Friday, April 9, 2010

mysterious star map?





Any astronomers out there recognize something familiar in this pattern of splattered coffee?

(Please don't read too much into this little story)

During the middle of March I was swallowed up in the obsessive throws of map weirdness. At one point I was on a skype call with my pal Natascha, and my cat walked across my desk and she ended up spilling a full cup of coffee and it splashed all over everything, including some pencil notes on that map.

As I cleaned up the inky mess, I saw that the coffee had splattered quite an compelling array of speckles on the paper with the notes. There was something captivating about the new image. My first reaction was: "Wow, is this looks like a constellation, is this a star map?"

I spent a little bit of time with H.A. Ray's beautiful book STARS (a book I dearly love) trying to find some correlation to the polka-dots of coffee on that paper. I put the book away, and then I kind of stated (quite loudly) in my own head: THE PLEIADES! There was a feeling of absolute KNOWING that accompanied that though. A feeling I was quick to doubt.

After a while, I realized that this was a little bit fanatical, even for me.

Please know, I am probably gunna take this post down at some point. I think it's funny, and there are a few readers who might think so too. 
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Also - To write this post, I made good use of the thesaurus to find synonyms for the word compulsive. No foolin' - that map got really intense.

The top image is exactly the coffee splatter made into a B&W star map. The image below is the Pleiades. I revised the images and featured only the six brightest stars or splat marks.


Diana the animal psychic from the recent audio interview chimed in via email, she said:
"...When I first looked at them I got 'Dipper.' Then immediately I got, 'No. That's not right.' Then I got 'Pleiades.' What is interesting is that it doesn't look exactly like the Pleiades, but my Guide said that. Have no idea why. I did look up a picture of the Pleiades and they are similar."
Diana went on to tell me that my cat was rather exasperated that I don't trust her and the dots she made with the spilled coffee. She said my cat was thinking: "Oh c'mon, I did a really good job, it's close enough!"

In the lore of the love and light contactees, the Pleiades is home to the beautiful blond angel like beings that radiate benevolence. I'm not sure what I'm implying, but...
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Here is an accurate star map of Cassiopeia for comparison. Some comments below noted the similarity.
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13 comments:

  1. Natascha has a cat named FLECKY, and than means spots!

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  2. I agree that you should probably lay low on the caffeine, & switch to tea for a while ;)

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  3. You know this really is pretty funny... I like the picture corroborating the star map.

    Suppose, just suppose, it matched dot for dot, and star for star, a constellation...

    just what kind of synchronicity would that be..? What, if anything, would we really make of that?

    I think Jung himself is smiling... if not laughing.

    "My first reaction was: "Wow, this looks like a constellation, is this a star map?""

    Indeed.

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  4. Yes - I totally realize how crazy this sounds. I put this post simply because I thought it was funny. Natascha has hinted that I should take it down, and I suspect I will someday.

    I guess I just wanted to be upfront with the readers that the map thing was SO weird that I was susceptible to seeing patterns everywhere. Yes, that makes me seem overtly gullible - I know.

    Marjorie Fish, where are you?

    peace to all,
    M!

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  5. I would leave it, even come back and add to this preceding comment of yours about why you wanted to include it.

    I think it speaks to everything going on. In an absurd way, but still, if you get beyond the absurdity of it, what if it did match a constellation?

    Nevertheless I think it says something important in its way and is interesting, and absurd enough, to be revisited.

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  6. I dunno...but it does look a little bit like Cassiopeia to me!

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  7. James,

    I played with some star charts, and tried to make the coffee splatter match Cassiopeia, but - alas - it doesn't match.

    thanks though,
    M!

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  8. No it doesnt match... but it has a resemblance. I dont think the resemblance has any meaning.

    Even synchronicity can be stretched beyond the breaking point. Are the coffee stains trying to tell us something?

    I dont think so... still as ridiculous as this post is the more I think about it the more interesting it seems.

    Who looks at coffee stains and sees a map? Or in this case a constellation? And it does have a resemblance to Cassiopeia... what if it was more than just a resemblance?

    What if you placed them next to each other and they were copies, twins of each other? Would we draw something from that? Should we draw something from that? What would the chances of something like that occurring be...?

    Still if you look for signs sooner or later you will find them... it reminds me a little bit of Robert Wilson's Discordian Society and their tenet: everything in the universe relates to the number 5.

    Well here is an interview with Mr. Wilson. I find myself coming back to your blog in the same way I return to Lucretia's... this was a thoughtful post.

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  9. The Pleiades..! The likeness between your coffee stains and the Pleiades is rather striking isnt it? How absurd can this be...?

    Here is a little something that links the Pleiades with the tower in 'Close Encounters' (from Wikipedia...):

    "The Native American tribe, the Kiowa, had a myth similar to the Lakota that explained the creation of the Pleiades and Devils Tower. According to the Kiowa there were seven young maidens that went out to play and were spotted by several giant bears. The bears saw the young women and began to chase them. In an effort to escape the bears the women climbed on top of a rock and prayed to the spirit of the rock to save them. Hearing their prayers the rock began to rise from the ground towards the Heavens so that the bears couldn't reach the maidens. The seven women reached the sky and were then turned into the star constellation we know today. The bears in an effort to climb the rock left deep claw marks in the sides which had become too steep to climb. The rock later became known as Devils Tower."

    The Pleiades have quite a mythology around them... they are some 400 light years away... not so far by cosmic standards.

    What are the chances that lets say 6 dots randomly chosen by your coffee would land in a pattern that so closely resembles the Pleides its absurd...?

    Well the more dots and more structure the less likely... and whatever the actual probability may be it strikes me that its probably going to vary as the sixth power and considering all the possible combinations is probably rather small.

    Does that mean this isnt an accident..? No... I have to admit I am flabbergasted. What do you think I wonder...?

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  10. I have to admit, I was a bit "selective" about what I chose as "stars" on the coffee splattered paper. I chose the 5 biggest blobs of coffee, and then added the very mysterious BYRON North Dakota.

    Is this cheating? I have no idea. But it actually does resemble the Pleiades (at least a little bit)

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  11. I wonder if the Plieades ever looked different in another time (or a future time...), or if the constellation looks like this when viewed from another point in space? Just my weird thoughts.

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Hi there. I am eager to hear your comments, especially if you have similar stories. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

And - I reserve the right to delete any comments that are offensive or excessively harsh.