Written Fall 2023 for Paranormal Culture
I don’t believe in astrology. I do, however, acknowledge and appreciate the inconceivable knowledge inherent to the cosmos. And amazingly, though it enshrouds information far beyond our comprehension, humans have extracted some of its treasures by simply gazing at the night sky. According to available data, this study of the stars, the planets, and their habits emerged in Mesopotamia and, like any collection of human knowledge, was shared and stolen, lost and found, spread east and spread west, dismissed and embraced– each miniscule action affecting its significance and identity. Upon a foundation of precise math and physics and through enduring the wears of time, this doctrine unwound to deliver the respected academic discipline of astronomy alongside western astrology as we know it. This division, into the “science” and “pseudoscience”, has always made sense to me; what doesn’t make sense, though, is how it took only two days for my conception of this to be utterly upended.
I often hear the phrase “the stars aligned” to denote a series of unlikely events taking place concurrently, such that an even more unlikely consequence manifests. In that sense, you could say that the stars aligned for me last May: my original summer plans fell through, and I was offered a place alongside some coworkers in a phylogenomics workshop in Colombia, so I then initiated contact with two families in the country who were willing to host me in exchange for farm work, and I found an affordable plane ticket. This all happened within one week, and, after another, I was on the ground at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá.
My experience was incredible, until 5 weeks into my stay– and 2 weeks prior to anyone I knew entering the country– when my living situation turned unsafe. I was desperate to leave that residence, so I messaged as many hosts as I could on a work exchange site and leapt at the first available opportunity. The work was not something that I was particularly passionate about, but it came with a bed to sleep in and food to eat, so I bought some bus tickets and began my journey the next day.
When I arrived, I was exhausted from my travels but welcomed into my host family with open arms. After not interacting with anyone my age for over a month, I immediately became friends with one of my hosts, Mateo, who was one year older than me… exactly one year older than me. We discovered this on the first night of my stay. Mateo and I were up late talking, and the conversation shifted to my religious studies major and the nature of coincidences. After a long pause, with a soft voice and obvious reluctance, Mateo then told me about strange dreams he’d been having– and how they’d been coming true. After another pause, he disclosed his most recent dream to me, in which he’d met a girl who shared a birthday with him. As we shortly realized, the truth of that dream had been realized 8 hours earlier when Mateo picked me up from the bus stop. He was amazed that we shared a birthday; of people whose birthdays he knew, the closest to sharing his exact birthdate was his best friend, whose birthday preceded ours by one day. After he said that, I stared at him for a moment, then disclosed that my best friend was born one day after me. It was an odd coincidence, but we laughed it off. By the most rough estimate, the chances of any person you meet having been born on the same day as you is just about 1/365 or 0.27%. It was unlikely, sure, but not unfathomable. Still, I couldn’t explain Mateo’s precognitive dream and certainly couldn’t calculate the odds of it predicting our meeting…
It was with a heavy heart that I left Mateo and the rest of his family two weeks later. I had worked out the logistics of my journey back to Bogotá the night before. The family had welcomed a new guest that day, and upon her hostel recommendation, I made a last-minute change to my sleeping arrangement for the two nights prior to the workshop. The hostel was nice, and my first night passed without incident. In the morning, I walked out to the kitchen to fill up my water in preparation for the day I had just spent an hour planning. I kept to myself, as I rarely spoke to others in hostels. But then, standing at the sink, I heard two girls behind me discussing their plans for the day, which completely opposed mine and didn’t particularly interest me. But, for some reason, and before I even knew what I was doing, I turned and ask if I could join them.
The three of us spent an amazing day together. But despite the incredible food, arts, and sights we saw, what was most incredible was my connection with one of the girls, Sara. After knowing her for less than five minutes, I felt as if I had known her forever. We were absolutely on the same wavelength, saying the same things, finishing each other's sentences, and, to both of our surprise, sharing our most intimate thoughts and feelings. That afternoon, Sara asked for my zodiac sign, convinced that our compatibility was written in the stars. I’ve always adopted an indifference toward astrology; still, I pulled up the app that my friends had made me download and told her my star sign. Then, she asked for my moon sign was… and then my rising. Bewilderment painted her face, and she pulled up her own astrology app. She turned her phone toward me, and I saw the three signs I had just read out from my screen looking back at me. We had the same Big 3.
Sara was amazed, and remained amazed for the remainder of our time together. I was… confused. I still didn’t believe in astrology, but I couldn’t deny that the concurrent presence of two anomalous phenomena, my instant and profound connection with Sara and our matching signs, was odd. So, I, again, turned to numbers for some clarity. After all, astrology is based in the empirical discipline of mathematics. So, using the same rough estimates as with Mateo, I considered the 1/12 chance of sharing any of your Big 3 signs with another person; and because I was considering the presence of 3 distinct, simultaneous occurrences with a 1/12 chance, I determined that the ultimate probability of this occurrence was 1 out of 12^3. That is, the chances of any person you interact with having the same sun, moon, and rising suns is roughly 1/1278, or 0.058%. And, I do have to admit, those are pretty slight chances.
But, despite experiencing an enclave of astrologically significant events– not to mention, against the odds, stumbling upon the most profound connection I have ever felt with a stranger– I still don’t believe in astrology. I don’t think that the stars drew me to these people, or that anything more than pure chance resulted in my newfound friendships and experiences. But, while I still don’t believe in astrology, I don’t not believe in it. I can’t explain why or how I ended up with Mateo’s family, fulfilling the prediction of his dream. The profundity of my connection with Sara is not something that I can explain either; and when coupled with our shared astrological charts, I can offer very little in the defense of probability. Though, ultimately, whether emerging from coincidence or the stars, I am grateful for these, admittedly confusing, experiences. I made lifelong friends, learning about them, about myself, about probabilities, and about the stars. I don’t feel the need to discover from where they arose, I’m just glad that they did.
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