And the

4:04

emotion of awe is really complex because

4:06

we feel in the presence of something

4:08

greater than us, or more powerful

4:10

than us. And then because of that,

4:12

it makes us think about our lives in a

4:14

different way. Then we have

4:17

that feeling of connectedness and insignificance. You

4:19

just sort of feel like you're part

4:21

of something so much greater and you

4:23

understand that you only just play a

4:25

small part. So all the little concerns

4:27

and everyday life things that happen really

4:29

doesn't seem that big a deal because

4:32

it's so much greater. Whether

4:34

it's the universe or whether it's humanity,

4:36

people around you, but that feeling of

4:38

connection is very, very strong. So

4:41

that insignificance and connection is

4:43

really empowering and makes

4:45

you feel so positive. So it's actually good for

4:47

us. And then

4:49

during totality we also, after the awe, there's the

4:51

euphoria because we know and we can feel that

4:54

it's coming to an end and we don't want

4:56

it to end. And so we're

4:58

just sort of like in this moment of, ah,

5:00

it's just great. And you just want to maximise

5:03

that time. And then it

5:05

just, as suddenly as it comes in,

5:07

it sweeps away and then you're left

5:09

with this massive big downer. And

5:12

we call it the desire to repeat. You

5:15

just want to see it again. You want to experience it again. And

5:18

the most common question is, when is

5:20

the next eclipse? Is that what you

5:22

feel? So that's really hard

5:24

to say in a sound bite, right? So

5:27

all of those things, but all that together,

5:29

that that's the personality of experience. We've got

5:31

to say that's the embodied experience of

5:33

true quality. And I summarise

5:35

that by saying it happens above us, it

5:37

happens around us and it happens within us.