I did some light research the other morning on types of cosmology and repeating motifs. I had an image in mind that I remember from a History of Religion class I attended. It was the depiction of Nut the Egyptian sky goddess in the GreenField Papyrus . I’ve been reflecting on how throughout history we’ve interpreted natural phenomena as gendered bodies- Moon as Thea (her), Sky as Nut (her), Sun (in romanic languages is male). The Christian God is believed to be a man and he is said to have created the world in his image - but “Mother Earth” is a term often used as well. Thinking about music, metronomes, tempos and heartbeats are related and measurements have always been in relation to the human body (foot, length, pace, hair, arms length) Historically, people in various fields of study like to name discoveries after themselves. (Look at this list.) It’s awfully human-centred.
Book of the Dead of Nestanebetisheru; frame 87.
Image Source: British Museum
It’s not only on a human bodily level- it’s also at a planetary level. Aristotle’s cosmology centred Earth (Terra) in the centre of the understood universe, and the Sun was believed to have rotated around us alongside the other celestial bodies in our solar system. Thanks to Galileo we no longer rely on the Aristotelian model. But we did continue to refer to the Great Chain of Being well into the Middle Ages and into the early Modern period - which creates a hierarchy placing God first, angels second, and humans third above animals, plants, and minerals.
1579 drawing of the Great Chain of Being from Didacus Valades [es], Rhetorica Christiana
I took an Earth Science course this past semester, as a required credit. We started the course with reviewing geological time and the Big Bang Theory. The Universe has been given an age of roughly 12.8 billion years old, while the Earth is estimated to be about 4.6 billion years old. To grasp the enormity of that timescale, we’ve broken it up into Eons, Eras, Periods and Epochs. As a reference, the professor told us to raise our arms up horizontally and to think of the Geological Timescale starting at the tip of the middle finger on one arm, and ending on the fingertip of the opposite side. Human history is the trimmed distal free edge of the fingernail- the white crescent part. (Another example of a bodily measurement!) It was a good learning tool, and a reminder of our relative insignificance, it’s scary, but, humbling.
We remain to bend at Earth’s will with the powerful climate system, and the tectonic plates which slide around unpredictably on the lithosphere. We have no way of predicting earthquakes, only the ability to measure them and pin-point the epicentre and hypocentre after the fact. The waves that are produced by tectonic movements are called S-Waves (surface) and P-Waves (primary/body), there are also Love-Waves and Raleigh-Waves. S-waves and P-waves travel through the Earth’s interior, and that’s been a big factor in figuring out what state each layer of the Earth is. Since particular waves can travel through liquids, while some cannot. I listened to a lecture from a Hawaiian geology professor, where he said that there’s been a scientific dream scenario where we can create more of these waves to get better readings about the Earth’s interior - but we’d only be able to do that successfully by detonating hundreds or thousands of atomic bombs on the surface. We’d like to think that gaining control over these things would be a benefit, but maybe it’s for the best we leave that up to the powers/systems that be? I ask these questions a lot- Why do we need to know everything? Why must we dominate everything?
Space frightens me, I believe it’s a healthy fear. Our bodies are composed of elements that come from the Earth, we evolved to breathe sustenance from the atmosphere, drink water that cycles in the climate system, and we die, and decompose to become a part of the carbon cycle, gravity is vital in our fetal development, and circulatory system. Deep in my bones (figuratively, literally) I believe we should not mess with anything outside our atmosphere. There’s a reason why space travel is so hard on the body, it’s not meant for us. There’s a kind of body horror when the concept of a baby being conceived and born in space is actually objectively looked into. Astronauts who experience technological failure outside of orbit and loose contact with home will never be found again. We may think our technologies will become foolproof, but there’ll always be human error.
The Fall of Icarus. Antique fresco from Pompeii, 40–79 AD