Bediding, Kopi Pit, and 1 Suro
Tauhid Nur Azhar
This morning, after returning from a short trip to Jogja, a journey that was hastened due to my child suddenly falling ill on the train to Surabaya, and receiving help from friends at Tasikmalaya Station, I was finally able to relax at my mountain home, feeling relieved that the situation was under control. Alhamdulillah.
I would like to express my highest appreciation to the friends at Tasikmalaya Station, including the Deputy Station Master, who were willing to be bothered in the middle of the night to help and provide assistance to my beloved child. This was all thanks to the great service of Mr. Yudha, the junior manager of security at BO 6 Yogyakarta, who immediately contacted his relations in Tasikmalaya when I called him.
I would also like to thank my friends from the Duta Transformasi Insani training institution who lent me a car and a driver to quickly pick up my child and bring her to the hospital for further treatment.
This morning, I was reflecting and processing data from various events that have occurred in the past few days, including the fact that we are now entering the new year in the Qomarian calendar, also known as the Hijriah year.
For the Javanese community, the new year of Hijriah has many cultural meanings, as it is considered sacred and has deep esoteric values that are spiritual in nature. It is part of the construction of values in understanding various phenomena in life.
As I replied to a WhatsApp message from an old friend, a keroncong musician named Eyang Galih Sutresna, who thanked me for sending him a package of Pit Onthel coffee, complete with gendhis kambil from Kulon Progo and rokok klobot from Kutoarjo, which I brought from Jogja, my mind was filled with data and facts about Nusantara’s wisdom, which has long been known as a nation that is waskita (aware).
Natural phenomena and human experiences, as well as the harmony between elements within them, are necessities that can even be studied through basic sciences like physics and biology. Not just gothak-gathuk (coincidental) knowledge, you know.
Moreover, last night until this morning, I slept soundly, thanks to my wife who sometimes didn’t realize that her body’s natural warmth was making it difficult for me to concentrate, citing the cold air as the reason. Bediding or Mediding, as the Javanese call it.
I was reminded of the reading of natural signs in the concept of pranata mangsa, which is commonly studied and practiced by farmers in Nusantara since ancient times.
It turns out that this is also related to the concept of calendars and observations of various astrophysical phenomena, which later gave birth to several local wisdom traditions that eventually became part of the integrated celebration of the Islamic new year, or what is known in Central and East Java as the 1 Suro event.
What’s fascinating about the calendar system, whether it’s the Qomarian calendar (including the Javanese calendar that was updated since the era of Sultan Agung) which is oriented towards observing the moon’s movements, or the Masehi calendar which refers to the Earth’s revolution around the Sun, or nowadays, the interaction of intergravity, is the emergence of natural characteristics that manifest in various aspects of the universe’s elements, including humans who are part of the same Samudera Planc scale with the entire pulsating universe.
Therefore, calendars and various calculation methods, such as Feng Shui from ancient Chinese tradition, or the Javanese weton calculation, always refer to the repetition of time with a relationship between natural phenomena and human biopsychological conditions.
A person’s weton is a combination of the seven days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) with the five Javanese market days (Legi, Pahing, Pon, Wage, Kliwon). This cycle repeats every 35 (7 x 5) days, so according to Javanese calculations, a person’s birth day will repeat every five weeks, and each birth day has its own influence in determining one’s character and personality.
The market days, consisting of five days with the following names: Kliwon, Legi, Pahing, Pon, and Wage. These five days are called market days because each name has been used since the pre-Medang era to determine the opening of markets for traders, so on the designated day, a market would be crowded with traders selling their goods, and many people would visit to shop. If we trace it back to our ancestors, the names of these five days actually originated from the names of five spirits. The names of these spirits are Batara Legi, Batara Pahing, Batara Pon, Batara Wage, and Batara Kliwon.
The elements and essence of human beings that have been known and believed by the Javanese people since ancient times until now. Because the five market days are actually taken from the names of the human soul, known as Sedulur Papat Lima Pancer, that’s why in Javanese society until now, people have an instinct to use these five market days as a pinpoint for a person’s biopsychological characteristics based on their birth day.
Sedulur Papat Lima Pancer is a direction, which is: Lor (North), Kidul (South), Kulon (West), Wetan (East), and Pancer (Center), where the Center is the cosmic center of human beings. This direction is also related to the journey of human life, which is always accompanied by Sedulur Papat Lima Pancer. Sedulur Papat consists of: Kawah (white, located in the East), Getih (red, located in the South), Puser (black, located in the West), and Adhi Ari-ari (yellow, located in the North). Meanwhile, Pancer is the Ego or the human being itself. The location of Sedulur Papat is in line with the direction of human beings in Javanese culture.
