How did all of this– what we call reality, the universe, the earth, life, begin? What do you think? This question is a primary motivation for our ongoing myth-making. Despite all the tools and technologies, the origins of the cosmos, life, and human beings are still a mystery.
In offering us an explanation of our creation, these myths offer a perspective on human nature, purpose, and social organization as well. Your inherited myths influence how you live and what you value, even if you spend little time consciously thinking about them.
So, let’s spend some time thinking about them.
This episode is a brief survey of some creation myths from around the world that illuminate the variety and implications in the answers that humans have developed to answer the question of beginnings.
Transcript of Creation Myths: In the beginning
Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and what myth can offer us today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle.
So I’ve got a question for you? How did all of this– what we call reality, the universe, the earth, life, begin? What do you think? This question is a primary motivation for our myth-making. Despite all the tools and technologies, the origins of the cosmos, life, and human beings are still a mystery, one that we can’t pierce completely. There is an instant, a breath, that precedes every explanation or story that we’ve told about creation, for which we cannot account. The original creation, the source, is mythic.
Today I’m going to share a brief survey of some creation myths, to consider how people have dealt with this mystery and how the myths influence life.
The myths to which we subscribe, whether or not we accept them to be myths, offer the theory or answer to the question of beginnings that feels the best, the most correct to us. These myths also have important implications for the way that we live. They shape our view of human nature, for example, and beliefs about the best way to live, about society, the sacred, the concept of time, and beliefs about death and afterlife. Our notions of the beginning are bound up in our beliefs about the end. The end of the cosmos, planet earth, your life.
In earlier times, peoples were united in a shared belief, a shared myth. Not united around the world but united in their communities. This is not the case today. The lack of collective agreement is a source of serious conflict and it’s an opportunity. Now is the time to recognize our ability to consciously engage with myth, and to embrace the freedom and responsibility of our choices because they matter. Your inherited myths influence how you live and what you value, even if you spend little time consciously thinking about it.
All peoples have or had a creation myth, a story of their origins. All of us as individuals subscribe to one, whether or not you call it a myth, religion, or a theory. There’s a lot of variety and also some common elements. For example, in that time before time that we cannot plumb, was formlessness and darkness that gave way to heavens/sky and earth, water, air, dirt, light, the shaping of land, and the emergence of life: plants, insects, birds and animals, humans. The accuracy in this poetry is remarkable, don’t you think? How long people have passed along this knowing, the traces of which can be measured today through scientific means.
Creation myths also consider the catalyst for the initial creation or emergence. What put this in motion? The forces and powers often called “gods.” They answer the question of intent. Why? What were these gods or this cosmic mind so to speak, up to? What was the motivation? The answers have a direct bearing on the questions of human purpose and an ordained way of living, the proper social organization and perhaps a moral code. The reason we were created has a lot to do with how we are supposed to be living.
Human beings often have a special relationship to the creator and/or a specific role to play. The myths often describe a series of worlds and of different types of humans, a process of experimentation, failure, and refinement– or of birth, maturation, and decay. The first worlds end due to earthquakes, ice ages, floods, usually imaged as the result of the immortals frustration or neglect, and as the geological record reveals, these events happened.
The oldest written mythology that we have today is the Sumerian, the earliest known civilization in Mesopotamia, located in what is now southern Iraq. Much of what we have is fragmentary, and in the manner of myths, especially myths about a pantheon of deities, the stories are numerous, overlapping, and contradictory.
According to the Sumerian world view, the gods always existed. In the distant past, heaven (the god An), separated from earth (the goddess Ninhursag), and what was in-between. The in-between was air (the god Enlil). In the earliest myths, An or heaven is the supreme god in the pantheon but over time Enlil took this place, as he created, through his thought and word, the plants and everything else humans needed on earth.
Ninhursag, called “the lady who gave birth” and connected with the earth, probably created human beings. Somehow, by someone, we were fashioned out of clay. Our sole purpose was to serve the gods so they would have plenty of leisure time–and the willingness– to continue refining and adding to the world. Humans were completely dependent upon the earth and the gods, who controlled an individual’s destiny.
