This is a powerful sign.

It’s already being called the Great American Eclipse, and it’s coming on August 21, 2017. For the first time in 38 years, the shadow of a total solar eclipse will cross the lower 48 of the United States.

If you have seen a partial solar eclipse and think there is no reason to see a total one, think again. In a partial eclipse, you must use those little cardboard pinhole viewers to see the sun’s disk projected onto a piece of paper so as not to hurt your eyes. It’s very cool, but not the transformative experience of a total eclipse, when the apparent diameter of the moon is larger than that of the sun and blocks all direct sunlight. Day turns to night, birds go silent and you can stare directly at the moon with the sun behind it without any eye protection.

A hush falls upon the land as the natural world reacts to the sudden change, and great red whips of fire erupting from the sun can be seen around the disk of the moon.