(Dis)Orientation: 1. Boundaries
Part one of an astronomer's notes on finding our way. In this section we explore the invisible lines we use to contain and divide the sky - and our lives.
Author’s note: this is a major revision of the opening section of a six part series on getting oriented in the sky, and in life. Here are the links to the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth essays in the series. The original version of the series was titled “Lost in Space,” and the original section called “Fitting In.” You can find this older version here. This section has been a struggle to bring together, but I at last am starting to make some peace with it. I hope you can too!
In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round … do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature. … Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. – Henry David Thoreau
Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are. That must be it, I thought – to lose your direction is to lose your face. – Ralph Ellison
1. Introduction: Boundaries
If you want to learn about galaxies and the cosmos and stuff, you’d better take a seat and get oriented. Else the universe is a big place: you might get lost. People want to jump to the hot stuff – black holes, dark matter, and the like, but how can you find them if you don’t know how to steer or even where to look? You don’t want it to be like that time in high school before GPS when I thought I knew where I was going, but a left turn and then a right – and then was it two lefts? – and suddenly I’m on a road that just keeps shrinking: two lanes, then one lane, then just gravel, and a two track – this can’t be right – and then definitely a dead end in the literal middle of a corn field. This is not Bay City.
Take it from me: though I’ve spent over a decade as a professional astronomer, I’ve sped past the basics only to find that at the top of my game I was far more lost than a cornfield outside Bay City. So while my college students complain about it, we have to spend some time wondering about how we know where we are and where we’re pointing.
Let’s start somewhere I bet you’re comfortable. Here on earth we have a bunch of ways of getting our bearings. For one, we cut up space into shapes and regions like kindergartners armed with scissors: we cut North America into 23 countries, the United States into 50 states. My current home state Illinois has 102 counties - a patchwork quilt of Boones and Calhouns and even DeKalb and DuPage - and DuPage itself has 9 townships and 39 municipalities. If you’re from Illinois these names probably even mean something. The point is that cutting up earth’s surface into defined regions is a pretty convenient way to get a sense of where we are. And also, I think, a sense of belonging. Though I now live in Chicago, in Cook County, in the state of Illinois, in the United States of America, I grew up in Ada Township in Kent County, Michigan, USA. I was reminded the strength of my connection to Ada just the other week while visiting Seattle (you know, in King County, Washington State, USA) for my brother-in-law’s wedding. Talking with a guy at a bar there, I come to find out, he also grew up in Ada Township, up by that gas station with the dressed-up moose statue just down the street! It’s crazy the connection we felt, two otherwise strangers knit together by our memories of that same patch of planet earth.
Now, astronomers do this cutting exercise too, using something else you’ve heard of: constellations. You probably know that a constellation is a pattern of stars in the sky, usually forming some only mildly recognizable shape: a large bear, a swan, a dragon. Perhaps you’ve even used an app on your phone to find some. But to professional astronomers, constellations are like the states of the sky. We split the entire sky into 88 regions, each region named after the mythological character it contains. Each name, then, gives a sense of place, so an astronomer saying the nebula M42 is in Orion is like saying that Chicago is in Illinois: when we look up we find M42 appears in the same region of sky as the stars of Orion.
It’s probably worth noting that choosing 88 regions was somewhat contentious in 1928, not wholly different from the process of, for example, defining state lines (did you know Michigan and Ohio had a war over Toledo? Look it up!). Like what do you do about the star Alpheratz, part of the belly of Pegasus, the horse, but also the head of the princess Andromeda? We can’t have overlap in our regions. So which constellation gets it, and which one gets cut out? Well, Delta Pegasi is no more, and Alpha Andromeda is an official star. So the princess won. But did Alpheratz like the choice? Did it feel itself divided, never more to be whole, like the communities sliced apart by the new I-290? We never asked.
Thinking about Alpheratz reminds me of my friend Ray. Ray was an amazingly talented artist: a stunning oil of his, with deep greens and blues and a cascading falls, is the most commented on and admired painting in our home. Ray was one of those people whose joy would light you up on a dreary day: at our church he was always the first one to run over and greet anyone new, the first one to invite anyone and everyone over for dinner not just once, but again, and again, and again. His heart for all God’s creatures – rabbits, birds, the frazzled mom at PNC checkout, the homeless man on the corner – knew no bounds.