There is a relational order in the relationship between these phenomena, which is actually based on rational assumptions, because there is also a mathematics of Nusantara/Javanese astrobiology that can help calculate our position, similar to the BCG Matrix or SWOT Matrix, and provide the best guidance for navigating it scientifically.
Calculating weton can be done by adding up the values of the day and market day. For example, for Tuesday Kliwon, we simply add up the values of the day and market day. Tuesday has a value of 3, while Kliwon has a value of 8, so 3 + 8 = 11. Therefore, the weton value of Tuesday Kliwon is 11. The resulting value can be used as a benchmark to determine a person’s character, predict decision-making, or compatibility with various conditions in the universe at that time.
Simplistically, people only attribute it to non-scientific efforts that are irrational, such as determining a good day, etc., which are considered beliefs that are not based on academic evidence.
However, today, the concepts of epigenetics, nutrigenomics, and neuroplasticity can evaluate and test the relationship between biological entities called humans and their elements with various dynamic phenomena in nature, right?
In fact, in astrophysical studies, the relationship between elements in the universe has received attention since humans began to approach nature with various mechanical approaches. So, the concept of “good” or “not good” should be viewed in the context of a frame of reference. Where the compatibility of various elements in a configuration of conditions can be at an optimal or ideal level of orchestration and harmonization, or, as a prerequisite, does not meet the minimum threshold to produce the desired output. It’s very mathematical, isn’t it?
The Frame of Reference (FoR) is a fundamental concept in physics that refers to the coordinate system used to measure the position, velocity, and acceleration of objects. The choice of FoR is crucial in determining how we describe and understand the relative motion of an element or the position of an element in a constellation of inter-relations.
There is an Inertial Frame of Reference where Newton’s laws of motion apply without modification. In an inertial frame of reference, an object that does not experience an external force will continue to move in a straight line with a constant velocity or remain at rest.
For example, a car moving at a constant speed on a flat road can be considered as an Inertial Frame of Reference (FoR). Then there is a Non-Inertial Frame of Reference where Newton’s laws of motion do not apply without modification, usually due to the presence of acceleration. In a non-inertial frame of reference, fictitious forces (such as Coriolis force and centrifugal force) need to be introduced to explain the motion of objects. For example, a car that is accelerating or moving in a circular motion cannot be considered as an inertial frame of reference.
According to the theory of general relativity, there is no absolute FoR; all motion is relative. The choice of FoR depends on the observation and analysis to be performed. In a geocentric FoR, the Earth is considered as the center, and other celestial bodies move around it. This model was used in ancient astronomy.
On the other hand, in a heliocentric FoR, the Sun is considered as the center, and the planets, including the Earth, move around it. This model is more accurate and is used in modern physics and astronomy.
To switch from one FoR to another, coordinate transformations are used. For example, in classical physics, the Galilean transformation is used, while in special relativity, the Lorentz transformation is used.
The Galilean transformation is usually used to switch between two inertial FoRs that are moving at a constant relative speed to each other. For example, if a train is moving at a constant speed, the position of a passenger inside the train can be calculated from two different FoRs (inside and outside the train).
On the other hand, the Lorentz transformation can be used in special relativity to connect measurements of space and time between two FoRs that are moving at high speeds (approaching the speed of light) relative to each other. For example, the time measured by two observers moving at high speeds relative to each other will be different, which is known as time dilation.
In the context of the relationship between elements and components in the universe, humans have developed an approach that is now known as the cosmological approach.
Where the term cosmology itself was first used by Pythagoras (580–500 BCE) in the context of describing the regularity and harmony of celestial motion. Etymologically, the term cosmology comes from the Greek word “kosmos” meaning world, order, or universe, and “logos” meaning reason or intellect.
The regularity and model of relationships between elements have certainly been initiated since the beginning of the universe’s creation process, which we believe in today. The universe is constructed by meta-perception based on understanding of matter.
It started from the event known as the Big Bang around 13.8 billion years ago, accompanied by a critical period of 10^-32 seconds that gave birth to fundamental elements that form the universe today. Then we recognize the traces of that process through the identification of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which is the residual radiation from the early universe that can still be detected, present in the form of waves with a certain frequency and temperature that can be observed as background waves (Arno Penzias). Then there is also Hubble’s Law, which observes that galaxies are moving away from each other, indicating that the universe is expanding, which is a manifestation of the energy that drives the universe to continue moving outward. In line with the phenomenon of redshift introduced by Hubble.
