mylifebeforemars.com
my life before mars
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  • January
    • Jan 02 "What I Learned Watching Battlestar Galactica"
    • Jan 03-04 & Mar 17 "Will There Be Blank On Mars?"
    • Jan 06 "Feeling Star Treky"
    • Jan 07 "Is Mars My Vampire Bill?"
    • Jan 09 "Information vs. Knowledge"
    • Jan 10-13 "What I Learned Watching Star Trek"
    • Jan 16 "No Matter Where You Go--That's Right--There You Are"
    • Jan 21 "A Theory of Believability"
    • Jan 27-28 "Gateway to the Secrets of Manifold Wheat Production"
    • Jan 30--Feb 05 "How NOT To Lie or Paris-the-First-Time, Part I"
  • February
    • Feb 05 "Bloody Rock Yielding Territorial Baboon"
    • Feb 14-20 "How NOT to Lie or Between Two Parises" Parts I & II
    • Feb 21, 22 and 28th "How NOT to Lie or Between Two Parises" Part III
    • Feb 27 "Who the Fuck Keeps Money in an Umbrella?"
  • March
    • Mar 01 "Exile"
    • Mar 02 "Snowy is Right: Some People Never Learn!"
    • Mar 03 "Goddamned Sanctity of Life!"
    • Mar 04-Mar 21 "Parsley, Sage, Kierkegaard and Time"
    • Mar 07 "Use a God You Trust"
    • Mar 08 and 09 "The Vinegar Tasters"
    • Mar 10 "Long Live Portlandia"
    • Mar 13 "Classic Films Reinterpreted"
    • Mar 14 "Classic Comics Rewritten"
    • Mar 29-31 "San Francisco"
  • April
    • April 02-03 "The Goddamned Sanctity of Life Part II: The Bee"
    • April 16 "Classic Films Reinterpreted"
    • April 20 "The Eclipse, The Red Planet and One True Love"
    • April 30 "The 706 (705)"
  • May
    • May 23
  • My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza-pies
  • Star Maps
  • Things I Hope To Never See On Mars
  • "Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands"
  • Mars One Timeline
  • The Importance of the Apostrophe
  • Ethics, Morals, Principles and Ideals

some Ancient sky and star maps

I am not interested in even attempting to turn this site into anything other that something organic, something that emanates from me. I thought that it would be nice to give some basic information about these star and sky maps, but, as a casual pursuit, it turned out to be more tricky than I thought. I am not researching a thesis here. I defaulted to placing links to information on the world wide web---but I forgot that more than half (more than that?) of the info on the internet is....speculative?......insupportable?....nuts?.....and I don't really have time to sort through it. Then, I thought I could just link everything to a wikipedia entry, at least then people knew what they were getting into--but that turned out to be even more spotty and inconsistent than I hoped. So, I will simply post these pictures for the reason I love them MOST: 

1. That they even exist! One of my foundational "arguments" for going to Mars is the shear amount of time I have wanted to do so! I feel like I have been starring at the sky for millennia, yearning to go up and out and through. It feels like forever and finally--for the first time that I can recall--I have an opportunity to go. How could I pass it up? How can I even begin to imagine that staying on Earth another, what?--(calculating generously)50 years?--even registers in the timelessness of existence? I'll probably end up back here sooner or later anyway, right? So--let's go go go!!!!! The existence of these star maps just supports my thinking that if the time for staring and recording can be supplemented by actual travel to the stars---then let's do it. (And can I go, too, please?)


2. That they are beautiful. I am very aesthetically driven and I love beautiful things. For me, beauty (and what beauty is can be discussed later) is a necessary element of a healthy spiritual, emotional, mental and physical life. It impacts all things. In both Art school and Grad school we studied some of this stuff; the whys and whats and hows. But, when I was doing undergraduate work I was kind of a jerk-face. I was young, I thought I knew everything (ah, the good old days....) and, most importantly, thought you knew nothing. So, discussing aesthetics and beauty, etc. in an academic environment was helpful for me in terms of confirming what I thought I already knew or suspected. Information that challenged me on a world-view level (something I wasn't even aware of) I dismissed as "boring" or "wrong".  That isn't to say I wasn't in awe of new information and knowledge, or that I wasn't thriving in a house of new ideas--it's just with some distance and perspective, I can see that my "openness" at the time was pretty limited. When I got to Grad school I was 30 and had been humbled a bit by life. Therefore, my ability to assimilate new knowledge was different. I almost approached it with a desire to be wrong--or at the very least, a desire to be knocked down. And I was knocked down.


The whole point of sharing this was to once again, hopefully, strengthen my case for Martian citizenship. Thus: we are all necessary--as people, we all have something to offer every circle of our mundane existence--(family, clan, community, nation, world) and our not-so-material existence (mental, emotional, spiritual). There was a time when I could not see that what other people had was as valid as what I had (who wants lawyers and politicians and police in the world when we can all NOT be lawyers and politicians and police!?*) I feel like I am asking for permission to go somewhere that typically a person such as myself would prefer not to go. Maybe that's why I haven't run into anyone yet that wants to go to Mars---maybe my communities are more Earthbound? But I feel pretty strongly that once we get to Mars, we are going to want to have all our bases thoroughly covered. And I can cover one of them--I swear!


*For the record, those were just the first 3 professions that came to mind and, interestingly enough, all professions with which I have had extensive and ongoing relationships.

The Maps:

Picture
Assyrian/Sumerian  
stone

Picture
Persian (Iranian)
stone

Picture
Chinese
ink and paper
















more info

Picture
Egyptian
bronze

Picture
Aboriginal
a boulder on the ground


Picture
Incan
wood

Picture
Hebrew
ink and paper

Picture
Nebra (Nebran?) (German)
bronze














Picture
Mesopotamian (Iraqi) 
stone

Picture
Pawnee (Native American)
elk leather











Picture
Caves of Lascaux
(French)


How amazing is this?! Right?
Picture
Outline of constellations 

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