An amazing quality, given that he lived most of his life bound in a body he longed to escape. Most of his life avoiding photographs, avoiding mirrors, accumulating scars on his wrists. After he transitioned, cutting his curly hair and the name Rachel, his boundless light just seemed all the brighter: his heart just seemed to expand: big enough for those questioning his role in our PCA church, big enough for those in his LGBTQ+ community, for each person who couldn’t fit in societal lines. So big, that, after just 25 years – too soon – it burst during his routine morning exercise, robbing us, to quote his obituary, of “a bright and beautiful light.” His memorial service was filled with people of all ages and types, from old stodgy presbyterian conservatives to young expressive queer liberals: and yet in story after story shown the same Ray. For all the ways we tried to divide him – are you a boy or a girl? Are you trans or Christian? – Ray had the imagination and strength to erase those lines. Sometimes I wonder why we draw them at all.
I mean, I understand their utility. That’s what I’m trying to write about after all – how drawing boundaries and cutting stuff up is useful. Let’s count some ways:
It’s useful, like we’ve discussed already, for getting that sense of place. For knowing where you stand. You stand, perhaps, in Ohio, not Michigan. You stand, perhaps, with Ukraine, not Russia. Or perhaps with planned parenthood, not right to life. You’re with Her, or with Him. You back the blue. Or not. Perhaps you and I stand together, or perhaps diametrically opposed.
It’s an effective way to split things that are too close for comfort. Like kids at high school dances - gotta leave some space for Jesus. Like Alpheratz and Pegasus, Oak Park and Chicago, Texas and Mexico. They say good fences make good neighbors.
It’s an effective way to connect what might otherwise be separate. The constellation Andromeda associates Alpheratz with the star Almach, though they are 30 degrees apart. And things as different as the Detroit Lions and Sleeping Bear Dunes are tied together by their connection to Michigan: Michiganders (yes, that’s a real word - don’t laugh) are proud of both (well, as proud as you can be of a team that’s won one playoff game since my dad was born in 1961).
It’s an effective way to simplify. I might hope to remember the relative positions of 88 constellations, but even the 3000 brightest stars would be a hopeless endeavor. I might hope to remember the relative stances of two or four political parties, but 300 million stances would be a hopeless endeavor.
Well, some might call this 4b. But let’s remember that maps are nothing but a small simplification of reality. The little lines we draw on them tell us where to go. Thanks to those lines, we know where we are. Without them, we end up surrounded by corn.
Perhaps this list could use a map: it’s getting kinda far from home, don’t you think? I hope your legs aren’t starting to cramp in the back seat. Are we there yet?
A quick left turn: something from my philosophy of science books. Nestled in among big words like “intelligibility” and “taxonomic schemes,” are some small islands of clarity, if you can find them. “Classification,” they say, is “a form of knowledge.” If only I knew what that means.
Well, here’s one meaning. A lot of people might take issue with calling constellations some sort of classification: the stars and galaxies in a constellation usually are at very different distances, and thus aren’t physically associated. But that doesn’t render the 88 regions void of information: they still tell astronomers quite a lot. You’re a star in Sagittarius? That means you’re in the disk of the Milky Way Galaxy, between the sun and its center. You are likely a comparatively young star, with more heavy elements than average. And you might be brighter than you look – there’s a lot of dust blocking our view in that direction. Or you’re a galaxy from Virgo? Well, if you’re anywhere in the neighborhood of the Milky Way that means that you are probably moving at a ridiculous relative speed as a result of the strong gravity of the Virgo Cluster. And we probably can’t measure your distance well unless you’re actually in the cluster.
Come to think of it, when you say you’re from Alaska or New Hampshire or Texas I might actually know something about you too. Or at least think I do. When I told you I was from Michigan did you automatically guess some things about me (e.g., I like cold, venison, and say “pop,” never soda)?
Are we there yet?
Sure, ok, I think we get it. It can help and not help to draw borders, create groups, imagine fences, slice sky. Cool.
