Peace & joy with strangers at a yoga & dance party

Good morning, DMV! It’s Monday, March 2.

This weekend, it felt like we turned the corner into spring. Sunset shifted yesterday into the 6 o’clock hour, ticks later throughout the week then leaps Sunday to the 7 o’clock hour (yay) because we are springing forward (boo … for disrupted sleep patterns). And we got a taste of warm weather again.

I went yesterday with friends to a daytime yoga-and-dance party called Daybreaker.

It kicked off at 11 a.m. It was my first time doing yoga in a dance club — a room with no windows (that I could see anyway) and lots of mood lighting. We started our practice, synchronizing our movements and breath. I dropped into the zone. Surrounded by new faces, I felt unfamiliar vibes. But I expanded and found joy and peace with strangers.

After an hour, we closed our practice, rolled up our mats and headed up to the rooftop dance party.

We were in a space open to the air and sunshine. A disco ball hung from the ceiling, flanked by large pots of plants in various shades of green. (Were they real plants or fake? Unsure — but they were pretty and set a sweet tone for the space.)

As the DJ played, a live drummer, trombonist and trumpeter accompanied. An emcee pumped up the crowd. I loved having someone cheer us on as we danced.

The sun warmed my skin. As the crowd pulsed, I looked up to the sky to watch a flock of pigeons turning circles nearby.

Alas, spring arrives in fits and starts. I know we’re due for snow and a wintry mix later today. But for now, I’ll try to hold this Sunday vibe a touch longer.

🌷 But first: tulips. Tickets for the free Tulip Day event March 15 on the National Mall are available today at 8 a.m., organizers said on Instagram. They say people can reserve their tickets at this link. (UPDATED: The organizers later changed the link to https://tulip-day.eu/, so the link has been updated.)

Now, back to the moon: Tomorrow morning, there’s a lunar eclipse with the partial eclipse beginning shortly before 5 a.m. EST, according to NASA. Totality starts just after 6 a.m. and ends about an hour later.

On the East Coast of the United States, we will also get to witness another rare phenomenon called a selenelion, says Matthew Cappucci of the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang.

“A ‘selenelion’ is when you have the sun rising in the east AND a total lunar eclipse at moonset in the west. You'll see the rusty brown or red moon setting at the same time,” Matthew explained on Facebook.

“ … for folks on the Eastern Seaboard, you'll be able to see both the start of totality AND sunrise simultaneously on opposite horizons for just a few minutes... meaning you're in the midst of a PERFECT planetary alignment. It's rare to experience a selenelion in any given place.”

But he notes that it will be hard to physically see both horizons at the same time unless you’re on a hilltop, in a tall building or in an airplane.

For planning purposes, D.C. sunrise is 6:37 a.m. tomorrow.

Stewart Verdery, 59, of Northwest D.C., snapped this sunset pic Jan. 22 while stuck in traffic on I-395.

“The colors only lasted about 3 minutes but were pretty epic,” he wrote in his submission.

🌅