Podcaster:  Nancy Alima Ali

Title: Cultural Astronomy – Life, Death and Our Connection to the Stars

Organization: Multiverse, Space Sciences Lab, University of California at Berkeley

Links: http://multiverse.ssl.berkeley.edu/, http://www.astroalima.com

Description: Cultures throughout history and around the world have expressed an understanding of the connection between human life and the stars through religious and spiritual beliefs, art, architecture, story, ritual and specialized practices. This podcast explores examples from archaeoastronomy and ethnoastronomy that draw parallels between scientific and cultural understandings of our connection to the Universe.

Bio: Nancy Alima Ali, M.Ed., is a Coordinator of Public Programs at Multiverse at the Space Sciences Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. For over 15 years, Ms. Ali has been active in both formal and informal education as a classroom teacher, college instructor, museum educator, curriculum developer and program manager. Ms. Ali has a particular interest in exploring the ways in which multiple worldviews contribute to our understanding of the cosmos. She blogs about the intersection of astronomy and culture at www.astroalima.com.

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Transcript:

Hello everyone, this is Nancy Alima Ali from the Multiverse education group at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Lab in California. Today I’ll be talking about cultural connections to astronomy. This is sometimes called archaeoastronomy or ethnoastronomy, but I like to use the phrase cultural astronomy because it makes it a little more inclusive. It makes it less about people long ago and in faraway places and more about how all people, including ourselves, make connections to and understand the universe from a human perspective.

To start off, I’d like to share one of my favorite quotes about our connection to the stars. Brian Swimme a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies said, “You take hydrogen gas and you leave it alone and it turns into rosebushes, giraffes and humans.”

Science tells us that all known matter in the Universe is composed of elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen which are created during the process of stellar evolution. We can see this happening in clouds of gas and dust in the star forming regions such as the Great Orion Nebula. Some stars that are born in such regions will eventually go supernova and release elements into the Universe. This celestial nursery is a starting point for all life.

On a dark night, you can see the Great Orion Nebula in the constellation Orion. Look for a cloudy area inside the triangle of stars in Orion’s belt and sword (Alnitak, Saiph, Rigel). Maya people see these three stars as the celestial stones of a triangular cooking hearth. The nebula is the smoke rising from the fire. Maya elders tell us the world was created when these stones were set down, separating heaven and Earth. I find it fascinating that the same part of the sky that scientists tell us is a stellar nursery is also thought of as a place of creation in the Maya worldview.

But of course, we have stellar connections that are much closer than the Great Orion Nebula. It’s easy to forget, but our Sun is also a star. Life on Earth could not exist without our Sun. The Sun provides light and heat that make our Earth habitable. Life as we know it requires liquid water. Without the Sun, our Earth would be an icy rock. The Sun powers photosynthesis in plants which is vital for the food chain. The Sun’s light also contains nutrients, such as Vitamin D, that our bodies need to survive. Our Sun gives us life.

The Sufi poet Hafiz described this life-giving relationship between the Sun and the Earth by saying, “Even after all this time the Sun never says to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.”

People around the world have looked to the stars for guidance in finding their way. Centuries ago, the Polynesian people sailed from Tahiti to Hawaii using celestial navigation. Today, Native Hawaiian people are reviving this ancient knowledge on canoes such as the Hōkūle’a. Navigators use stars such as Arcturus to determine latitude and a star compass to set direction. Star lines are tied to oral traditions such as Maui’s Fishhook, which connects Earth and sky. Within the context of living on islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, these connections to the stars are lifelines. Native Hawaiian navigator Chad Kalepa Baybayan describes this connection by saying, “As islanders, we are isolated, surrounded by a sea on all our horizons and only an ocean of stars overhead as companions.”

We came from the stars and to the stars we will return after death – this belief is held by many cultures throughout time. It can be seen reflected in the architecture of burial tombs, such as the Great Pyramid in Egypt, which contains an air shaft that was aligned with Thuban, which was the pole star at that time. This air shaft served no known practical purpose, but rather was likely a symbolic or ritual passage guiding the pharaoh’s soul back to its home in the sky.

I’m going to leave you today with the question, what is your connection to the stars? I encourage you to go out at night and look up at the stars while you reflect on how you are made of “starstuff”.

This podcast is adapted from a poster presentation that I gave at the 2014 Science and Nonduality conference. To see the full poster, please visit my blog at www.astroalima.com. The poster includes great images as well as more cultural connections including to the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the book The Little Prince.

Well, folks, that’s it for today. This is Nancy Alima Ali, here to remind you that we all share the same universe. Thanks for listening!

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