We are in the Path of Totality, a phrase I like to capitalize because I like it so much. It sounds eerie, almost spiritual, doesn’t it? Being in the Path of Totality of a solar eclipse means you can see the sun blotted out from the sky as the moon passes between sun and Earth. With proper eye protection, of course.

Everyone in North America and Central America will be able to see at least a partial solar eclipse, but, according to NASA, only those of us within the 115-mile-wide path of totality, a diagonal line proceeding from the southwest to the northeast across North America — through Mexico, the United States and Canada — will be able to watch as the moon swallows the entire disk of the sun, plunging the world into darkness.

Or, to be slightly more scientific, as the moon’s shadow obscures the sun, leaving only its bright corona visible in the daytime sky. Space.com describes it as “the cone-shaped inner (umbral) shadow of the moon projected onto the Earth’s surface.”

The eclipse will enter the American continent on the Pacific coast, at Mazatln, Mexico, entering the United States in Texas, and traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Some parts of Tennessee and Michigan will also experience the solar eclipse.

At midday on April 8, the moon will line up perfectly between the Earth and the sun, thus eclipsing the sun. At 223,000 miles from Earth, one of the year’s closest approaches, it will be a supermoon, making the full eclipse last longer than it would otherwise.

The duration of the total eclipse will vary, depending on location. Totality will last longest near Torren, Mexico, at 4 minutes, 28 seconds; but in Syracuse, New York, totality will last just 1.5 minutes.

People keep saying how the ancients must have been discombobulated by eclipses, and this is probably true, but there were astronomers in Babylonia and China who predicted eclipses as far back as 2500 BC. Still, superstitions abounded about what they “meant.” Everything happens for a reason! People probably said.

One superstition that persisted down through the ages, for example, was that an eclipse was a portent of doom for a king. In China a temporary substitute was placed on the throne in order to throw the cosmic powers off track. The Chinese must have had a low regard for the intelligence of the cosmic powers.

According to calculations from NASA, the longest historical total eclipse lasted 7 minutes 27.54 seconds on June 15, 743 BC in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya and Somalia in Africa.

The last coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in the U.S. was in 2017. The Adirondacks had only a partial view of that eclipse. More than 5,000 passengers aboard the cruise ship Oasis of the Seas, however, sailed from Florida to the Caribbean to experience the total eclipse while Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler sang an abbreviated version of her 1983 hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” A special drink called the Cosmic Cosmo was served. (I tried to no avail to obtain the recipe.) Other appropriate eclipse music includes “Paint it Black,” “Moon Shadow” and “You’re so Vain.”

More to the point, in Lake Placid as well as in Essex, Jay, Keene and Keene Valley on April 8, the eclipse will begin at 2:13 p.m., and the time from beginning to end of the eclipse will be 2 hours, 23 minutes, and 41 seconds. The sun will be totally eclipsed for approximately 3 minutes and 20 seconds, allowing for variations of a few seconds along the eclipse route.

Solar eclipse viewing parties will be held at the Olympic Speedskating Oval in Lake Placid and at Whiteface in Wilmington. In downtown Saranac Lake, eclipse viewing will be celebrated with live music, art exhibitions, food and drinks.

Yes, Jane, we are all atwitter. How about you all in Blanco?

Have a good week.

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(Martha Allen, of Keene Valley, has been writing for the Lake Placid News for more than 20 years.)