But all this talk of usefulness, I think, doesn’t quite capture the whole of it. While boundaries define constellations, we shouldn’t forget about the patterns inside them: the connect the dots game we play to form a dipper, a princess, a dragon. Because these patterns are what hold our stories. They are what I see when I look at the sky. Like, when I look up, I might see three pairs of dots that represent breasts, waist, and feet, and then a head, and two arms strapped to rocks. And I’d remember a story that has crossed millennia: a princess about to be sacrificed for the good of the kingdom. The story might seem a little distant at times: an Ethiopian Queen boasting of her beauty offends the water nymphs, who complain to the god of the sea, who sends a great monster to plague the kingdom. An oracle shows the king the only way to placate the monster: sacrifice his royal daughter, Andromeda. And so she ends up strapped to the rocks, awaiting her fate. (Don’t worry, a great hero will come and rescue her, as long as her parents promise she’ll marry him. At least she wasn’t lost to the sea.)
Like I said, the story might feel distant, until I start imagining what that king felt - was it a tough choice? Or worth it for his career? And the people I’ve given up for my career hit close. Or I imagine what Andromeda felt: chained, trapped by forces beyond my control, born into deals in which she had no say. Willa Cather said: “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.” I think I might concur.
That these stories end up projected in the patterns we see on the sky perhaps shouldn’t be any surprise either. John Barentine writes that constellations “are a distinctly human invention, dictated by culture, an imagination, rather than being the result of any physical process. How and why we ended up with a sky full of mythical heroes and fantastical beasts says much more about the human condition than it tells us anything useful about how the heavens are constructed.” (Indeed, that most official constellations come from stories familiar to the western world must at least in part reflect the primarily American and European makeup of the International Astronomical Union in 1928).
But even this, I think, isn’t the whole story. Because seeing patterns linked to story is the way that I, as a human, function in this large world. I think about the constellation of social connections and connotations I carry with me each hour, each conversation, each embarrassed glance. I think about how I orient myself by partitioning those connections, forming groups that I use to define people, and that I use to define me. Violinist, professor, Christian, white, male, toilet paper roll over, - heck, I even lump myself with fellow Lukes.
And I start to recognize the power of constellations in our lives. How easy it is to see only the patterns I’ve created, and to miss the bright, complicated reality underneath. I’ve known the official constellation patterns since middle school: for me, it’s hard to look at the sky and see the stars arranged any other way. Of course those stars are part of Andromeda, and those ones part of Perseus. And though I’ve known the official role of redlining and gerrymandering for less time, it’s no less hard for me to look at the world in any other way. Of course Lincoln Square neighborhood in Chicago is affluent, and Englewood neighborhood poor. Of course the 16th congressional district votes Republican, and the 4th votes Democrat. Of course, I notice, on reflection, so much of my understanding is derived through partition: conservative, liberal, black, white, Christian, atheist, us, them.
I think about when my parents got a new puppy and installed an invisible fence around part of their property to keep him from running off and getting lost, or shot, or hit by a car. It was impressive how quickly the dog, a smart, slightly sly Australian Shepherd named Jesse, learned the location of the fence. At the beginning, my parents walked him around it, setting up little white flags to make the perimeter clear. A few stern words, some ominous beeping from his collar, and a zap or two trying to cross it, and he stays inside. The strength of that perimeter in his mind lasted long after the invisible fence broke, and he stopped wearing the collar. In fact, it was difficult to get him to leave when you wanted him to. The trick, according to the trainer, was to make a “bridge” with, for example, a towel, remove his collar, and then say a command word to let him know it was ok to cross. “Free free, Jesse, free free!” But to no avail. We had a favorite cross country ski trail that crossed that line: each time my dad had to de-ski and pick Jesse up and carry him far across that “free free” towel.
Sometimes I wish he could carry me: “free free, Luke, free free!” Sometimes it would be nice to escape the white flags of my thinking and run free through a world that never ceases to be so much more great and terrible than I’ve ever imagined. But then again, go too far, and I’d definitely get lost. Sometimes it’s nice to stay in the comfort of my boundaries, and keep that world just how I imagined.
Of course, imagined, I think, is the key word. Jesse reminds me that whatever lines we put on the sky, whatever borders we draw, they ultimately come from our imagination. As the philosophers say, “the map is not the territory”; “the menu is not the meal.” Boundaries are only as real as we make them, which means, that, on occasion, they just might be redrawn.
Turns out, it’s a big universe out there, so we all are just trying to give it order by slicing it up and seeing how we fit. Constellations quell the chaos: their boundaries trap their patterns and their stories – our patterns, and our stories.