On Senses and Origins

From a post Sonya wrote last year when we did our first art project, "Just As I Am"

I'd been feeling rather flat today: feeling the struggle more than the delight and weighed down by what should be done and what might be rather than living in the moment.

It took my sense of smell to awaken me. I was standing in front of the stove making supper in the early afternoon. Stew to be exact. The tedious work for peeling and chopping was done. I was resigned to the fact that supper would be later than ideal. Just finished browning the meat (and the first batch was partially burned). And then it happened. In went the onion, the carrots, the celery, the garlic...and then the rosemary. Suddenly, the fragrance became overwhelming. Oh, it smelled so amazing! I just couldn't stop inhaling the incredible aroma. And a smile came to my lips, and a lightness to my soul...this was living!

As I washed up the dishes in the soapy water, I reflected on this experience, and was just as suddenly inspired to write about what I heard yesterday in my spiritual community, my church. My pastor (who has been so supportive of us in this process), was talking about the importance of our "origin story". What we believe about where we came from and how we arrived and why we're here affects us profoundly. It affects our purpose, our morality, and (one other thing I just can't remember right now!)

He went on to tell of a few different stories that are out there in the world. One of them was the Enuma Elish, where the purpose of the creation of man was to allow the gods more freedom from work:

When Marduk heard the words of the gods,
His heart prompted him to fashion artful works.
Opening his mouth, he addressed Ea
To impart the plan he had conceived in his heart:
"I will take blood and fashion bone.
I will establish a savage, ‘man’ shall be his name.
truly, savage-man I will create.
He shall be charged with the service of the gods
That they might be at ease!
The ways of the gods I will artfully alter.

So, if we took that to be true, we would have to see ourselves as nothing more than slaves created to do menial labour so that some higher beings would be freer to do what they wanted to without having to deal with "lower things" like taking care of the earth.

And he talked about the Hindu creation story and how different classes of people were taken from different parts of Brahma, the creator god, with the very lowest people taken from the dirt under his feet...and how this affects life in India even to this day.

And then there is the ongoing debate of whether we mutated over time to become the intelligent, creative, expressive people we are today, or whether we were the result of careful design (and there are all sorts of variations and ideas in between).

What we believe about our beginnings is crucial to how we live. I think I will be exploring this further... what about you?