Come Monday, a beautiful swath of the United States stretching from the lobster traps of Maine to the cowboy boots of Texas will find itself smothered in darkness, thanks to our celestial friend, the moon.

What’s going to happen?

Firstly, The Washington Post will dramatically call this darkness the death of democracy, while the champions of fossil fuels on Capitol Hill will likely seize the moment to tweet about the unreliability of the sun.

As afternoon daylight turns to twilight, our natural world will become silent and still. The noise of chirping birds and scampering squirrels will almost immediately cease, replaced by the inquisitive rustle of garbage bags in the grip of confused and sleep-deprived raccoons unknowingly treating themselves to a rare brunch.

Millions of American men will intuitively reach for their phones and begin typing “You up?” before realizing it’s Monday and Jessica, MacKenzie and Ann are days away from forgiving you.

Solar eclipses have sparked fear and academic curiosity for thousands of years. While the Earth experiences them at least twice annually, total solar eclipses are relatively rare in North America.

Before the 2017 event, you’d have to go back to 1979 to find an eclipse that darkened the skies over major population centers or when anyone had an easy way to get there.

We know very little about how these celestial events affect us in an era of mass transport and renewable energy.

This week, we look at what total solar eclipses mean in the modern world and why practicing the enjoyment of wonder and awe is important for getting the most out of rare moments like this.

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Drizzle

Although widely celebrated, the total solar eclipse we experienced in 2017 had unexpected consequences.

Solar power generation plummeted by 25%, the equivalent of 4.5 million homes. This increased the use of fossil fuels, generating 10 million pounds of additional carbon dioxide emissions—the same amount produced if you drove a standard car 11.2 million miles.

The difference this year is the width of the totality is far bigger and we have tripled our solar use. It could place strain on some energy grids. Solar power generation in Texas could drop to 7.6% of capacity.

But the human costs are high, too.

Seven years ago, approximately 20 million Americans traveled to the path of totality, where a total eclipse can be seen. In addition to the excess pollution caused by the influx of vehicles, people were stuck in their cars for up to 15 hours trying to get home.

Monday’s event is expected to be far busier.

But something else happened during 2017′s eclipse. There was a significant increase in traffic fatalities, going up 31% in the aftermath of the eclipse compared to other days.

Compost Dump

The solar eclipse is also an opportunity for people to experience awe or wonder.

Academics who study it claim it’s an extremely valuable thing to encounter and practice, helping us be less materialistic, more ethical, grateful, creative and positive, among tons of other things.

“In the West, we find predominantly awe is brought about due to encounters that one has with nature or powerful natural phenomena such as the eclipse,” said Dr. Paul Piff in a recent panel about the solar eclipse. Dr.Piff is an assistant professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine, where his research examines the origins of human kindness and cooperation. “It could be something you perceive or something you cognize in other ways, but when you experience or perceive something that’s so vast, so complicated, so powerful, that it makes you feel like you need to reconfigure, readjust, or update your mental schema, your understanding of the world to accommodate the experience.”

Here are some ways you can practice awe in your life.

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Moments of genuine awe in our lives seem scarcer than ever. The modern world has made it that way, with all its so-called conveniences and never-ending opportunities to experience life through the tiny digital windows we hold in our hands.

We’ve also been captured by the endless flow of daily life and the idea that what we own is more important than what we experience.

I remember my mother often telling friends and family about how I was always looking up at the night sky or thumbing through the pages of old atlases, imagining what the world looked like in places far away from my wee bedroom in Scotland. And how to get to those places.

Today, I find myself looking down more than ever. I don’t believe awe has fled from our world, and I wonder if Monday’s solar eclipse is an opportunity for something to change, to reawaken that sense of life and adventure where looking up means as much as it did when we were kids.

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See you next week.