I'm just the character I've made

This essay is included in the February issue of my epistolary zine, EPISTOLARIA. Project subscribers receive the zine, which includes this essay and postcard via post. Paid Substack subscribers get access to the digitized version below. Please consider upgrading your Substack subscription to read the essay below in full or join the zine mailing list to support my work! Thank you for helping to make this creative practice a possibility. — Lian

When I first learned about constellations, I was skeptical. Who decided that those nine stars would form the constellation of Leo? It didn’t look much like a lion to me; it may very well have been a rat or an umbrella blown upside down by a strong wind. Could I not decide to draw lines through those stars differently and imagine another creature altogether?

I learn later on that yes, constellations are indeed arbitrary patterns. Stars didn’t plan to organize themselves to draw pictures, nor are they aware of belonging to human-made constellations. Invented by the ancients, the patterns projected onto select clusters reflected images and figures important to these civilizations. Where the ancient Greeks saw Orion, the Navajo people saw Átse Ats’oosí (First Slender One). In the Philippines, Orion was called Balatik – a kind of hunting trap – by ethnic groups like the Bagobos and Maguindanaons, or Binawagan magsasawad in Palawan. Pragmatically, constellations aided in navigation and tracking the passage of time. Sharing the same visual vocabulary for the stars provided people a common map with which to understand the world.