This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 1 of the author’s book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony.
Cosmologist Brian Swimme and geologian Thomas Berry note that biological life on planet Earth is shaped by “three fundamentally related, though distinct causes,”[i] and they reflect that these powers further illustrate the “root creativity” of the Universe that finds expression in the three qualities of Cosmogenesis, that they have described – differentiation, communion, and autopoiesis .[ii] These three shaping powers of the biosphere of life’s journey here on Earth, are genetic mutation, natural selection, and conscious choice/niche creation. I in turn find in their descriptions of these three biological shaping powers, a further articulation of the nature of the three faces of the Female Metaphor/Dea.
Swimme and Berry find in genetic mutation a biological illustration of differentiation – it is this power of mutation that gives rise to genetic variation. They describe it as a “pressure toward the future within each moment (that includes) a pressure for uniqueness,”[iii] and I have come to identify Young One/Virgin energy – the Urge To Be – this way. They describe this dynamic with various words such as “chance, random, stochastic and error,” finally summarizing the quality as wild – “a great beauty that seethes with intelligence, that is ever surprising and refreshing.”[iv] I associate such a description with the Young One/Virgin, particularly as She is celebrated at Beltaine/High Spring. I came to call this “the Poetry of genetic creation,” which is an allusion to Thomas Berry’s seventh principle of a functional cosmology, where he is stating the significance of the genetic coding process for life’s expression and being.[v]
For Swimme and Berry, natural selection illustrates the dynamic of communion – it is this power that sculpts the diversity, crafts it. They describe natural selection as a
dynamic of interrelatedness … that presses, always and everywhere, for a deep intimacy of togetherness … (deep into) the very structure of genes, body, mind.[vi]
Swimme and Berry describe natural selection as a communal reality – a bonding process – wherein a species engages in finding its place in a biophysical community, and this seems similar to David Abram’s understanding of it as a “reciprocal phenomenon:”[vii] that is, a dialogue or conversation between the organism and the environment. The conventional and popular notion of the environment being “fixed,” and to which the organism must conform was challenged by biologist Lynn Margulis in her groundbreaking research.[viii] These descriptions of the flux between organism and Earth, as a co-creation of place, have deepened my understanding of the nature of the Mother face of the Female Metaphor/Dea – as the Place to Be; a Place that is a dynamic point of Interchange, a vibrant reciprocity, and that is celebrated particularly at the Winter and Summer Solstices. The Solstices are points of interchange between the light and the dark, the dark and the light, where one is seeded in the other. I came to call these Seasonal Moments, “Gateways” – places of Birth, either into form or into dissolution; they are points that celebrate life’s transitions of birth and death, the holy Moments of the annual cycle that celebrate the interchange between the biological self (a singularity, be it species or individual) and existence (All-That-Is).
Swimme and Berry describe the third biological shaping power of niche creation or conscious choice as a biological illustration of the Cosmogenetic dynamic of autopoiesis.[ix] Ordinarily, scientific accounts do not give niche creation/conscious choice as much importance as the other two biological shaping powers, but Swimme and Berry argue for its equal inclusion saying that at points of major evolutionary change, conscious choice becomes the primary explanation for the change. They call for more recognition of the self-organizing dynamics within all life forms, of “behavior that can be interpreted as manifestations of memory, of discernment concerning questions of temperature and nutrient concentration, of a basic irreducible intelligence.”[x] They express that even minimal powers of this kind have resulted in primal decisions on the part of organisms which have sent the biosphere into pathways forever characterized by those decisions. As a premise to their perception Swimme and Berry argue against the conventional notion of a “fixed environment” pointing out its limitations, stating rhetorically that a species always creates its own niche. They present the example of the horse and the bison who come from a common ancestor but are now very different forms of life – the different choices made by their primordial ancestors created two different worlds, with different selection pressures constellated for each, and these shaping the genetic diversity accordingly.[xi] They describe this dynamic of niche creation as a felt “vision” or simple thrill wherein the creature responds to this inner attraction to pursue a particular path – much like the power of imagination draws the human. I associate this energy with the Crone/Old One, particularly as She is celebrated at Samhain/Deep Autumn, drawing forth the future, conceiving the new, from Her dark sentient depths. In the human this imaginative power is sometimes simply felt, sometimes “seen,” always an act of will. I came to call this “the Poetry of trans-genetic creation” which is an allusion to Thomas Berry’s ninth principle of a functional cosmology,[xii] where he is stating the significance of human language – “cultural coding.”
NOTES:
[i] The Universe Story, 125.
[ii] Ibid., 132.
[iii] Ibid., 133.
[iv] Ibid., 126-127.
[v] See Livingstone, A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, Appendix A.
[vi] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 134.
[vii] The Spell of the Sensuous, 247.
[viii] Margulis refers to the work of Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky and philosopher of science Karl Popper, saying that: “the activities of each organism lead to continuously changing environments. The oxygen we breathe, the humid atmosphere inside of which we live, and the mildly alkaline ocean waters in which the kelp and whales bathe are not determined by a physical universe run by mechanical laws; the surroundings are products of life interacting at the planet’s surface.” Cited in Connie Barlow, ed., From Gaia to Selfish Genes: Selected Writings in the Life Sciences (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1994), 237.
[ix] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 132.
[x] Ibid.
[xi] Ibid., 136-138.
[xii] See Livingstone, A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, Appendix A.
REFERENCES:
Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.
Barlow, Connie, ed. From Gaia to Selfish Genes: selected writings in the Life Sciences. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1994.
Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Girl God Books: Bergen, Norway, 2023.
Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.