Trisha Muro, in a popular scientific article published in Science News Explore on October 20, 2022, describes the timeline after the Big Bang as follows:
0 to 10^-43 seconds (0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds) after the Big Bang, this earliest period is known as the Planck Era. This period lasted from the moment of the Big Bang to an extremely small fraction of a second afterwards. Our understanding of the fundamental laws of energy and matter cannot explain what happened during this time. Scientists theorize about how to explain what happened during this period. To do so, they need to find a physical law that unifies gravity, relativity, and quantum mechanics (the behavior of matter at the atomic or subatomic level).
This extremely short period serves as a crucial milestone because only after this moment can we explain the evolution of our universe.
10^-43 to 10^-36 seconds after the Big Bang, during this very short period, known as the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) Era, significant changes occurred. The most important event: Gravity became a separate force, distinct from the others.
10^-36 to 10^-32 seconds after the Big Bang, during this short period, known as the Inflation Era, the strong nuclear force separated from the two forces that were still united: electromagnetism and the weak force. Scientists are still unsure how and why this happened, but they believe it triggered an intense expansion or inflation of the universe. Measuring the expansion during this time is extremely difficult to understand. It seems that the universe grew by about 100 million billion times.
At this point, a unique phenomenon occurred, where energy existed, but light as we know it today did not. The universe was dark and dense. This is because light is a wave that moves through space, and there was no open space universe as a medium.
In fact, at that time, space was filled with high-energy phenomena, so matter could not exist. Sometimes astronomers refer to the universe during this period as a “soup” because it was extremely difficult to imagine how dense and energetic the universe was at that time.
Hubble’s Law, also known as Hubble-Lemaître Law, is one of the laws in astronomy that states that the redshift of light coming from distant galaxies is proportional to their distance.
First formulated by Edwin Hubble in 1929.
If this redshift is assumed to be caused by the Doppler effect, where galaxies are moving away from us, then it would lead us to a picture of an expanding universe, and by extrapolating time backwards, we arrive at the Big Bang theory.
Hubble compared the distances to nearby galaxies with the redshift of those galaxies and found a linear relationship. His estimate of this proportionality constant is known as Hubble’s constant, and is now recognized as a parameter that depends on time, indicating the accelerating expansion of the universe.
The Big Bang theory itself is a widely accepted theory about the formation and evolution of the universe. According to this theory, the universe began from a very hot and dense state about 13.8 billion years ago and has been expanding continuously until now. One important aspect of this model is the cosmological inflation phase, which occurred around 10^-36 seconds after the Big Bang.
The cosmological inflation hypothesis proposes that the newly born universe underwent an exponential expansion that smoothed out almost all irregularities. The remaining irregularities were caused by quantum fluctuations in the inflation field, which led to the formation of large structures like galaxies and galaxy clusters that we see today.
Long before the formation of stars and planets, the early universe was much smaller, hotter, and was filled with a plasma of photons, electrons, and baryons that interacted. As the universe expanded, adiabatic cooling caused the energy density of the plasma to decrease, allowing electrons to combine with protons to form hydrogen atoms. This event, known as recombination, occurred around 379,000 years after the Big Bang at a temperature of around 3000 K.
After recombination, the photons that previously interacted with electrons and protons began to move freely through space, causing the separation of matter and radiation. These photons formed the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), which is the first light from the universe that we can still observe today.
The temperature of the CMB photons has continued to decrease as the universe expands, and is currently around 2.726 K. The intensity of the CMB radiation is consistent with the radiation of a blackbody at that temperature. According to the Big Bang model, the CMB radiation we measure today comes from the last scattering surface, which is the location in space where the decoupling event is thought to have occurred. Photons from this location have just reached us on Earth, giving us a glimpse into the past of the universe.
Two pieces of evidence that support the validity of the Big Bang theory are the prediction of the nearly perfect blackbody spectrum of the CMB and the detailed prediction of anisotropies in the CMB.
The CMB spectrum has become the most accurately measured blackbody spectrum in the universe, supporting the validity of the Big Bang model and cosmological inflation.
The dynamics of the universe’s constellation and the relationships between its elements certainly have a causal and correlational relationship that is represented in each of its descendant elements.