Although Enlil became the central god, the actual patron of human beings was Enki, the god of wisdom. He created the social and political order, called the me, and was the administrator of the cosmos as well. If you are familiar with the myths of the goddess Inanna, you may recall that she received her many powers and forms of authority, the me,as gifts from Enki when they drank beer together and he got too drunk.
This was in the early days of the first cities and the emergence of more complex societies from what had been kinship groups and bands of people. The gods were the source of the moral and ethical codes necessary for larger groups. The gods valued behaviors that we recognize as good today, like telling the truth and caring for the poor, and yet they were also the creators of lying and stealing and all forms of evil. They planned violence and oppression into the world. People were caught up in it to varying degrees as they were with every aspect of the creation and the gods valued our moral efforts and also, they didn’t blame us.
Why did they introduce evil? Well, who knows the will of the gods? The Sumerian world was a world of great uncertainty. There was the beginning of agriculture and domestication of animals, the storing of food, building of walls, and the rise of a priestly class. All kinds of things to create stability and order. In the background the lurking question: would the gods bring it all to an end?
Well, they did once. Long ago, when people began to get too numerous and too loud, and disrupted the peace of the gods, Enlil allowed a great flood. He regretted it later but of course it was too late for all of those earlier people.
Floods show up in many creation myths. Many scholars of the ancient Middle East agree that the Sumerian flood is the source for the later flood story of Noah and the ark. Which brings me to the monotheism that emerged in the Middle East, the tradition of Abraham: first Judaism, then Christianity, and then Islam. Each building on the world view and teachings of the ancestral religion, developing refinements imagined as improvements.
This tradition contains the creation myth of Genesis. Creation through thought and spoken words, by the male father god, over the course of six days, culminating in a seventh day of rest. The separation of heaven and earth, darkness and light, land and water, and the creation of all life- from plants to animals to humans. God, the one god, was lonely and created the human for companionship.
He intended to keep the distinctions between god and human or god and man, depending on which version in genesis you read– he wanted to keep those distinctions clear. Don’t eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge or the tree of eternal life, he says. Eating an apple from the tree of knowledge, also called the tree of good and evil, was our first sin and put humans in association with the source of all evil, best-known as the devil. What to do about this rift between humans and their god is the central problem in this tradition.
And it has given rise to a super powerful concept, the concept of time as linear. Linear, meaning that there is a beginning. The moment that we came into existence with god. And that time, passing through events and days, will end in a predetermined way at a predetermined time because God is going to end it all. He’s given us some clues about end-of-days events, what some Christians call “the rapture.”
This notion of linear time and the fate of the earth in time, that we are moving through time to an end that will be the destruction of everything here on this plane, is foundational in the consciousness of many of us. Progress, novelty, the future, and inevitability are bound up together in this notion of linear time. So too, the notion of salvation, as the believers in the right god will be saved. And the purpose and relative value of the earth which is our temporary home.
Another mythology that had a huge influence on European derived cultures in particular is that of the ancient Greeks. Again, there is the formless darkness, then heaven and earth and Eros, the force of attraction also called desire. There is an early race of gods, the Titans, who are overthrown by the more refined pantheon called the Olympians. The gods are born from heaven and earth, and gods give birth to gods. So, here we have a hierarchy of forces, elements, and concepts. All of them created. And yet, the Fates, those who determine the beginning, length, and end of a mortal life, lie beyond the power of the gods. These three primordial females, sisters, act independently by their own inscrutable logic.
At some point in these cosmic events, humans are created out of clay by the Titan Prometheus. Some say he made men (yes, men), out of a desire to see what he could do. He was an ingenious god. Some say that he wanted company in a cosmos in which most of his kind had been defeated and locked up in the underworld by Zeus. Some say that he wanted to provoke Zeus and keep things interesting. This is, in the view of many commentators past and present, why Prometheus stole fire from the god and gave it to us. To give us an edge, a tool, in a world ruled by capricious gods, who would otherwise just argue among themselves for eternity.
In Greek mythology, the heroes strive and people endeavor to thrive despite the gods. They honor the immortals and they also make allegiances and strategize. You are at the mercy of the gods and yet, they cannot end your life before your fated time. Although the Olympian god Hades and his divine queen Persephone rule the underworld, this place is off limits to the other gods. Living mortals don’t want to go to the underworld obviously but some do. They’re sent there. The nature of death and its significance can be explored and the Greeks created powerful rituals to find their own way into this mystery.
