Do You Hear What I Hear?

A BLACK HOLE IN SPACE
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"Despite the hour, the Kremlin shimmered with electric light from every window, as if its newest denizens were still too drunk with power to sleep. But if the lights of the Kremlin shimmered brightly, like all earthly lights before them they were diminished in their beauty by the majesty of the constellations overhead.

"Craning his neck, the count tried to identify the few that he had learned in his youth: Perseus, Orion, the Great Bear, each flawless and eternal. To what end, he wondered, had the Divine created the stars in heaven to fill a person with feelings of inspiration one day and insignificance the next?” (p.125, emphasis added)

From A Gentleman in Moscow
By American novelist Amor Towles (b 1964)

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The Collision of Two Black Holes ~ Watch!
Four years ago, in February 2016, came the news that physicists had detected "ripples in the fabric of space and time called gravitational waves," the result of two massive black holes colliding, over a billion years ago.

Einstein’s right again: Scientists detect ripples in gravity
by Seth Borenstein ~ February 11, 2016

from the article: "It was just a tiny, almost imperceptible 'chirp,' but it simultaneously opened humanity’s ears to the music of the cosmos and proved Einstein right again.

In what is being hailed as one of the biggest eureka moments in the history of physics, scientists . . . have finally detected gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space and time that Einstein predicted a century ago.

. . . Because the evidence of gravitational waves is captured in audio form, the finding means astronomers will now be able to hear the soundtrack of the universe and listen as violent collisions reshape the cosmos.

It will be like going from silent movies to talkies, they said."

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“It is by far the most powerful explosion humans
have ever detected except for the big bang."

~ Kip Thorne, gravitational theorist ~

Thorne said that when he heard about the wave
“it was just sort of a sigh of happiness.”
[emphasis added]

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Three years after the "chirp" of the gravitational wave, came another historic moment. In April 2019, scientists around the world were rewarded, after two years of collaborative research, with direct pictures of two black holes.

Here is the first photo of a black hole.
by Nsikan Akpan ~ April 10, 2019

from the article: "Black holes are the architects of stars. Black holes 'are sinkholes in spacetime,' said Sera Markoff, a member of the Event Horizon Telescope science council. 'They’re helping mold the shape of galaxies and clusters of galaxies.'

". . . Black holes have captivated scientists for two centuries. Despite decades of indirect evidence supporting their existence, black holes have never been captured by camera — until now. Aside from helping to resolve Einstein’s theories, this first image of black hole may reveal how the universe started and how it might end."

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Another way of perceiving gravitational waves:

Photo by Joe McNally
In this time-exposure shot of one of
LIGO’s interferometer arms in Livingston, Louisiana,
the red lights symbolize gravitational waves,
producing "a tiny, almost imperceptible 'chirp'"

The combination of red and blue light in the gravitation wave brings to mind my favorite feature at the Indianapolis Airport: the ceiling light installation on the covered pedestrian walkway that joins the parking garage to the main terminal:

Title: Connections [Click to watch!]
Artists: Cameron McNall and Damon Seeley
From: Electroland ~ Los Angeles, California
Installation: 2008 ~ Category: Permanent
Materials: Interactive lights with sound; 140 feet by 28 feet
Location: Pedestrian Bridge ~ Indianapolis Airport

As described on the IND website, in the light installation entitled Connections, "Cameron McNall and Damon Seeley have composed orchestrated patterns of color punctuated with blips, dings and other digital sounds actively 'responding' to human movement . . .

"The artistic duo leading the L.A. based firm Electroland, was enticed by the human dynamics and traffic moving throughout the walking bridge at all times. McNall and Seeley set out to create what they call animated art – a combination of light, sound and proprietary movement-tracking technology. When someone enters the pedestrian bridge at Indianapolis International Airport (IND), a path of lights overhead follows that person's steps; once another person enters from the opposite end, the lights form a pattern spanning the distance between the two, serving as a visual cue of their 'connection' by virtue of inhabiting the same space at the same time." [emphasis added]

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In conjunction -- coincidence and connection! -- with the gravitational audio and the black hole visuals, I came across a couple of other posts concerning our aural perception of the universe and the music of the spheres. Coincidentally, despite their celestial nature, these narratives seem connected to our daily worries and methods for managing anxiety and sensory overload.

Life Beyond the Mind
by Eckhart Tolle ~ April 8, 2019

"How can we define ourselves
beyond our continuous mental noise?"

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Kundalini Yoga: The God Syllable "AUM"
by Joseph Campbell ~ April 12, 2019
also available on amazon

"What is the sound that is not made
by any two things striking together?
It is AUM.
It is the sound of the energy of the universe
of which all things are manifestations."

The three letters of AUM represent the three vibrations inherent in creation:
the energy to create, the energy to preserve, the energy to dissolve.

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Echoing the words of Count Rostov above -- "inspiration one day and insignificance the next" -- one dear reader has observed that this chain of connections, from gravitational waves to black holes, from Eckhart Tolle to Joseph Campbell, is a great reminder of "both how small we are (as personalities) and also how big we are as an expression of this infinite symphony of existence."

