On May 20th, parts of the United States will be able to see their first total eclipse of the sun since 1994. The annular eclipse takes place  on Sunday evening, starting at 5:14pm PST.

SUNDAY MAY 20TH, 2012
5:14PM – START OF ECLIPSE
6:30PM – MAXIMUM ECLIPSE
(LASTING 4MIN 40SEC)
7:36PM – END OF ECLIPSE

A variety of parties and events have been planned to celebrate this occasion.

The full-time Burner community of Permaburn might have difficulties updating their web site, but it seems like they have no difficulties in getting 100 DJs, live entertainment, art cars, and thousands of Burners out to their site. They are throwing a party called Lunarburn from Friday May 18th-Sunday 20th. Tickets are $30.

Some bigger DJ names including Random Rab, Beats Antique and Aussie doofmeister Kasey Taylor can be found at the Pyramid Lake eclipse festival, Symbiosis Gathering, which runs from May 17th-21st. Tickets are $280. This promises to be a unique festival, with pagan offerings made at an altar with the Paiute Tribe:

our intention is for this to be a time when we get to taste the village life we all feel missing from our lives, sharing food, song, prayer, dance, art, performance and the day-to-day beauty of being alive.

Focused around a central elemental altar, where offerings and ceremonies will occur throughout the gathering, there is a sacred container being collectively created and held, in collaboration with the Native peoples who have honored us with the use of their land.

Every facet of this gathering is an opportunity for the work, whether it be on dancefloor, in the skill shares, gathering in ritual or connecting with the land and each other.

We do not know exactly what these times hold, but we do know that when we enter this moment together, with real intentions for global healing and awakening, we can participate in these cosmic cycles in the best possible way,

“Hold onto your yoga mats and crystals”… a more spiritually-oriented event is being held at the home of aliens, crystal skulls and the entrance to the underworld, Mt Shasta.

The amazing Grand Pleiadian Eclipse Alignment, an astronomical alignment that happens only once in approximately 26,000 years, will take place at what we believe is the most powerful spiritual vortex on this continent: Mount Shasta.

Mount Shasta is believed to be the base of the arch-angel Michael, be a dimensional vortex, and sit above the lost Lemurian city of Telos. It is where the 1987 Harmonic Convergence took place with thousands of people. It is already being covered by the media as “ECLIPSE FEVER!”

Eclipse parties are great fun. As well as your typical Burner crowd, there is a whole scene of Eclipse hunters who travel from party to party around the world. We trekked thousands of kilometers into the Australian Outback in 2002 for the Outback Eclipse festival, to find a thumping bush doof with 10,000 people. There was another party of similar size and remoteness, another 1000 km or so away. A great time was had by all, and watching the eclipse was a magical moment. The Outback grew eerily silent – which emphasized just how much noise of animals and insects there was in the middle of nowhere.