Sidebar- Cosmological Mythology
Fiorella Terenzi wants to remind us that our ancient cosmological mythology was of the mythological Goddess being the giver of life and representing all time and space. Our ancient and current cosmological mythology affects our world view significantly. Since this section links cosmology, mythology, and religion, I will start by defining these terms.
Definitions
Cosmology can be roughly defined as the study of the origin and evolution of the Universe. However, humans couldn't distinguish between the galactic and large-scale universe and our Solar System until the invention of the telescope (when scientists began to determine the structure of our galaxy and nearby galaxies). Therefore, until the invention of the telescope, cosmology was the study of the motion of solar system objects such as the Sun, Moon, comets, planets etc.
Mythology can be roughly defined as stories that serve to unfold part of the world view of a people and/or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomena. Myths can coordinate the living person with the cycle of his/her own life, with the environment in which he/she's living and with his/her society. Mythological thinking in our species' history first appeared at the time of Neanderthal man. Because our ancestors spent so much time outdoors, and the human eye tends to organize hundreds to thousands of points of light, such as that from a night sky, into ordered patterns, cosmological mythologies probably appeared very shortly thereafter.
Religion can be roughly defined as the service and worship of the supernatural or deity(ies). The deit(y)ies worshiped are usually those described in a myth. Unfortunately, many people interpret literally the myths, instead of seeing them as merely symbols. "Facts of the mind made manifest in a fiction of matter," Maya Deren, Joseph Campbell's colleague, once said.
The first avenue that I wish to explore here is: The God Mythology versus the God-Goddess Mythology and how that affected our ancestral view of the Universe. Since I've been thinking about these ideas off-and-on for close to a decade, I will use this opportunity to synthesize some of my thoughts. Therefore, what follows may or may not be what Fiorella had in mind. (Reader beware!)
Mythological Gods and Goddesses
The myths of a culture create and become part of the character of a culture. You "do as your gods do" because the symbols in mythology ultimately refer to YOU (i.e. your interpretation). Your deities' concerns are your concerns, and vice versa. So if a culture viewed the heavens as extensions of themselves, their lives will follow that concept. Likewise, if people in a culture live their lives with philosophies that contain far-reaching views, their mythological deities will contain those views too. So I think that the cosmological myths and deities of particular times and cultures are very revealing and important in understanding mans' cosmological views throughout our history.
About 5000 years ago, the mythology of the ancient agricultural world was dominated by the "Goddess of Many Names." This deity's concern was mostly of the earth's fertility and life, i.e. giving life, nurturing life, taking life. This female, as "giver of forms," had progeny who were also other gods and goddesses. The Goddess and her offspring were viewed as inseparable from the natural world, for example in the ancient Lower Egyptian culture, one of the goddess' progeny was "Nut," the heavenly sphere. There was a timeless quality to this mythology, in that life was an ever-returning cycle, and time had no beginning and no end.
Beginning around the second millennium B.C., various nomadic herding tribes from southeastern Europe traveled across Asia Minor and the Near East to the Indus Valley and began invading and assuming control of the lands and temple-cities. The chief gods of these Indo-European invaders were hunting gods and sky gods. A complex fusion of their cultures took place during which the matriarchal patterns of the goddess myths were incorporated into, but not entirely suppressed, by the more patriarchal ways of the Indo-Europeans ("Aryans"). The resulting myths were revealing in that numerous "encounters" between the gods and goddesses took place, for example, Zeus seduces various nymphs. At this time also, the main Mother Goddess deity was divided and dispersed into at least six less-powerful goddesses, for example: Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis, Hera, Demeter, Persephone.
Coming out of this mixture was a powerful warrior culture centered on the city of Mycenae, which flourished between 1600 and 1150 B.C. Also, at around 1200 B.C. came the Dorians, new invaders from the northwest, who were militarily superior, and who insisted on a firmly patriarchal mythology. The myths from this time reflect this conquering mentality such as Apollo slaying the snake Python, and Perseus slaying the serpent-haired Medusa. A consequence of the patriarchal mythology was that the power of the Mother Goddess was permanently diffused.
I've now told you about the _general_ mythologies of this time period. How did the _cosmological_ mythologies change through these same periods?
Before 4000 B.C., the goddess mythologies flourished in small communities with the image of the Goddess as the axis of the Universe.
Beginning around 4000 B.C. the earliest cities were constructed, larger communities emerged, a differentiation of professions began, and gods and goddesses started to play a bigger role in these peoples' lives. As the tall ziggurats were being built, the people looked _up_ more than ever before. The priests watched the skies and noticed a mathematical regularity in the passages of the seven "spheres" (the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). The priests translated this cosmic order into civilized human life, where royal ceremonies payed homage to these spheres. In nearby Egypt at this time, similar civilizations were also constructed.
The mythological cosmology of the cultures at this time were very rich. Once the mystery of the night sky in these cultures revealed a cosmic order, the human response in these cultures was just as vast. Their response showed a deep recognition of the human body as being a duplicate _in miniature_ of the macrocosmic universe. A general belief was that, by conforming perfectly to ones own virtue, as the animals do to theirs, as the plants do to theirs, the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars do to theirs, a person at once supports the universe, and at the same time is supported by it. This sort of cosmology is what results when goddesses have a large part to play in a culture's myths.
When the invaders arrived, and along with them, their gods, the harmony was broken. The gods that they brought were black and white, good and evil, light and dark. Where formerly the myths contained planetary cycles, marking days, nights, months, years and eons of unending time, now the myths contained a straight timeline with a beginning, a middle and a prophesied end. So when you cut the female goddess out of the myths of a culture you get a totally different culture. I don't think that the cosmological myths since that time have been nearly as rich, intricate, and supportive. This may reveal something of our culture today, as well.
References
- (1)
- Campbell, Joseph (1990). Transformations of Myth Through Time, Harper and Row.
- (2)
- Campbell, Joseph (1986). The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, Harper and Row.
- (3)
- Campbell, Joseph (1990). The Power of Myth (#5: The Goddess), Mystic Fire Video.
- (4)
- Woolger, Jennifer and Woolger, Roger (1987). The Goddess Within, Fawcett.
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