From Mythos to Modernity: How Creation Stories Shape Our Lives

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Let’s open with a poem.

Now is the Time

Now is the time to remember

that our green globe is the best-dressed in the ball

lit through with organic filaments

bombastic living miracles.

Now is the time to turn off the engine and

set down exhaustion

into lakes that remain

and bask for

an

infinite

instant.

Now is the time

to be

a miracle

too.

Cosmology: It’s a Heck of a Word

It is! It’s up there with ontology and epistemology, the kind of word that opens us up to broad ways of thinking. It’s an account or theory of the origin of the universe. Along with that view of its origin, cosmology implies principles and beings who govern our universe.

In story terms, we can say that the cosmology of a story is the largest conceptual framework, in which are nested the smaller frameworks. It's the largest explanation, the largest context, like the shell of the story egg. Or perhaps a better analogy is that cosmology is the bedrock which influences the chemistry of all the layers of soil, up to and including the topsoil. You see, cosmology speaks of the background of the story, but it also infuses each part of the story. It gives the big why’s and who’s and how’s of the story world, in which all smaller stories must take place.

We live in stories.

In popular scientific cosmology, we have the Big Bang and the theory of evolution. For those who live in that view, their daily lives are nested within that bigger picture.

Most other cosmologies are more personal, in the sense that there are beings who were and are involved in creation. That could be gods, the spirits of planets, animals, creators who create with clay, and more. There is a great variety. For those who are within those cosmologies, their daily lives are nested within this larger context.

Cosmology in Hinduism

Hindusim is varied to say the least, but there are trends. The branch of Hinduism that I studied and practiced was Bhakti-yoga, or Gaudiya Vaisnavism. It holds a personal cosmology, with all creation originating from a divine being, or rather, two divine beings, masculine and feminine. After the initial creation, those divine beings had a hand in subsequent sub-creations.

The big creation is where Divinity arranged the soup of matter into planets and stars. In the sub-creations, planets are populated with beings, and in further sub-creations, there are more beings, all within a universal governance with strata of gods, all the way to the top.

There are variations of this cosmology, within India and the larger area around her. It is as though the conceptual egg is multidimensional, existing in various ways for different people, yet with a common essential form. I’m afraid that’s the best metaphor I can think of now. I’m open to suggestions!

What are the variants? Some speak of Vishnu as the supreme originating deity. Others speak of Shiva, or Shakti. Some forego personal origins and say that the universe came from a void, or from an all-pervasive energy. Early Buddhism entered the scene with a teaching of interdependent causality, which you might roughly say means, everything causes everything (though there are greater concentrations of causality).

Jostling Cosmologies

If each of these cosmologies were a person, they’d often be bickering, and in fact the world is full of jostling cosmologies. If you hear two people making different claims about whether life came from matter or spirit, whether there was a big bang, whether creatures evolved from the ocean or were created in some other way, or perhaps both—you’re witnessing jostling cosmologies.

However, within a given story, we tend to find a single cosmology, a single world-view about the origin of things. From there comes the ontology of that world: what the story allows to be true. (Thanks to Sarah Kerr for that framing). In a given story, the cosmology may be spelled out or implied. It may be assumed to be the same as dominant modern world-views. In any case, there’s always a cosmology.

Let's use Lord of the Rings for an example, because the cosmology is spelled out clearly, at least if you get into the Silmarillion. Here it is: in the beginning there was one singer; from that singer came many singers. With their combined voices they created celestial harmonies. Then, one of those singers began to sing in disharmony; kicking off the troubles of creation, much as Lucifer did when he rebelled against the Judeo-Christian god. From there come Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits. And in a particular place called the Shire, in Bag End, there’s Bilbo!

Cosmology is the biggest layer. Within that we have nested layers, and within all of that we have the actions of our characters, or, in our lives, ourselves.

Worlds Within Worlds

Within the cosmology of a story, nested inside, lie other layers of explanation. We've been talking about big picture cosmology—the origin of the universe and such—but thought of any scale has its own cosmology. It’s in pop culture. Every Spiderman comic doesn’t go into the bigger picture in the Marvel universe, but it’s there. Spiderman might be fighting a street thug, but Galactus is out there, him and other godlike beings who are part of the story’s backdrop.

Let's look at the Christian cosmology. In the beginning, there was God, who created the worlds, waters, and the rest of the support for life. He then created humankind and put them in the Garden of Eden. Aye, there’s the rub. They disobeyed him, got kicked out of the garden, and we’ve had trouble ever since.

Here’s one version of scientific cosmology. There was nothing, then there was a big bang, which created a universe with lots of empty space, and some plasma: superheated matter. This plasma coalesced into stars, which brought light to the universe, which had been dark until then. When these stars grow old they implode then explode, spreading complex matter throughout the universe. This becomes planets, asteroids, you, me; within at least one of these planets, ours, this matter gave rise to the first stage of life; it’s become more complex over time.

Cosmology and Colonisation

Cosmologies are often used to justify conquest. For example, the theory of evolution was used to place Europeans at the top of an evolutionary hierarchy, a ladder from simple celled organisms to animals, then to ‘primitive people,’ and finally to ‘civilized people.’ The cosmology of modern capitalism borrows from the theory of evolution, emphasizing survival of the fittest over cooperation for the good of all.

Religious world-views have also been used to justify conquest, usually with a justification that goes something like, ‘We are God’s chosen people.’

It should be said that categories like ‘religious’ and ‘scientific’ are so broad that they are useful only to an extent. Within scientific or religious groups, there are a many variations. These groups are patterns that make many people into large units, but there are overlaps between those units, and within each are individual people with diverse world-views.

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