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30-Day Paganism Meme: Day 2, Beliefs – Cosmology

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From the World English Dictionary:

cosmology (kɒzˈmɒlədʒɪ) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]

—n
1. the philosophical study of the origin and nature of the universe
2. the branch of astronomy concerned with the evolution and structure of the universe
3. a particular account of the origin or structure of the universe: Ptolemaic cosmology

So, because I’m not a astro-physicist, I’m mainly going to concern myself with Def. 1 & Def. 3. I’m also going to state outright that this is my own personal interpretation, based largely on Hesiod, but other bits are taken from other places (some of which originally started as “Unverified Personal Gnosis”, but later elevated to “Confirmed Personal Gnosis” when I stumbled upon primary sources that described it).

…

First there was Khaos, void, absense of being. Some think She was literally nothing, a cosmic blank slate that anything could spontaneously generate itself in, but that makes no sense, because everything comes from something — I think She looked a little bit more like a Shoggoth, with Everything inside of Her, everything that was to come immediately after Her, and everything that wouldn’t happen for millions of years, like you and I, we were all just little randon strands of DNA floating about within her, waiting to happen — even, and including Eros and the Moirai, for nothing seems more chaotic than Love and Fate.

Now Khaos, like most feminine beings, soon found Herself lonely, as She was all that existed, but She also knew that She had this great wealth of everything in the universe within Her, even all that is still unknown to us mortals. She had but only one thing to do to relieve Her loneliness: Unleash the universe; and She took this task with great joy when it occurred to Her that She was not only without distinguishable form, but also Timeless and Eternal — unleashing the universe wouldn’t destroy Her, but it would simply let it all grow and evolve and enjoy Her gift of the Universe with Her. It was then that She evolved into Kosmos, for everything that was once one with Her formless form now was one in its own right, even if most of it had aeons to go to find its form.

The first to form from the gift of Khaos were Nyx and Erebos (Night & Darkness), the former female, the latter male, though otherwise identical, and within Nyx was an egg, and with the companionship She had from Erebos, and from the others who soon arose from Khaos’ gift —Gaia, Tartaros, The Moirai— the egg was born, and quickly broke open, and from it, full-formed, came Eros, who took His shell, intending to make a great gift from its pieces.

With Eros in Their presence now, Nyx and Erebos saw each-other as beautiful, and soon used what was in Them to create Hemara and Aither (Day & Light), and soon followed Eris, Nemesis, Moros, the Keres, Thanatos and His twin Hypnos, The Oneroi, and others, for the Moirai had already started Their work, which neither mortal nor immortal can ever go against, and the time for joys to come from darkness is always fleeting. From Gaia came Ouranos, who She created to be Her mate, and the two soon bore the Titan Gods and Goddesses, the Kyklopes, and the Hekatonkheires (storm giants). The Titans loved Their mother, and so They gave Her great things: Helios gave Her the Sun, so that Hemara would visit all of Her surfaces, and Selene gave Her the Moon, so that Nyx would visit the alternating surfaces.

The thing with the Titans and Olympians, you probably already know, and so the scaly things came first, and as the furry things were being discussed, Eros took His old shell pieces and gave Gaia the gift of the feathery things, because now that there were so many deathless ones, His heart was filled with joy, and so He invented song, even though later, the Moirai would decide that it was Apollon and the Mousai who would perfect song through Man.

When Aphrodite was born of the blood and semen Khronos cut from Ouranos’ groin, Eros and Himeros were there to receive Her.

…and there’s about where I’m brain-farting on all else, and it’s starting to turn more into theogeny than cosmology.

To wrap up, we’re in the Hesiodic Bronze Age, if I’m to be believed; and maybe I shouldn’t be believed, cos I got distracted yesterday and put off doing this today until I was high on malnourishment? Feel free to ask me anything that seems important to you that isn’t addressed cos I trailed off there.

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Eros, Birds, and Me

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Aristophanes said the birds wee born of Eros, and the associations between birds and Eros and Aphrodite apparently pre-dates that.

My friends know me as a cat-lover, and it’s hard for me not to love them — most of the cat’s I’ve known have been very affectionate (even if they appear to have no logic behind whom they’re affectionate toward — which seems an Eros-like quality, if you ask me), they’re usually pretty huggable, and if there’s any better way to warm your lap than to plant a kitty there, I haven’t discovered it.

…but I also love birds, it’s a seemingly inexplicable attraction, and the only time I attempted keeping a bird, I was about seven or eight and it was a female budgie who died from a drafty window — regardless, between the ages of seven and ten, I read every book about parrots and pigeons I could find, and my “favourite bird” seemed to change every year from the age of six (cardinals) to the age of fifteen (peafowl — and in-between that: 7 = rock doves [yes, I was that specific, and I could tell you most species of doves and pigeons at that age just by looking at pictures], 8 = rainbow lorikeets; 9 = hyacinth macaws; 10 = grey parrots [I have no fucking clue what I found so fucking awesome about parrots for three years]; 11 = Dodo / Victoria Crowned Pigeon [tie]; 12 = Victoria Crowned Pigeon; 13 = lyrebirds; 14 = flamingos / swans). For the most part, I don’t understand the attraction of keeping birds, as it seems far more cruel to keep a bird in a cage than, say, a hamster or a ferret or to keep a fish in a bowl — but at the same time, I’ve been hearing a siren song toward keeping Diamond Doves, which I don’t see working out too well, with three cats in the household. My impulse buys (and the worst sort of impulse buys — things that you may not immediately need, but which are useful to have, half the time you really can’t reason yourself out of not buying it) tend to have little abstract or stylised images of birds on them somehow. And a lot of my favourite software has a little bird icon on my Start Menu — hell, I’d probably even change my primary desktop browser to Flock, if it had a compatible FTP client extension (or at least if the browser FTP option for my servers wasn’t so annoying — and yes, I know about FileZilla, and I don’t like it that much).

I was always the little kid in the neighbourhood who rescued birds from the local cats, and always collecting feathers when the class went to the local nature reserves — and always very insistent that we weren’t done in the bird-watching room at the park, or the aviary at the zoo, even when the other children were bored stiff.

I frequently remind myself that this could all just be coincidence, but when I feel Eros, or His Essence, or whatever you like to call it; when I hear his voice distinctly and get clear images of His face and body, I can’t help but think that these predelictions were planted into my consciousness by the Moirai, who He remains closer to than all other singular deities.