Here is the birth of tragedy and the early roots of humanism, the declaration that fueled the Renaissance and the European Enlightenment: “Man is the measure of all things.”
The creation myths of the West African Yoruba culture begin with a pantheon of gods or “orishas.” Here we have a universe of sky and water. Some say that several orishas collaborated to make the first human. Obatala, the kindly father who makes many embodied, living beings, molds the forms. Ogun, god of war, iron, and the road, who links the worlds of the unborn, living, and the dead, fashions the skeletons. Olorun, creator of the sun and administrator of the cosmos, who is neither male nor female, breathes in life. And then Ajala, who is spirit or concept, not deity– the word means “destined to fight and survive,” molded the inner head, that is your personal power, mind, energy, destiny.
Others say that Obatala made human beings after he came down from the sky to further develop the earth. The earth was only water and some wild marshland and Obatala thought more could be done with it, that there could be mountains and valleys, for example. Olorun gave him permission.
Orunmila, the God of Prophecy, tells Obatala that he will need a gold chain to reach from the sky to the waters below. Obatala went to each of the orisha to collect gold, which he took to the goldsmith to make the chain. Then he descended to earth, carrying a snail shell filled with sand, a white hen, a black cat, and a palm nut.
Obatala climbs down a ways and realizes that the chain is too short. At which point Orunmila calls down and tells Obatala to dump the sand onto the earth and then drop the hen. The hen scratches and spreads the sand. This becomes the first solid land on Earth.
Obatala let go of the chain and fell to earth. He planted the palm nut and a palm tree sprouted immediately. He named the place “Ife” and this is where the first humans were made. Obatala had the cat for company but eventually he got lonely. He started to make clay figurines shaped like himself (the orisha have human forms). It was hot and Obatala drank some palm wine while he worked so some of the figurines were deformed. He realized this later when he sobered up, and pledged to take special care of those people. Olorun breathed life into all of them.
Now, no one had consulted Olokun, ruler of the sea, before Obatala came down and made dry land. She wasn’t pleased about this and sent a flood that wiped out many of these first humans. But the orishas worked it out until everyone was satisfied after that and here we are.
Which is not to say that earth was– or is– a total paradise. Everything comes from the spirit world, from the interdependent invisible realm, and good and evil are both natural forces.In addition to the orisha there are the Ajogun, known as death, disease, loss, imprisonment, and other big troubles. These are spiritualized forces that create imbalance and bring about the end. They are necessary to the ongoing creation and to understand and appreciate the value of the good.
For a creation myth and a mythology of cosmic proportions, we can turn to Hinduism. The Hindu pantheon and myths are dynamic, diverse, and complex. There’s an abundance of forms and possibilities. Some say the universe began as a golden egg and that Brahma, a creative principle beyond all concepts and gender, emerged from it. Some say that Brahma was lonely and divided himself into male and female. Others say that the ” Prajapati,” a Sanskrit word meaning “master of procreative powers,” was Shiva, or Agni the god of fire, or someone else.
In general, creation of the world and of humans involves desire, mind, heat, water, and breath. The interaction of male and female, the third arising from this pairing. The interdependent nature of being and non-being. This mythology describes–in many different ways– a long, long millions and billions of years long cycle of creation, maturation, and decay that will repeat eternally. And there are multiple universes. Garga Samhita, one of the sages who composed the Rigveda hymns writes:
“You know one universe. Living entities are born in many universes, like mosquitoes in many udumbara (cluster fig) fruits.” — Garga Samhita1.2.28
The Rig Veda is a foundational text of Hinduism and the oldest existing text in an Indo-European language. We’re talking 1500 BCE or so. Here you find a commentary that honors the unanswerable questions that surround the beginning.
Darkness there was at first, by darkness hidden;
Without distinctive marks, this all was water;
That which, becoming, by the void was covered;
That One by force of heat came into being;
Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
Gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?
Whether God’s will created it, or whether He was mute;
Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not;
Only He who is its overseer in highest heaven knows,
Only He knows, or perhaps He does not know.
