This essay is an edited excerpt from the Introduction to the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion
Dawn and dusk, seasons, supernovas – it is an ongoing Event of coming into being and passing away. The Cosmos is always in flux, and we exist as participants in this great ritual, this “cosmic ceremony of seasonal and diurnal rhythms” which frame “epochal dramas of becoming”, as Charlene Spretnak describes it[1]. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry describe the universe as a dramatic reality, a Great Conversation of announcement and response[2]. Ritual may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe – an act of conscious participation. Ritual then is a “microcosmos”[3] – a human-size replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in. Swimme and Berry describe ritual as an ancient response humans have to the awesome experience of witnessing the coming to be and the passing away of things[4]. It is a way in which we may respond to this awesome experience of being and becoming – hold the beauty and the terror.
Humans have exhibited this tendency to ritualize since the earliest times of our unfolding: there is evidence of burial sites dating back at least one hundred thousand years, and often going to huge effort, that is almost incomprehensible to the modern industrialised econocentric mind. The precise placing of huge stones in circles such as found at Stonehenge and the creation of complex sites such as Silbury Hill are expressions of some priority, indicating that econocentric thinking – such as tool making, finding shelter and food, was not enough or not separate from the participation in Cosmic events. Ritual seems to have expressed something essential to the human – a way of being integral with our Cosmic Place, which was not separate from material sustenance, the Source of existence: thus it was a way perhaps of sensing “meaning” as we might term it these days – or “relationship”.
Swimme and Berry note that the order of the Universe has been experienced especially in the seasonal sequence of dissolution and renewal; this most basic pattern has been an ultimate referent for existence[5]. The seasonal pattern contains within it the most basic dynamics of the Cosmos – desire, fullfilment, loss, transformation, creation, growth, and more. The annual ritual celebration of the Seasonal Wheel – the Earth-Sun sacred site – can be a pathway to the Centre of these dynamics, a way of making sense of the pattern, a way of sensing it. One enters the Universe’s story. The Sabbats when practiced in the art form of ceremony may be sens-ible “gateways” through the Flesh of the world to the Centre – which is omnipresent Creativity.
Humans do ritual everyday – we really can’t help ourselves. It is simply a question of what rituals we do, what story we are telling ourselves, what we are spelling ourselves with – individually and collectively.
NOTES:
[1] Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.145.
[2] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.153.
[3] Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.145.
[4] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.152.
[5] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.152.
REFERENCES:
Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005.
Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993.
Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.