The Weird-O-Rama Express makes its last stop on JSVB this week - I hope. Hallowe'en has inspired me to post some of the weirder stuff that has been going on. Next post, I will get back to more artistic endeavours.
So: for a while I had a Jupiter scar. I woke up with a burning sensation on my ankle and when I bothered to look, I saw I had this strangely curved, razor thin scar. It only lasted a few hours, and this time I had the sense to snap a photo, such as it is.
The first thing I did was to look up the source of razor thin scars. Quite a number of people get them, although many seem to be from cold, dry climates. Probing the Internet brought forth a number of colourful theories.
At the top of this list were ghosts and demons. Ghosts scar people because if they work hard to break the ectoplasmic barrier, they can. I guess if I was a ghost, I'd give scarring the mortals a shot for a couple of thousand years. Demons also scar people because they can. I figure if I were a ghost or a demon, I would want to try for something more spectacular than a skin lesion that heals in a couple of hours, but as yesterday's JSVB post proves, spectacular isn't what it used to be. The world we live in does not work that way. Even the Second Coming will likely seem trite after "Pacific Rim" (2013).
Lower on the Fortean scale are actual medical conditions, likely a histamine response, which is a fancy way of saying allergy. The most likely source is scabies, which is a skin mite we can get from animals like the neighbour's dog. Interestingly, the scabies rash is an irritative allergic response that can occur up to a year after the initial mite attack.
Beyond that, histamine responses can occur from diet, climate, and psychological stresses. I can check off all of those boxes.
At the bottom of the theory bin are old friends, the extraterrestrials. Most people don't believe that we are being abducted by flying saucers just to get a couple of scars that go away before the end of the day, as that seems to be a tremendous waste of technology. The most attractive theory is that there are trans-dimensional beings that co-exist with us on Earth, and that actively sample us from across interspatial portals. We don't normally detect them because we do not sense paranormal dimensions as a rule.
I cannot prove or disprove any of this. The medical mumbo-jumbo is as equally impenetrable as the jargon of the UFO people. I trimmed my fingernails and the scars stopped appearing.
As to the form of the scar, lucky thing I have my copy of Carl S. Liungman's excellent "Dictionary Of Symbols" (1991), which is a guide to semiotics that no person of curiosity should be without. Along with a comprehensive Graphic Index that guides the reader through thousands of symbols, there are also very interesting articles on alchemy, the hobo sign code, and even a well-informed discussion of the power of symbology during World War II.
According to the Dictionary, my scar was shaped like the zodiac symbol for Jupiter (Sagittarius). How or why is a complete mystery. What I do know is that the Jupiter symbol is an amalgamation of the astrological signs for "soul" and "matter", making it a powerful icon. Also, I know that Sagittarius and Gemini (me), don't often go together.
The little graphic is courtesy of The Jupiter Center, whose website I thought might belong to some space planet cult. Instead, the Jupiter Center is an office for family therapy, something far more rational and earthbound than spectral scarring.
For another, briefer post on scars I have endured, please check out JSVB Post #381 by clicking here.
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