Preparing for Totality — A Gathering of Earth, Sky, Body, Heart and Sound
By Shen Tong
Shen Tong in meditation with participants during the Iceland Eclipse 2026 gathering at the foot of Snæfellsjökull, Iceland.
Photo credits to Iceland Eclipse 2026 Festival Facebook page.
Five hours before totality, we gathered at the foot of Snæfellsjökull in Iceland to prepare—not simply for an eclipse, but for a moment of stillness, presence, and connection. What follows is the meditation and ceremonial reflection offered to the gathering: an invitation to listen to the Earth beneath us, the sky above us, the body within us, and the space that connects us all.
Shen Tong in meditation with a fellow participant during the preparation for totality at the Iceland Eclipse 2026 gathering.
Photo credits to Unify Facebook page
3 OMs, AUMs
"We are five hours and forty-five minutes before totality.
This is preparation, not performance. Welcome."
Three Oms:
"One sound, three times. Find your own comfortable note.
A... U... M... and the hum closes the lips."
Let us take a breath together. In through the nose.
Long exhale.
Again.
It is 12:12.
From this breath to the moment of totality:
three hundred and thirty-three minutes.
We are inside the numbers now.
At exactly 17:45 and 46 seconds this afternoon,
the shadow of the moon will touch this peninsula,
and for two minutes and seven seconds,
we will stand in the day in the night,
the night in the day.
Before we prepare, let us know where we are.
Beneath us, beneath this garden,
runs the longest mountain range on Earth —
sixty-five thousand kilometers of volcanic spine
wrapping the whole planet through five oceans,
more than ninety percent of it hidden beneath the sea.
The old Chinese tradition calls such ridges longmai —dragon veins.
The mountains are the backbone of the dragon.
The rivers are its blood.
The valleys are its breathing.
This is the slow dragon.
And this island is the only place on Earth
where its spine breaks the surface
and walks into daylight.
Not the head. Not the tail.
The place where the dragon surfaces to breathe.
We are sitting on its breath.
This land knows the meeting of opposites.
The old Norse people said the world began
where fire met ice across a holy emptiness,
and life first stirred in the space between.
Fire under this ground. Ice on that mountain.
We greet the guardians of this land.
We ask permission. We give thanks.
Now let us know what is above us.
The sun is four hundred times wider than the moon.
The sun is four hundred times farther away.
Four hundred over four hundred —
and so the two appear, from where we sit,
exactly the same size in our sky.
And the numbers go deeper.
The sun is one hundred and eight Earths across.
The distance to the sun: one hundred and eight suns.
The distance to the moon: one hundred and eight moons.
One hundred and eight — the beads on the mala,
written three times, approximately, into the geometry above us.
On no other planet does this happen.
Only here. Only now.
And today, the eighth gate closes —
the lion's gate that centers on the eighth of the eighth
completes itself in this eclipse.
This afternoon, the moon will pass before the sun,
and what becomes visible — only then — is the corona.
The sun's outer body. A million degrees.
It has been there all along, hidden inside the brightness.
The light within the dark.
The day in the night. The night in the day.
And let us know what is within us.
Every cell of our bodies is emitting light.
Right now. Measurably. Faintly. Truly.
We are, quite literally, luminous.
The corona is not only out there.
This afternoon, the sun bows to the moon.
The masculine that keeps shining, even while veiled.
The feminine, fully present in her darkness, becoming the doorway.
And the Earth — all of us, this garden — the third point of the line.
Love is that third point.
The capacity to hold both —light and dark, fire and ice,
day and night —without collapsing.
So this is our preparation:
We descend. We do not rise.
We become water, not fire.
We conduct; we do not hold.
We tend the soil, not the plants.
We hold the mud and hold the darkness well —
and the lotus comes in its own season.
And when the shadow arrives,
we will hold one prayer together —
everyone in this garden,
everyone on this peninsula,
everyone on this Earth
who feels the light pause:
For abundance. For peace. For harmony.
One Earth. One Humanity.
Let us begin.
Moments from the Alchemical Merkaba practice during the Iceland Eclipse 2026 gathering.
Photo credits to Unify Facebook page
ALCHEMICAL MERKABA: LIGHT BODY & LIGHT SHIELDS
1. GROUNDING — EARTH CORE
Ground down through the garden floor,
through the lava of Snaefellsnes,
into the tail of the mantle plume beneath us,
into the spine of the slow dragon.
We do not rise to meet totality.
We descend to receive it.
2. LIGHT COLUMN & CHAKRAS — PLATONIC SOLIDS
Keep the column soft. Sealing, not ascending.
