Her compromise was to attend the viewing party with a friend. In addition to wearing protective eye wear, Chizick-Agüero tied a black sweatshirt around her belly to honor her husband's beliefs. Their son was born a month later, without any birthmarks.

Remembering Maya eclipse myths

Diliana Cho Solis, a bilingual counseling assistant for the Philadelphia School District, lives in South Philly.

But she was born in Honduras, the daughter of a Chinese father and a Nicaraguan mother. Cho Solis said the eclipse myths in Honduras stem from Mayan legends. One belief is that crops will go bad because the moon "has taken the energy away from the sun."

There's also a belief that pregnant women should wear a red ribbon or anything red. "And if a child is born [during] an eclipse, people believe the child will be born with superpowers and be gifted," she said.

There are also beliefs that the sun and moon are lovers who have been punished, so they can only meet one time over several years.

U.S. Indigenous customs

There has been so much excitement about recent eclipses with crowds gathering to view them together that the Smithsonian Magazine and the New York Times published articles noting that for Indigenous peoples throughout the world, a solar eclipse can be spiritual and sacred.

During an annular eclipse in October 2023, the Navajo Nation closed all its parks during the eclipse to accommodate traditional beliefs.

"Navajo look at the universe as holistic," David Begay, a cultural astronomer and vice president of the Indigenous Education Institute, told the Times. The alignment of the planet, moon and sun during eclipses is understood as one cycle within an interconnected cosmic order."

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