Wednesday, June 06, 2007

The Sun and the Moon

For about four days earlier this week, I asked myself the following questions:

Why is my back so achey?
Why am I so hungry?
Why am I so tired?
Why do my boobs hurt? Maybe it’s cancer!

Then I woke up, got my period and thought “Ohhhhhh, well that explains it!”


The other night I watched a show about Chaco Canyon with my family. My husband and I had visited Pueblo Bonita at Chaco Canyon on our honeymoon road trip around the southwest, and it’s an incredible place, full of vibrant palpable spirituality and leaving us with more questions than answers. This enormous complex of buildings was clearly not used as living space, since it’s partly inhabitable (closed rooms & ceilings, no light or ventilation for fires) and there is little evidence of household garbage.



Since we were there over 12 years ago, apparently quite a bit of research has been done as to the purpose of the buildings, specifically with regard to its position in relation to the sun and the moon. Incredibly, the Chacoans, who seem to have been the ancestors of the Pueblo group of Native Americans, with no written language, seem to have built this structure with its main walls 100% perfectly aligned with the phases of the sun and the moon. They have walls and markings denoting both the Solstices and the Equinoxes, and have even marked the phases of the moon. The moon thing is even more incredible, since even though it completes its full to full cycle every 28 days, it is not completely in synch with the phases of the sun and it rises in a different part of the sky, with an EIGHTEEN YEAR cycle back to its original spot.

Further, not only is the great building at Chaco Canyon lined up just so, many other buildings in a 200-mile radius (not visible from one to the other except by air) are equally aligned.

A book I’m reading, “Stonehenge” by Bernard Cornwell is a bit of historical fiction, along the lines of “Clan of the Cave Bear” but in the book, Cornwell, through the epic story of three brothers, all sons of a great clan chief, details the building of temples to the sun god with precise engineering relating to the phases of the sun and the moon. It’s a very interesting theory and likely more true than we realize.

So here’s my question: If these “primitive” people, with no written language, can track the sun and the moon over such a long period of time, and accurately erect massive stone monuments which act in effect as giant sun dials…why is it that every single month, I wonder why my back aches and why I’m so tired? How can I get my period every single month (with the exception of a couple of pregnancies) for TWENTY FOUR YEARS, and still manage to surprise myself with it once a month?

I might have been a good sacrifice in the Chaco Canyon or Stonehenge days, but not good for much else.

Today’s fragrance: Molinard Habanita. A woman in line behind me at Quick Check, where I stopped to buy my coffee this morning, turned to me and said “Smells like something is burning, doesn’t it?” I think she meant me. But to hell with it, I smell damn good. Let me be burning baby powder. Perhaps the Sun God will accept this as my burnt offering.

6 Comments:

Blogger WinterWheat said...

Hooray, a new post!

That's really cool. I love to ponder mysteries like that. No airplanes or satellites, no language... how'd they DO that?

I wonder if they had a system of mathematics, even if they had no written language. It would seem hard to built something like that without math, wouldn't it?

As for your menstrual cycle, sounds like you're ready for menopause. ;-)

xoxo
k

2:23 PM, June 06, 2007  
Blogger Trina said...

LOL! My period always sneaks up on me too. I'm in awe of those women who always know exactly what day theirs is going to start. I'm better now at recognizing PMS in the moment (as opposed to all the years of looking back a week later and saying, "So *that's* why I was crying all week!"), but my uterus is as contentious as I am - I get ambushed almost every month :~P

4:47 PM, June 07, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

More power to you! Habanita is a great, comforting scent, isn't it? It's a smokey, powdering scent.

A woman with whom I share an office asked me one day the name of what I was wearing and wrote it down. I actually took that to mean I was wearing too much. I went to the ladies room and washed some off, but I adore that one!

Who knows if she was sincere? Habanita is such an original that it's a privilege to wear it!

Jeannemarie

1:01 AM, June 24, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I meant to write "powdery." It's late at night, and I have my eyeglasses off!

1:02 AM, June 24, 2007  
Blogger PFG said...

Y'all been tagged!

12:09 AM, July 11, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

OMG, you have, like, a blog!

2:41 PM, October 16, 2007  

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