3. MERKABA ACTIVATION
Two tetrahedra of light around the body.
One turns as the sun — shining, even while veiled.
One turns as the moon — fully present in her darkness.
Interlocked. Counter-rotating. One body.
The eclipse in miniature, around each of us.
4. ZERO-POINT STILLNESS AS SHIELD
At the still center of the turning field —
the zero point.
This stillness IS the shield.
The completed light body is the vessel
each of us carries to totality.
Nothing needs to be added.
HEART SUTRA
"The Heart Sutra — spoken by Avalokiteshvara & Guanyin,
the bodhisattva of compassion. A distilled rendering,
offered into this field."
THE HEART OF PERFECT WISDOM
— a distilled ceremonial rendering —
觀自在菩薩，行深般若波羅蜜多時，照見五蘊皆空，度一切苦厄。
「舍利子！色不異空，空不異色，色即是空，空即是色；受、想、行、識，亦復如是。
「舍利子！是諸法空相，不生不滅，不垢不淨，不增不減。是故，空中無色，無受、想、行、識；無眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、意；無色、聲、香、味、觸、法；無眼界，乃至無意識界；無無明，亦無無明盡，乃至無老死，亦無老死盡；無苦、集、滅、道；無智，亦無得，以無所得故。
「菩提薩埵，依般若波羅蜜多故，心無罣礙；無罣礙故，無有恐怖，遠離顛倒夢想，究竟涅槃。三世諸佛，依般若波羅蜜多故，得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。
「故知般若波羅蜜多，是大神咒，是大明咒，是無上咒，是無等等咒，能除一切苦，真實不虛。」
故說般若波羅蜜多咒，即說咒曰：
「揭諦 揭諦 波羅揭諦 波羅僧揭諦 菩提薩婆訶」
Avalokiteshvara and Guanyin, the awakened one of compassion,
moving in the deep practice of wisdom beyond wisdom,
looked upon the five streams of body and mind
and saw that each of them is empty of a separate self —
and in that seeing, was freed from suffering.
Listen: form is not other than emptiness;
emptiness is not other than form.
Form is exactly emptiness; emptiness, exactly form.
The same is true of feeling, perception,
mental formations, and consciousness.
All things bear this mark of openness:
nothing separately born, nothing separately ending,
nothing stained, nothing pure, nothing gained, nothing lacking.
Therefore, within this boundlessness,
eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind
are not separate selves;
sight and sound and touch and thought
are not separate selves;
there is no ignorance standing alone,
and no ending of ignorance standing alone,
no old age and death standing alone,
and no ending of them —
no attainment, and nothing to attain.
The awakened ones of all three times
rest in this wisdom beyond wisdom,
and their hearts are without hindrance.
Without hindrance, there is no fear.
Beyond every upside-down view, they arrive at the other shore.
Therefore know: this wisdom is the great mantra,
the mantra of clear light, the unsurpassed mantra,
the mantra that ends all suffering —true, because it is not false.
And so it is spoken:
Moments from the Alchemical Merkaba practice during the Iceland Eclipse 2026 gathering.
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.
Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond — awakening. So be it.
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.
Be water , my friends. Be water
I am because we are.
108 x OM MANI PADME HUM
"The mantra of Avalokiteshvara — the same voice
that spoke the sutra. Om Mani Padme Hum:
the jewel in the lotus.
The lotus that grows from the mud we have learned to hold.
We chant it one hundred and eight times —
the same one hundred and eight
written into the sun, the moon, and the Earth above us.
Find your own note. I will keep the count.
When you hear the bell, let the mantra dissolve."
OM MANI PADME HUM
DEDICATION
Whatever merit lives in this hour,
we do not keep it. We give it away.
To the two thousand who will gather at the altar.
To the five thousand on this peninsula.
To everyone on this Earth who feels the light pause.
To the lands that have been hurt, to be tended.
To the waters that have been dammed, to run wild again.
To the peoples in conflict, to remember
the same sun bows over all of them.
To every being holding a difficult truth alone, to feel held.
For abundance. For peace. For harmony.
One Earth. One Humanity.
CLOSING
Totality begins at 17:45 and 46 seconds.
Walk the land quietly. Drink water. Feel the sun.
Arrive as water, not as fire.
You are not going to meet totality.
You are being met by it.
That is all. Thank you.
Shen Tong in meditation with participants during the Iceland Eclipse 2026 gathering.
Photo credits to Iceland Eclipse 2026 Festival Facebook page.