I write it down so I don’t forget it. And because no photo, I am sure, will ever be able to convey the beauty of what I saw in the sky this afternoon of April 8, 2024. I had dreaded the event a little, I I admit (the media escalation often gets the better of my amazement), but for once, reality has surpassed fiction. Thank you to the organization of Parc Jean-Drapeau for turning off the sound during these 87 seconds of pure enchantment and a meeting with the absolute. Because yes, there was something absolute in this perfect alignment of the stars and this majestic “cosmic ballet” evoked by astronaut David Saint-Jacques. A “diamond moon” for all, dazzling like an apparition, without discrimination against anyone. A moon in perfect harmony with a solar system infinitely larger than us, like a sudden breeze of humility on a world which, at times, never ceases to despair us. A tangible apotheosis which felt good, punctuated with moving “ohs” and “ahs…”, which put all conflicts on mute, all wars on fallow ground and which made the slightest attempt at cynicism seem very vile. A moment magnified by its extreme rarity, which finally allowed us to “dream big”.
How good it was to hear Boucar Diouf, this morning on Radio-Canada, mention the fact that this “mystical experience” (defined thus by the astrophysicist Hubert Reeves) restored its letters of nobility to science and would possibly “to create careers of scientists, people who will take us much further”. How good it was also to see that, despite all the noise and swelling that preceded the event, it was not a fad or an image truncated by rose-colored glasses. There was no one wearing rose-colored glasses on this sunny Monday afternoon. But people by the thousands who, after a long crescendo, took off their protective glasses in a spontaneous and widespread burst, aware of seeing there a diamond moon which will mark them for life.
To watch on video