“It looked as though we had all
gathered on hilltops to pray for the
world on its last day.”
— Annie dillard, Total Eclipse
Eclipses preoccupied ancient
scholars from the Greeks and Romans to
the Chinese and Assyrians. They’ve
signified different things in different eras:
foreboding, good fortune, change. Across
cultures, though, an eclipse has almost
always been filled with meaning—a sight
so vivid and unsettling that it must mean
something important.
Perhaps that’s still true. The total solar
eclipse that cascaded across much of the
U.S. in August left me with a feeling of
excitement for what’s on the horizon.
Even though I wasn’t in the path of
complete totality, I could still sense the
change in the air and the exhilaration that
this celestial event promised.
On one hand, it was simply an
awesome show. As the moon passed in
front of the sun, day became night, the
stars came out, temperatures dropped,
and the animals didn’t know what to do
(those crickets were freaking out, y’all).
For an instant, the whole mad clockwork
of the universe revealed itself, and it was
pretty cool.
But on the other hand, maybe
something worldlier was at work, too. If
you turn on the news, you’re constantly
met with rage and resentment and a
passionate intensity that has become,
frankly, exhausting. But, on August 21,
millions of people gathered across the
country—from Oregon to South
Carolina—to set aside their political,
religious and economic differences for two
minutes and join in a commonality they
didn’t know they had.
I heard stories of strangers sharing
glasses on the streets of New York City
and of tens of thousands in downtown
Nashville cheering in unison at the exact
moment of totality. It’s pretty incredible
that a two-minute event can bring us all
together in joy and optimism.
As October presents itself, I can’t help
but apply that feeling of reassurance and
optimism to the ISPA Conference & Expo.
The imminent gathering of thousands of
spa professionals who are at once both
incredibly diverse and forcefully united
under a common goal of igniting the spa
industry, feels somewhat like an eclipse:
the change on the horizon, the impact of
a gathering of such magnitude and the
sheer joy that only an event
like Conference can conjure.
—KELLy HEItz, EdItor
the ISPA team taking a break from Conference prep to enjoy the solar eclipse.
FoLLoW KELLy
@PulseEditor
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PULSE
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July 2017
@ISPAPulseEditor