MYTHS OF CREATION
10. Astronomical
Domain: Theogony * T H E O -
from the Greek : '... ... - G O N Y * from the Greek γόνος : ‘Creation, generation, or begetting’ * The genealogy of a pantheon of gods * * C A T A -
from the Greek : '... ...' - S T R O P H E * from the Greek : ‘... ...’ * The ... ... * * D I S -
from the ... '... ...' - A S T E R * from the ... '... ...; 'The ... ...' * T H E O -
from the Greek : '... ... - M A C H Y * from the Greek : ‘... ...’ * ... ... * |
[10.1]
While the exact description of the heavenly vault differed from place to place and time to time, the Sky remained the most prominently perceived part of the world surrounding every early human community. — Hence it seems perfectly natural that we find Astronomical and Meteorological phenomena predominantly considered first and foremost at the very outset of nearly all mythopoeic cosmogonies. Beginning far back in prehistory, the fantastic activities of the bright “wandering stars” — the active powers in the heavens, the “shining seven” planets we know today as Sun and Moon, Jupiter and Saturn, Mercury, Venus and Mars — thoroughly impressed every society above all else for many thousands of years. Despite the fact that we recognize planetary cycles to be stably regular and reliable today, to myth-making peoples in the past they did not always appear so . . . — and their respective cosmovisions were frequently filled with elaborately complex celestial realms, featuring interplanetary relationships far more colorfully animated and detailed than anything we can easily account for or explain from naked-eye observation of the nighttime skies today . . . [10.2]
Traditional Myths of Creation usually began with a vivid depiction of an older order of the cosmos that existed prior to the birth of the present world order and the modern generation’s current set of cultural concerns and affairs. In that earlier cosmic order or World Age, the heavens were customarily understood to be the domain of transcendent powers in unrestrained activity, a most formidable and forbidding domain where unfathomable supreme beings — regarded by all as supernatural gods or unearthly demons — roved the skies at large, unfettered and free. In fact, these adventuresome myths and the remarkably bizarre images that sometimes accompanied them did not relate rationally intelligible portrayals of the planets at all — but were instead rather obscurely concerned with a diverse polyarchy of astral deities, divine powers, and forces of nature, — all of whom were consistently described as being fatefully involved in an intensifying series of uncanny maneuvers and transactions in the skies, transpiring under the most extraordinary circumstances, at times and places widely unspecified. — Praised by some cultures as beneficent influences and scorned by others as malevolent adversaries, these ever-present inhabitants of the heavens were popularly perceived as fellow beings towering over everything from above, — just as much a part of the natural order of things as the land and the sea below — and just as physically evident and concretely real. [10.3.1]
Most Creation Myths further emphasized the fundamental role or place of a sovereign Creator Deity, commonly characterized as a transcendent Sky God, who existed alone prior to Creation— and who was first to emerge from an even earlier period of primeval chaos, to make all things new and green in the light of his own radiant sun-like visage, — and who then reigned supreme in all peoples’ mythologies, presiding over the skies during both the day and at night for the remainder of a peaceful and plentiful Golden Age. [10.3.2]
In some instances this astral Creator god was held to have acted alone in shaping the new creation, or made use of other powerful beings generated by himself and a heavenly mate. — But other peoples’ mythos told of a second, less-powerful deity, (an animal, spirit, or devil ally) who was dispatched down to Earth at the higher god’s bidding, — sometimes diving into primordial flood waters to dig out a portion of solid ground, or bring to light a primal mound of earth on which the new world could begin to be built; or to secure, by some other daring means, a pre-existent quantity of water-logged clay by which a new generation of human beings were to be modeled and shaped; or otherwise serving in a similar capacity as the higher god’s lordly accomplice in bringing the new world to full and complete material realization. [10.4.1]
In Creation Myths of the above types, the creation itself was hailed as a perfect world, a golden paradise. However, at some point after the establishment of a new generation of human beings, this once unblemished order was violently undone by the transgressions of a second celestial Deity (often regarded as the first Deity’s very own son), who challenged and triumphantly overthrew his sovereign father god’s bloodless rule in wrathful, catastrophic combat. Most mythopoeic cosmovisions ascribed the Golden Age to the reign of planet Saturn (who had earlier overthrown old father Sky himself); and the Silver thro Iron Ages to the dominion of planet Jupiter (who, after disposing of his father’s generation of gods, successfully withstood all subsequent challenges to his steadfast authority); — while the general popularity of the other planets waxed & waned repeatedly, with every successive turning of the Ages. The upset of the Golden Age cosmic order, however, was not limited to a select secession of sun-like planet gods only; — in all cultural descriptions, an ensuing rupture or violent outbreak in the very fabric of Creation impacted the entire known cosmos, unsettling both heaven and earth out of balance, and consequently precipitating a sudden reversal of mankind’s social order as well, as the rhythms of the former Age shifted away into a short-lived return of general chaos and disorder at large. [10.4.2]
— This catastrophic rupture invariably led to the foregoing sovereign deity’s sudden expulsion or displacement from his formerly central position in the heavenly hierarchy. The old departed creator god was from then on said to be altogether absent and far removed from our now imperfect world, having entirely abandoned humankind and fully withdrawn himself from the natural order in his retreat to deeper and darker reaches of outer space. — In complementary cosmogonic myths, a similar trope related the story of the sacrificial death and dismemberment of a primordial god, or godlike being — whose broken body was conventionally depicted as a dispersed conglomeration of many diverse features of creation, out of which a new orderly world below and a new cosmic order in the heavens above were subsequently reconstituted once more. [10.4.3]
Most peoples’ mythos additionally involved a more extended series of astral creator deities: — older and younger generations of star-like supernatural beings, who were more or less consistently described as having the same distinctly recognizable qualities and attributes worldwide: — a ‘divine succession’ of heavenly kings, each of whom consecutively held the exalted rank of most supreme. While the exact number of successive astral god kings varied from culture to culture (with Three to Five generations being the most commonly pronounced), the passing of one planetary reign to the next most often took the form of an ongoing ‘cyclic’ or recurrently instigated Theomachy (or War in Heaven), held to have unfolded piecemeal over several dramatically punctuated periods of time — during which the sons repeatedly replaced their fathers in shifting celestial hierarchies, with each succeeding generation’s king violently usurping the paranormal powers of all his previous predecessors; — while each new break between the Ages of their reigns time and again ushered in a new earth and a new generation of humankind, and a new heavenly order under the aegis of the world’s latest sovereign planet god king. [10.4.4]
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