CROP CIRCLES

on synchronicity/apophenia/and also... why are so many foods shaped like circles?

Before we start! This bit of writing is going begin sounding so silly that you probably will think I am joking… but I am not! Stick with me. I promise (hope!) that it ends somewhere that feels whole.

Here we go :)

I realized recently how many foods are circles. Or circle-shaped. Circular. This sounds like something that someone says the first time they get high. But I promise we’re going somewhere. Pies. Pizza Pies. Bagels. Ritz crackers. Cookies. Pancakes. Donuts. Onion rings. Cakes! Because I don’t want to risk really letting this newsletter be stupid, I’m going to pause there and let you think of your own. Random and silly, I know -- but once I started thinking about how many circular foods there are, I actually got quite intrigued.

There are no naturally-occurring perfect circles on this earth. So why so many circle-y foods? Why do we like contorting different substances we are going to eat into one very specific geometric shape?

Cake is my second favorite food, and the first circular one that I thought about, once I got going. Why are cakes (for the most part) circular? I love cake so much, it was no great effort to look into a little bit why this is the case. The very first cakes and breads were formed into balls and then baked on a hearthstone. They naturally relaxed into rounded shapes. By the 17^th century, ‘cake hoops’ came to be. The cake hoop brought meaning to the shape: now, these foods represented more than themselves. Now, the cake was the Moon, the Circle of Life, Togetherness. Fertility.

I will repeat myself: perfect circles don’t exist in nature. Spheres do (you’re on one right now, in fact), but not circles. And yet here we are, sitting on a sphere, sculpting our food to be variant echoes of circle. How soothing and simple and strange – to find a shape pleasing, and to create it over and over and over. So much so that it becomes to feel ridiculous (and vaguely vulnerable, tbh) to notice, and then to point out.

The instinct for humans to make circles. My mind, of course, zooms straight to crop circles. Naturally!

Crop circles are shapes and patterns (mostly circular) that are created by flattening a crop. Usually a form of wheat, for its pliability. They are large-scale, intricate, and made for the aerial view. Since the 17^th century, they’ve popped up in the Northern Hemisphere, inspiring awe and theory and folklore and fear – the kind of phenomenon that attracts pragmatic pranksters and fervent advocates of the supernatural and people who are very freaked out.

I just love the way they look :)

I remember reading this insane article about the crop circle controversy in Southern England. Basically, in the 80’s and 90’s, crop circles started appearing in and around a farm district called Conholt. They were impressive and clean-lined and obvious. How mysterious! Most figured it was aliens, who must be soon to arrive. I definitely would have thought the same thing – though I am more compelled by like… The Unknowable Divine, I guess, than I am by aliens. Either way, I don’t fault believers; there can be some great relief in the inexplicable.

But in 1991, two old friends Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, admitted that THEY had been making the circles since the late ‘70s. !!! They would have a couple pints and then run around under the cover of night and make these incredibly meticulous shapes in the wheat fields. The patterns they constructed are so impressive that I was skeptical, but their description of the fun they had making mischief in nature, by night, makes me believe them entirely.

I try to imagine them running around in darkness, executing the groundwork and trusting that in the morning they would have done something profound. What trust in earthly movements! And, I suppose, in one’s own skill. My brain truly cannot compute how a person could be down here and know that what they’re doing makes sense from above. The precision, the confidence, the perfect angles. What strange determination by night, to do something extraordinary that no one will know you’ve done?

When Doug and Dave came forward, it seemed like the end of a long story. And when I read about them, at first I felt a little deflated. On first instinct, once discovering that humans were responsible for this unexplained phenomenon, it felt like there might be a little less weird magic and mystery in the world. But then I thought a little more. I thought about them making these circles together for no real reason for a decade, so vast and perfect and strange, I actually feel as if there’s much more. Magic, that is. More magic.

This particular Crop Circle Story ends in the resolution of the man-made. But a lot of others are still unresolved, different stories entirely. They activate a lot, and they freak people out. I spend a lot of time trying to decide if analyzing details for meaning is useless or wasteful.

Like: Does my stomach hurting serve as a metaphor (what am I not digesting) or do I just kind of have a fucked up stomach? The other day, I went to the bakery for my favorite cookie (confetti cookie at the Good Batch, truly 100p recommend) and the barista told me he loved my messy bun. I was truly not trying to do anything with my hair (had kind of forgotten that I was even in possession of hair, honestly) and I told him that. He said, “Don’t protest! It’s good. It’s you!” It’s you! This was so sweet and also am I just messy? See? It meant everything and truly nothing at all. In May, on a day that I got very good news, I heard the song “Hard to Explain” by the Strokes three times – all of course, by chance. The third time I heard it was at a barbecue place. I was so shocked, I had to take myself into the bathroom to laugh and also cry.

Jung described synchronicity as “a concept that describes meaningful connections between internal and external events that appear to lack a causal connection.” Basically, where you look for signs, you find them. You hear a song playing multiple places, or hear the same word over and over, or someone says something randomly resonant, or one thing leads to the next and then there’s some type of coming-together or relief. A cake can mean fertility and longevity, and this is because it’s a circle. It feels personal, in a good way.

Of course, synchronicity can also be apophenia: the tendency for humans to find significance or meaning where none exists. Often, this is an early symptom of schizophrenia. I can’t argue with apophenia, especially because it’s such a pretty word. But I will say: it definitely sounds like an easy way to have a lot less fun.

All to say. I have noticed myself, in moments when I make circular foods, paying special attention to the strangeness. All my efforts to contain the substance that will be consumed, and then go away. How silly! I don’t really get it. I kind of like the idea of it only making sense from above.