Music of the Spheres
Pachelbel Canon in D Major ~ Fantastic Version
The Voyager Golden Records

May the Fourth Be With You! ~ 2013

Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, February 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ "Chirps, Blips, Dings"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

At the Heart of the Well

THE SACRED WELL AT CHICHEN ITZA
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Ancient Mayan Sacrifice
by archaeological painter, Herbert M. Herget (1885 - 1950)
for National Geographic Magazine (1936)
Artist's impression of Cenote [say-NO-tay] Sacrifice
~ not necessarily historically accurate ~

~ At The Mouth of the Well of Magic Water ~

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Picking up where we left off last time with
Margaret Atwood's story "The Resplendent Quetzel":
The story's focal point is an ancient sacrificial well, a pre - Columbian ruin whose imposing presence governs the private thoughts of both Edward and Sarah. Edward, for example, imagines "picking Sarah up and hurling her over the edge, down into the sacrificial well. Anything to shatter that imperturbable expression, bland and pale and plump and smug, like a Flemish Madonna's. . . . But it wouldn't work: as she fell she would glance at him, not with fear but with maternal irritation" (148).

Sitting in the shade near the well, Sarah hears a tour guide explain that "archaeologists have dived down into the well. They have dredged up more than fifty skeletons, and they have found that some of them were not virgins at all but men. Also, most of them were children. So as you can see, that is the end of the popular legend" (156). Before arriving at the village, Sarah had imagined that the well would be "smaller, more like a wishing well" (144), three coins in the fountain and all that. But, no, it is more impressive than she expected, much deeper, historically significant, part swamp yet part sacred orifice, repulsive yet mysterious. The mood of the vacation -- the myth - shattering well, the Mexican village, the shabby restaurant, the motley Nativity display, the misplaced baby doll -- has inspired Sarah to proceed with a purification ritual of her own.

Much to the reader's surprise, she withdraws from her purse the plaster Christ Child that, the narrator now reveals, she had stolen from the creche the night before. Even Sarah is surprised at herself: "It was inconceivable to her that she had done such a thing, but there it was, she really had. She hadn't planned it beforehand. . . . She'd just suddenly reached out her hand, past the Wise Men and through the door of the stable, picked the child up and put it into her purse" (156). Sarah's act of petty theft is motivated by an instinctive urge to categorize the doll as a miniature, inanimate replication of humanity. She lifts the doll from the manger in an impulsive moment of vision, and it becomes a participant in the drama of human existence.

Remembering how enormous the doll had looked in the sacred yet vulgar setting of the Nativity, she now perceives it differently: "Separated from the dwarfish Virgin and Joseph, it didn't look quite so absurd". She "placed the baby on the rock beside her . . . stood up . . . picked up the child and walked slowly towards the well, until she was standing at the very brink." The narrative shifts abruptly to Edward's perspective. He sees Sarah standing "at the well's edge, her arms raised above her head." He fears that she is preparing to jump in, "but she merely drew back her right arm and threw something into the well" (158).

The reader knows, as Edward does not, that the hurtled object is the Baby Jesus, sent to release them all -- father, mother, and stillborn child -- from the limbo in which they hang. As the tour guide explained previously, the early Mayans did not perform this ritual out of cruelty, nor does Sarah. She has sent the inanimate surrogate of her own child as a messenger to the liquid gods who live in the watery paradise at the bottom of the ancient well. Perhaps Edward and Sarah's quest for the Resplendent Quetzal -- the Holy Grail, the jewel, the precious feather -- has not been in vain.

Will all be well for Sarah? Not clear. She has looked into the abyss of abjection, the frighteningly deep sacrificial well, the land of oblivion. The story does not end optimistically, but somehow the unlikely grouping in the Mexican bar -- the headless Wise Man, the St. Nicholas night - light, and the whimsical Fred Flintstone -- have enabled her to confront the haunting memories of disappointment and loss. Mary and Joseph may be well out of their depth with their elephant - sized baby, yet the sight of this disproportionate Holy Family has shifted Sarah's sense of perspective.
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"On the bar beside the television set there was a creche, with three painted plaster Wise Men, one on an elephant, the others on camels. The first Wise Man was missing his head. Inside the stable a stunted Joseph and Mary adored an enormous Christ Child which was more than half as big as the elephant. Sarah wondered how the Mary could possibly have squeezed out this colossus; it made her uncomfortable to think about it. Beside the creche was a Santa Claus haloed with flashing lights, and beside that a radio in the shape of Fred Flintstone, which was paying American popular songs, all of them ancient." (152)

from "The Resplendent Quetzel"
in Dancing Girls and Other Stories
by Margaret Atwood (b 1939)
Canadian activist, novelist, poet

Previous Fortnightly Post
At the Heart of the Creche

Frosty and Abominable Bring Gifts for Colbert

[Click to see many more funny nativities]
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, January 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ All ~Hallowed~ Nativities
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com