Salwan d hum 1

Creation & Consciousness Discussion

Hello Class!

Let us examine these myths and their relation to consciousness.

For your initial post (Due by Feb 15 Sunday 11:59p):

Are there similarities between the creation myths/legends? What parallels did you note? Please describe.
What questions do you think the people during the era were trying to answer? Do you believe this question was conceived by their conscious experience? Why or why not? Please use examples when possible.
Do you see influences or similarities in these myths/legends with your personally learned myths/legends of creation?
Do your personally learned myths/legends influence your consciousness? How so? If not, how has your conscious experience altered your thoughts/perceptions of your personally learned myth/legend?

Example 1

1. The creation myths both share similar upbringings in myths. The Norse creation myth and the Aztec myth both share a mutual upbringing of the world’s being built upon a monster. The Aztecs had certain gods who had attacked a monster, which created the world. The Norse Myth is just as similar to a set of brothers defeating a monster for the flesh was created to create the world. Both of these myths say that the worlds are made up of reincarnation, and it is now being recycled for a new world.

2. I think the people during this era were asking many reasonable questions. I think the genre of questions consisted of why certain planes or certain areas existed in the midst of their universe or void. The Norse had to think about how their world was able to exist, and the Aztecs had questioned whether their world could exist as well. I agree that the questions they were asking were conceived by conscious experience because of their actual lives. These people had lived amongst what they had said or written about, not fake, made-up concepts.

3. I believe I can see a similarity between these myths and my own learnt myths that it is written with perception, and it had to have come from one’s conscious mind. I believe we all tend to ask ourselves questions of why things had to happen or how, no matter the creation myth.

4. I believe my conscious experience has altered my thoughts on certain creation myths by the simple tasks or simple things I tend to learn to break those myths or legends. The myths and legends I had intaken when I was a kid, to now perceiving the world as I do doesn’t align, and it is crazy to realize how different it can alter it. A lot of the creation stories I have heard growing up, I don’t align myself with because of how my conscious experience has been.

Example 2

1. Are there similarities between the creation myths/legends? What parallels did you note?

One of the parallels I noted was the splitting of a being to create the heavens and the earth. Both Aztec and Norse myths had this aspect, and along with the Mesopotamian creation myth, that makes three creation stories where this has occurred! There’s also the parallel of the blood becoming the oceans/seas with the Mesopotamian myth, but that’s another discussion. There’s also the similarities of there not being a “nothing” and then a “something” — both befores to Aztec and Norse myths already existed, and from them came the gods/world we know. The cycle of creation-destruction-rebirth is also something I noticed in both stories.

2. What questions do you think the people during the era were trying to answer? Do you believe this question was conceived by their conscious experience? Why or why not?

I think a lot of mythology has to do with two things: agriculture and the life cycle. The growth of crops must have seen a miracle to ancient cultures, and they likely tracked their cycles closely. They noted when the cold came and likely tried dozens of ways to “bring back” the sun and kept doing what “worked”. They needed explanations and reasons for why the crops would stop growing, or the world grew cold, and in looking for those explanations came the stories of gods. The life cycle is also something I think influenced the creation of mythology. Humans desperately, even to this day, yearn to know what lies beyond. We’re inherently scared of death because it is the unknown — imagining what could come after, an “after-life”, gave a sense of ease to people who needed it. And then of course there’s the pure existence of birth. Imagine early people watching women get pregnant and give life, something only the powerful gods were said to be able to do! There’s a reason there’s so many fertility gods, goddesses, and celebrations! All this to say, I absolutely think the questions that needed answering were conceived by the conscious experience. These people lived and saw and experienced, and in doing so, they wondered. They needed answers. Humans are rational beings, and they need reasons — if they can’t find a reason, they’ll make their own.

3.Do you see influences or similarities in these myths/legends with your personally learned myths/legends of creation?

I was raised Christian, and so my most well known creation myth is the one in Genesis. Some similarities I see are humankind being made from some sort of organic, earthy material, such as clay or wood. There are many cycles of creation and destruction in them all as well.

4. Do your personally learned myths/legends influence your consciousness? How so? If not, how has your conscious experience altered your thoughts/perceptions of your personally learned myth/legend?

I suppose it does affect my consciousness, whether I’d like to admit it or not. Like I stated above, humans are scared of the unknown, of death. And I, surprisingly, am human. I like to imagine an afterlife of some kind, a place where I’m reunited with my loved ones and my ancestors, a place where I can finally find peace, and that hopeful thinking persists despite my rational brain deciding that all of this is just made up stuff in our brains to help us cope with existence. I’ve experienced too many things that cannot be explained in regards to the afterlife for me to say with 100% certainty that it’s all in our heads. Maybe growing up with an idea of Heaven, or simply an afterlife of some kind and/or spirits due to a very “spirit centric” grandmother, has influenced these events. But I won’t know until it’s eventually my turn to jump ship.

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Creation & Consciousness Discussion

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