— Rigveda10:129–6
I’m going to tell you a little bit about creation myths in Buddhism and Aboriginal Australia but first, let’s pause so I can say welcome and thanks, and to share information about a free webinar on July 8th, hosted by the Joseph Campbell Foundation.
First the webinar. On July 8, at 10:00 am Pacific time, the Joseph Campbell Foundation will host a free, live webinar with two of the authors of Goddesses: A Skeleton Key Study Guide, Dr. Joanna Gardner and Dr. Olivia Happel-Block.
Goddesses: A Skeleton Key Study Guide is the first in a series of Skeleton Key Study Guides written by contemporary mythologists and myth experts. I’m honored to know the authors of the Skeleton Key Study Guides and be part of the project. Myths to Live By: A Skeleton Key Study Guide that I wrote will be released later this summer.
I’m going to post a link to register for the webinar with the authors of the Goddesses: A Skeleton Key Study Guide with the transcript of this episode, or head straight over to jcf.org to sign up.
Thank you to the patreon patrons and bandcamp supporters of Myth Matters. Shout out to long-time supporters: Carmen and Paula. Thank you so much my friends! If you listening, are finding value in Myth Matters and can support this work in some way, whether that’s donating via patreon, buying me a coffee, posting a positive review, or emailing me to say “hey, I’m listening,”– that would be great.
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A couple more myths and perspectives on origins. What about Buddhism? Buddhism has its origins in India and is an evolution of Hindu philosophical trains of thought. The philosophies at the time and place of the Buddha postulated creation as a meeting of the permanent (self- atman) and the impermanent (everything else- the material world and also constructs like the ego).
In Buddhism, there’s no creator god to explain the origin of the universe. There is no god, period. And in many ways the question is irrelevant. Buddhism is concerned with the mind, and it an awakening of the mind to what is real. The eternal is the real. The rest is illusion.
The existence of things is explained by the concept of dependent arising. Everything exists together in a state of mutual causality. Present events are caused by past events and become the cause of future events. Life is an endless cycle. Buddhism is the exploration of the mind in this mix.
The oldest creation story today, one shared and lived for at least 40,000 years, is the Dreamtime of the Australian aboriginals. According to this mythology, everything came into existence when the Dreaming began in the mythic world of the Ancestor Beings. They emerged from the earth at the time of the creation and time began with their emergence. The ancestors, the primal forces and creative powers, made the sun, the moon and the planets. They moved over the earth, they gave it shape, and then they gave it all forms of life. When they did this, they laid down the ways of living and relationship between all created things as well.
Everything was created from the same source. Everything could transform into every other thing. Everything came into being in the Dreamtime and the dreaming continues in the lives of the people. The spiritual purpose of the people is to continue the dream, which is a recognition that all that was created has a place and is necessary, that our original shared source is the source of a primordial empathy between all things.
This empathy is the core of identity. The human self can only exist in nature, in the web of relations, as one piece of the dreaming. In this view, what is often called maintenance or preservation is a form of creation and the only time is now.
As you ponder the creation myth that informs your perspective, consider this question too: What is our human nature? Is there such a thing as a given, definable, intrinsic human nature? We’ll think about this question together in the next episode. In closing, here’s a poem by Sharon Olds that frames the question. It’s titled “First Hour.”
First Hour
That hour, I was most myself. I had shrugged
my mother off slowly, I lay there
taking my first breaths, as if
the air of the room was blowing me
like a bubble. All I had to do
was go out along the line of my gaze and back,
out and back, on gravity’s silk, the
pressure of the air a caress, smelling on my
self her creamy blood. The air
was softly touching my skin and tongue,
entering me and drawing forth the little
sighs I did not know as mine.
I was not afraid. I lay in the quiet
and looked, and did the wordless thought,
my mind getting its oxygen
direct, the rich mix by mouth.
I hated no one. I gazed and gazed,
and everything was interesting, I was
free, not yet in love, I did not
belong to anyone, I had drunk
no milk, yet—no one had
my heart. I was not very human. I did not
know there was anyone else. I lay
like a god, for an hour, then they came for me,
and took me to my mother.
—Sharon Olds, from The Unswept Room
If we have a better understanding of our need for myth and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world.
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.
Useful links:
Information and more poems by Sharon Olds at poetry foundation
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