It was hard to find our way into the circle in the dark.
It was the big observatory circle at the Newark Octagon. What helped was that someone was holding up a red light in the middle, and we followed another couple who were meandering toward it.
About 50 people were gathered within, many in lawn chairs, some leaning against each other. All hoping to see the moon rise.
I say “hoping” because it had rained all day, and it was still cloudy. But overhead, clouds were tearing apart. Stars shone through. There was hope.
For such a large crowd, it was quiet. Meditative, even. One couple whispered to each other. Someone wanted to know how far to Chillicothe, another prominent Earthworks site. But most people sat or stood quietly, looking up at a cloudy spot on the tree line, hoping it would clear for the moon.
This intentionality, it was moving. Folks had come from Columbus and beyond to be here.
I thought of the story of this place. How two thousand years ago Indigenous people had created this large circle with the crudest of instruments. They’d joined it to an even larger octagon, and aligned the whole massive structure with the northernmost rise point of the moon, which occurs every 18.5 years.
We are close to that 18.5 year cycle.
Archeological evidence shows that travelers came from across the continent to help build, and then to commune and celebrate within this space. Imagine: pilgrimages by foot from Yosemite and the Gulf Coast to this sacred site in Newark, Ohio.
I start to doubt that we’ll see the moon tonight. The clouds look too thick to me above the tree line. But I’m still glad Tina and I came. I’m still glad we stood with these people in the dark to await the ancient moon, and I’m still glad I got to stand within and contemplate the creation of such an extraordinary space.
“There it is!” someone gasps. And so it is.
To the right of where we expected it, since, a half hour from moonrise, its path has angled to the right. But the moon blasts through an opening in the clouds, a message from the ages.
The stunned silence of this group, the awe, that too is like a message from a millenia ago.
We stand, stare, and take in the news.
Have a Bright Spot to share? Send it to Managing Editor Julia Lerner (lernerj@denison.edu). Tell us about the moment that made you smile in under 200 words, and try to include a photograph. We’ll add it to our growing list of Bright Spots on TheReportingProject.org!