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It seems that the most appropriate place to begin a book, is at
the beginning. In this case that brings us to Creation, or Creation
Myths to be more specific. There are more creation myths than
there are people in the world. Humans have been creating myths
about how the universe was created, since it was created. It is
one of the "Great Questions", but we will discuss that later.
There are a few Wiccan creation myths. I don't care
for any of them in particular. Most are all right, but I specifically
don't like the one where the Goddess has a Son, he grows up and
becomes her lover, grows old and dies. (Reference unknown). I'm
okay with the Goddess being eternal and the God being a wheel
of birth and death. What turns many people off from this myth
is the incestual undertones. I know it's not meant to mean that,
but it just sounds distasteful.
Besides that, I believe the Goddess has a wheel
of her own, Maiden - Mother - Crone. I am more comfortable believing
that both God and Goddess, being immortals, do not die. They do
follow a circle of life, but more like the cycle of the seasons.
Spring - young lovers, Summer - mature, parenting, Fall - harvest,
aging, Winter - death and then rebirth, or for those that do not
die, rest. To better explain it would be to say the seasons follow
them, instead of the other way around, because they cause the
seasons. Some would ask how this is different from The Mother
and Son myth.
I explain it with some of the creation myths of
other - specifically Pre-Christian religions. For instance, Egyptians
believed Creation was caused by the separation of light and dark.
Not unlike Chinese traditions' in which "The One" separates into
Yin and Yang. Norse beliefs stated it was the union of fire and
ice, while in many Native American myths, animals created the
world.
Credit & Copyright: Serge Brunier |
Looking at the picture above, "The Milky Way in
Stars and Dust" (Serge Brunier, http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap051004.html),
it is easy to imagine a black void. In that black void, "The One"
is a supreme, unimaginable, divine being of infiniteness. This
loving and lonely whole is so overwhelming it splits and explodes.
It becomes an equal duality of light and dark, male and female,
god and goddess.
Neither are supreme, both are dependent on each
other as they are two pieces of the one whole. When you view creation
as such you do not need the Goddess to create or "birth" the God,
even if the God is viewed in a cycle of death and rebirth, he
does not have to "mate" with the Goddess and be "born" as her
son like we humans, because He is Her, and he just "IS".
One place to find many creation myths is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth,
keep in mind Wikipedia is contributed to by it's readers and therefore
not always reliable. If you find one that interests you, find
a reliable resource to read. One such resource that lists just
a couple creation myths is "Global Passages" by Schlesinger, Blackwell,
Meyer and Waltrous-Schlesinger. You can find a multitude of different
books on the subject and usually at your local library.
A few creation myths:
| Christian |
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| Judaism |
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| Islam |
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| Mormonism |
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| Zoroastrianism |
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| Babylonian |
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| Egyptian |
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| Sumerian |
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| Voodoo |
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| Sikhism |
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| Hindu |
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| Buddhism |
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| Norse |
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| Greek |
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| Taoism |
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| Jainism |
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| Aztec |
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| Cherokee |
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| Hawaiian |
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