this occurred to me while i was reading Alwyn and Brinley Rees' Celtic Heritage. in their chapter on "Numbers," they discoursed on the numbers they believed were sacred to the Celts. three and nine, certainly (we knew that), but also five, occasionally seven, seventeen, thirty-three, and even a passing reference to fifty. this is based on the numbers of buildings on an estate, cantrefs, women in mythical households, times it took Finn to uproot a tree, ad nauseum.
and my mind flashes ahead a few millennia, to some uncertain future on a faraway planet. our long-lost descendants are sitting in a cafe, sipping some sort of glow-in-the-dark beverage and bitching about relationships whilst watching the third moon set and the second rise over the hovering streetscape.
in this world, anthropologists have written articles and dissertations about sacred numbers in North American culture. nine, reflected in the number of Supreme Court justices and the members of many city councils. seven, as the number of Harry Potter books and, ultimately, Rambo sequels. but the most sacred number of all seems to have been 50 -- plus or minus a few additions -- based on the ancient practice of dividing land into sacred states, each known for its unique character.
and in this world, the new age movement have read said anthropologists and devised an astrological system based on the fifty states, plus the two territories of Guam and Puerto Rico to fill out the year (which, oddly enough, is based on the Terran year, although it bears no relation to those alien skies. old habits die hard, i guess.)
it leads to conversations such as these, between an astrologer and her client:
Xenala52: Your name is Susan? How old-fashioned!
Susan: Yeah, my parents were big into old-earth history and culture. so, you've read my chart? should Gaf'Ael and I get hitched?
Xenala52 (pressing her fingers to her temples to get her internal visioning-screen operational): ah, there's some problems. (she whips out a tiny Blackberry-type device and shows Susan the screen.)
Xenala52: You see, your moon is in Alabama and his rising sign is Oregon. You'll have a lot of conflicts over family values and the like. also, see, his fifth house -- that's relationships -- is ruled by Alaska, the coldest and farthest away of the states, and his moon sign is in Guam. while Guam is warm, it also is far away. it's also a staging area, which means he's always looking for something other -- another place to land.
Susan (sighing): Yeah, i can sort of see that.
Well, can't be any worse than the faux Celtic tree horoscopes, no? (Confession: I'm always classified as hawthorn in those.)