Beauty of recall

What a wonder it is to watch the night skies!  And what stories those stars do tell.  Tonight I am reminded of Pleiades, made up of 7 stars and located not far from Orion's belt.  Sometimes it is seen as a haze, sometimes as very distinct stars.  One of the 7 stars is called Alcyone, and it is around this star that the Mayans claimed that the Earth's solar system revolves.  As far-fetched as that sounds, astronomers have actually hypothesized that the Earth's sun has a twin star that it revolves around.  These scientists haven't been able to identify the twin yet, but who knows, it could be Alcyone.

Be that as it may, the Mayans claimed that someone from Alcyone gave them their knowledge of the stars.  That also sounds far-fetched until a person ponders the kind of precise knowledge the Mayans had, reflected in the alignment of certain temples to the cycles of Venus and the configuration of their temples to the Pleiades.  This precision gives one pause.  Consider that their calendar is built around three cycles: Earth years, Venus' alignment with the Earth and its transit schedule with the sun, and a 26,000 year cycle of alignment among Venus, Earth, the sun, and the black hole in the center of the Galaxy.  I stand amazed that they could understand the workings of the heavens without telescopes, spacecraft, or advanced mathematics.

I truly marvel at their understanding.  The Mayans depended on the cycles for their daily lives - for water, for crops, for beliefs, for community, and for travel.  I can appreciate that dependency in two ways.  I love its consistency, and I love its beautiful symmetry.  I identify also because my own well being depends on an alignment of sorts.  I need the beauty of pleasant recall to make it through the shorter cycles of my life: the cycle to combat troublesome times, to contemplate enjoyable times, to track the roller coaster times, and to laugh amidst austere times.  I do as the Mayans and celebrate once and a while those alignments at the beginning and end of cycles.  Many of the great visuals I have available in recall come from one great time period of vitality, that  once-in-a-26,000-year alignment.  It's my Pleiades, my Alcyone, around which my contentment revolves.