Every time there's an eclipse, as my neighbour very religiously bathes four times, chants his mantras and performs the various rituals associated with this, most inauspicious of occult events, I, equally religiously, am usually to be found on my terrace, with camera mounted on tripod, trying to catch the event on SD card. This time, rather than just put up a series of images, I thought I'd write a few words on the perception of eclipses and the hows and whys of them.

Consider a bronze-age shepherd or herder; tending to his animals, sometimes a few animals get lost, a few get eaten by predators, and a few are stolen by others. A few are also legitimately subtracted from his flock, by being bartered away with other tribespeople, and by being slaughtered for food. At the end of the week, the flock looks thin, compared to what he started out with, and he needs to take stock of his stock. Keeping the count of animals in his head is getting more and more difficult as the number of animals in his care grows.