Observations of biological entities show that the relational processes that occur in adaptation and intervention models still exhibit a cause-and-effect relationship that arises from the connectivity of the post-singularity era.
One of the methods that is now being widely promoted in biology and molecular biology is epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression that are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence itself.
Changes in the context of epigenetics can activate or deactivate genes, and how genetic information is translated into proteins and biological functions according to the conditions and exposures being faced.
The epigenetic mechanism as part of the process of adjusting genome function with internal and external dynamic factors can occur due to several sub-mechanisms, including:
- DNA methylation, where the addition of a methyl group (CH3) to cytosine bases in DNA can lead to a decrease in the expression of certain genes.
- Histone modification, where histones are proteins that help package DNA in chromosomes. Modifications such as acetylation, methylation, phosphorylation, and ubiquitination of histones can affect chromatin structure and gene regulation.
- Non-coding RNA, where RNA molecules that are not translated into proteins, such as microRNA and lncRNA, can regulate gene expression through various special mechanisms.
The following are some supporting theories that are relevant to the concept of epigenetics as we know it today:
- Lamarckian theory, which states that organisms can inherit characteristics acquired during their lifetime. Epigenetics provides a molecular mechanism for some aspects of this theory, with epigenetic changes that can be inherited across generations.
- The Central Dogma Theory, which states that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to Protein. Epigenetics expands this concept by showing that additional information can be added on top of the DNA sequence, which can affect the flow of genetic information.
Several experts have shared their opinions on the definition and implementation of epigenetics in the field of biology. Conrad Waddington (1942) introduced the term “epigenetics” to describe the interaction between genes and their products that form the phenotype of an organism. Rudolf Jaenisch and Adrian Bird stated that epigenetics is the key to understanding cell differentiation during embryonic development. Eric Richards (2006) stated that epigenetic changes can play a crucial role in an organism’s adaptation to its environment without changing the DNA sequence.
Examples of Epigenetic Studies include the Twin Study, which shows that identical twins with the same DNA sequence can have different DNA methylation patterns as they age, leading to differences in phenotype. There is also the Diet and Epigenetics study, which found that a mother’s diet during pregnancy can affect the DNA methylation pattern of her offspring, influencing the risk of obesity and metabolic diseases.
Currently, there is also the Etiology of Disease study, which uses epigenetic approaches to investigate the pathophysiology of various diseases, including cancer, where changes in the epigenetic landscape can lead to the activation of oncogenes or the inactivation of tumor suppressor genes.
Environmental factors such as diet and exposure to chemicals can affect DNA methylation. For example, a lack of folate, vitamin B12, and methionine in daily intake can affect DNA methylation because these components are essential for the methylation cycle.
Environmental factors can also affect enzymes involved in histone modification, such as histone acetyltransferase (HAT) and histone deacetylase (HDAC). For example, chronic stress can change the activity of HDAC, which can affect the expression of genes related to stress response.
Environmental factors can also affect the production and function of non-coding RNA, which regulates gene expression. For example, exposure to toxins can change the expression of microRNA, which regulates genes involved in detoxification.
This phenomenon can occur because organisms have the ability to change their phenotype in response to environmental conditions. Epigenetic mechanisms provide a molecular basis for this adaptive response, allowing organisms to respond quickly to environmental changes without genetic changes.
Epigenetic changes triggered by environmental factors can also be inherited to the next generation. For example, a study found that offspring of rats exposed to a certain toxin showed changes in DNA methylation and phenotype, even though they were not exposed to the toxin themselves.
Another example is a study on rats fed a high-fat diet during pregnancy, which found that the offspring showed changes in DNA methylation that increased the risk of obesity and metabolic diseases. This shows that changes in a parent’s diet, in this case, the mother’s diet, can determine the expression of their offspring’s genetic traits.
Similarly, children who experienced high levels of stress during childhood showed changes in epigenetic marks on genes involved in stress regulation, which can affect their mental health in adulthood.
There is also a study on exposure to environmental pollutants such as bisphenol A (BPA), which is linked to epigenetic changes that can increase the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases. This shows that the relationship between biological models and ecological conditions is dynamic and influenced by various factors.
From the above random explanation, at least I hope that we can see the relationship between the elements in the universe in a clear and objective way, as it has been since the beginning, originating from the same source.
It’s interesting to continue learning, isn’t it? That there is wisdom and values that have been passed down through tradition, which may have been considered as part of a cultural tradition that is only conserved through action, but may have profound meanings that are worth continuing to learn and explore.