I wake to a busy morning in quiet Nebraska. The corn fields continue the process of self-starting and sustaining, as it finishes out the perfect sweet corn phase of its season.

The light cloud coverage is beginning to burn away, as the sun raises higher in the azure sky. Today, here in my part of Nebraska, I will experience the eclipse in totality. Around our lunch/dinner hour we will gather as a community, who has welcomed many new faces and a team of scientists, to watch what only happens, if we’re lucky, once in a lifetime.

I have mixed feelings about the importance of viewing an eclipse, if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t travel and spend hundreds of dollars to view this moment in history. However, I’m grateful there are people in our country who do find true importance in recording, gathering and studying for the future of our world. I’m humbled, quite honestly, in how God has created us equal, yet blessed us with different gifts and its rather exciting to witness this fact, in and of itself, today.

Yes, for me, watching someone DO what they enjoy, and find their passion within, is fulfilling and a fine day’s work as I watch their minds turn and ideas flow – but that’s what social scientists do best.

We all have gifts and talents. My hope for today is for everyone to stop and consider what makes us positively different and the same and celebrate those bits. For we are much more productive united than we could ever be divided. I may have plucked that thought from someone…

Happy Eclipse Day, all Y’all,

Audrey Dawn