A friend of mine who rises early in all seasons to take sunrise photographs likes to say he understands why people in many cultures have worshiped the sun. It brings light and warmth, keeps the food supply going, but most reassuring of all: It comes back every day. There it is! It’s back. Life can go on.

On Monday the sun is due back as usual, but part way through its daytime course over North America a stunning change will take place. The eclipse of afternoon sunlight by the passage of the moon between the sun and Earth will darken the skies. Birds will go quiet. The temperature will drop by a few degrees. And the humans will be out in force to watch a phenomenon that tugs at our DNA.

As we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are unconscious forces out there that affect all bodies sharing certain genetic fundamentals. Humanity was susceptible to the new virus, no matter who they are. Like shingles in the jingle, COVID doesn’t care. Earthquakes don’t care. Hurricanes and tornadoes don’t care. The eclipse doesn’t care.

Sometimes we are reduced to the parts of our sum.

I certainly thought, and was just as certainly wrong, that the common foe of a deadly pandemic to which any of us could succumb, would have united us in the shared goal of staying alive. We made out as well as we could because of acts of heroism and unselfishness and dedication to duty. But the pandemic also showed how little one group trusts another about the big picture. While everyone experienced the phenomenon, people interpreted it in widely differing ways, often depending on their political beliefs.

If anything in human experience ought to be immune to politics, however, it’s an eclipse. An eclipse is not of Earth but of the sun. It starts when its time comes and it ends on an extraterrestrial schedule we do not control. An eclipse is no measly Daylight Saving Time act of Congress. It follows laws of physics that Congress did not pass.

Logically, an eclipse ought to show us what we have in common. We all live under one sun. Eclipses are not likely to arouse us to fight, although they could have scared people into flight. Now, many are running toward it.

According to NASA’s very cool website on the 2024 eclipse, in eastern Connecticut the coverage of the sun will peak at just under 90 percent at 3:28 p.m. The wider area of shadowed light, the penumbra, will start at 2:14 p.m. and pass away at 4:38 p.m. Areas from Mexico to Canada, which includes a path right over Cleveland, will experience “totality,” the complete covering up of the sun.

The Federal Highway Administration and various tourism groups have been preparing for the eclipse travel they know will cause major traffic jams in the hours before and after. Interstate 91 in Vermont and the roads to Houlton, Maine, will likely be bumper to bumper, with millions of people living near enough to drive a few hundred miles for their last chance for a full solar eclipse over the United States until 2044.

A reminder, though: In spite of the natural pull to view this dramatic rarity, actually seeing it with the naked eye risks permanent retina injury. Over all the eons of human experience of eclipses, people must have learned the hard way that looking right at the sun could blind them. For cultures whose religions included sun worship, it would have felt like a warning not to get too bold.

Inexpensive glasses meeting the standards for safe watching should still be available at big box retailers, even if it’s too late for online shopping. Sunglasses will not keep the retinas safe; nor will looking through a camera or a telescope. NASA also calls for sunscreen. Or, click the watch-live link to the NASA website to view the whole eclipse on a screen. Getting caught up in the thrill should not mean risking injury because, remember: The eclipse doesn’t care.

But we do.

Lisa McGinley is a member of The Day Editorial Board.