Philosophy Curriculum #3: Creation as a Joint Enterprise
when the world was spoken into being and the importance of a snail's shell
Last week, I explored how the earliest recorded voices sought to answer THE question: ‘how did we get here?’ Stories of chaos, darkness, void, cosmic eggs and some questionable familial relationships featured heavily in the quest of understanding our cosmic beginnings.
This week, the stories I explored started to bring in nature, language and the concept of us living within an ever continuing creation story.
In Egypt, the Memphite Theology focuses on how the world emerges through thought and speech. Language becomes power - not to conquer, but to bring into being. This creation story is all etched in hieroglyphics on the Shabaka Stone (displayed at the British Museum).
Similarly, Taoist cosmology describes the Tao, the mother of myriad creatures, as “shadowy, indistinct” and “silent and void”. The Tao is in everything - sustaining, maintaining and almost guiding creation through subtle balance rather than command.
Then I visited the Yoruba creation story where creation occurs as a result of a collaboration: some earth, a white hen, a snail’s shell, a black cat and a palm nut were all as integral to creation as the gods. Here we see nature and divinity working hand in hand.
In the Japanese creation story, cosmic eggs were still abound but they split open to reveal sky and earth through an unfolding.
What stood out most was how many of these stories depart from the notion mankind hold dominion over nature.
This is explored in more detail in Vandana Shiva’s set of essays on ecofeminism. She talks about mankind’s destructive relationship with nature and asks “who made nature our enemy?”. Her thoughts on regeneration, biodiversity and the Chipko women’s vision of freedom reframe these myths from cultural curiosities to a reminder that creation continues…it is ongoing. The permanence of such is dependent on how we interact with nature.
Week 1 left me wondering can we ever begin to explain the inexplicable?
This week, I am left with a sharper question: what happens if we imagine creation not as dominion but as a relationship to be nurtured continuously.
Next week, I am wrapping up my August curriculum by looking at how these stories are reinterpreted for the modern world and why myths still matters in philosophy today.
Full reading list is below if you’d like to join me on this journey :)
Week 3: read, watch and listen list:
Read:
Jeanette Winterson’s The Power Book or Weight
Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth
Karen Armstrong’s A Short History on Myth
Watch/Listen:
Ted Talk: East v West - the myths that mystify and Archetypes and Mythology: Why They Matter Even More So Today
Week 2 read, watch and listen list:
Week 1 read, watch and listen list:
