A cosmogony is a single particular myth, theory or story about the creation or origin of the world or universe such as The Big Bang or Genesis.  To study cosmology does not refer to any particular story or cosmogony alone but to the open questions and to the unknown.  Modern cosmology has, for the most part in the area of popular science, fallen into the area of cosmogony, dealing only in one theory, The Big Bang Theory.  As will be discussed further along in these pages, this theory is not a logical or adequate one and does not lend itself to the great exploration this book serves to encourage.  Rigid belief in one particular idea, especially one with no basis in reality, does not serve the quest for the myriad secrets of the cosmos.

    The meaning of life and other secrets of the universe can be sought after for a lifetime with no solution, or an answer can be found that solves all the riddles. One is a natural part of being an inquisitive human being, and the other is a phenomenon of myth making. 

    That there even was an age-old search for the secrets of the universe was revealed to me when I was about 13 years old.  Prior to that, I did not know there were many unknowns or secrets to search for or ponder at all.  I was taught that all the answers were within the church. This, as it turned out, was not the case. Just knowing there was so much work to do and knowledge to be found was awe-inspiring.  It gradually became the core focus of my life and the source of dreams, visions, paintings, writing and study.

    Now at the age of 50 (as I write this), I can see that this has been a journey into the nature of what it is to be a human being.  The real secrets are all about how we work, think, believe and behave.  It is a search for the secret origins of our myths and cultural principles.  The secrets of the human experience and the strange history of life on earth are intertwined in a drama both strange and deadly.  The clues begin with the language used to pose the questions.  The answers come in the form of other questions leading to further inquiry and ever deepening mystery.

            “A myth is a way of thinking so deeply embedded in
             our consciousness that it is invisible.”

                         (Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman)

    Underneath the problems and crisis of the modern world is a complex puzzle combining human nature and physiology, instinct and psychology, language and rhetoric, innate needs and constructed desires, and a story rife with pitfalls, illusion, tricks and traps.  Nothing is as it seems and even the simple question, “Do you believe in God?”, I must answer with another question, “What do you mean by God?” Even the same person will give different answers at different times and the whole thing is quite interesting indeed.  Often times, over the years, just when I feel I have struck common ground in terms of higher power or universal dynamics, the gender issues comes into play once again and the walls of limitation squeeze in.  Especially when some of my own art inspires visions of the almighty male humanoid creative source, it is difficult to point to other ways of seeing, especially when I pinch my arm and speak of the tiny living things that I am made up of and what respect and awe I have for the smaller as well as the larger scheme of things.  I don't like to leave anything out.

    While there seems to be an innate need for myth within the human psyche, the complexity and illogical formation of the ingredients of popular myth does appear to have gone well beyond the natural requirements into something else altogether.  The chain of events leading up to the formation of legends and tales evolving into myth and religions has invisible elements that may be related to the problem of passing down information, mistranslation, need for population control, or the way memory adds in new details along the way.  It becomes something one is imbedded within rather than something one is consciously aware of.

   If the future holds a greater respect for the practice of not knowing the big answers and celebration of diverse ways of making connection with our deeper selves, without needing scientific formulas for what it all is, or means, or a one god (or theory) fits all mentality, then there is a chance for some kind of global international community with respect and appreciation all around.

   What after all is at the center of most wars and conflicts on Earth?  What would it look like if there were not such harsh divisions between who believes in which diety and people could sit down and play drums together?

   The cosmos is not a property of any particular group of humans, is it?
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Grand Unified Theory of Everything?...  (2007)  

  Thinking of everything, all of time and space and matter, as one single unified thing is a very strange concept and perhaps even quite irrelevant on a day-to-day basis as one navigates through a typical day of life on Earth.  Everything in the Universe may be physical, or in existence through its relationship to the physical, but we do not usually consider the space around our bodies as having physical form, for example, as though we are swimming through the air as we walk, and when we turn on a light we usually do not imagine all the billions of photons flying about.  Usually we consider there to be something or nothing and make distinctions between physical things as we negotiate through the physical world in time.  Thinking of “time” as a physical thing is also not a typical common sense notion, though time is a term referring to the physical motions or transformations of physical objects and things.  If nothing is moving or changing at all anywhere, where is the movement in time? 

   In the realm of spirituality, or human consciousness, where is the physical element?  Often there is an underlying assumption that this is an area separate and apart from the physical universe somehow, like we are not really a part of the grand unified theory of everything, but above it observing and defining it.  In every single case though, when I have heard definitions of spirit or soul there is the physical element present in the words and concepts.  Even for an individual soul to exist separate from a physical body there has to be a material boundary or some way to identify it and for it to exist in the imagination of the person describing it and there is dimension, location, and reality to it.  In general, the reality behind this kind of entity would require it to be deaf, dumb, blind, without senses of sight or sound or touch or smell, etc., and there would be no mental function or dreams or thinking, and no ability to move about in space and time.  In other words, it could not exist in any physical way.  Yet, in the world or religion and spiritual philosophy in general, the human soul is described as having quite an active physical life and varied occupations requiring detailed material action, reaction, and a distinct individual physical presence separate from all other souls.  So, in other words, humans are considered apart from The Universe.  How then can there be a Grand Unified Theory of Everything then?

   Well, as usual with much of my writing, I’ve gotten a little lost here.   What is the point?  The point is that humanity is really quite full of itself and above it all even considering the species as rising above the entire Universe itself somehow, not to mention Earth.  This attitude, set of beliefs and assumptions, and mythological paradigm is what allows humankind to utterly despoil our natural environment and wage wars and generally behave quite insanely while believing we are higher superior entities and above it all.

   What I am proposing is that human beings are actually quite amazing and fantastic as physical creatures having evolved upon a beautiful blue planet, and that imaginary realms of heavenly extraterrestrial origins need not apply.  There is no shame in considering humanity as having evolved along with and being a total part of this complex physical sensation known as The Universe.  In any Grand Unified Theory of Everything, the first thing that should be included is us.   Who, after all, is doing the thinking, figuring, and imagining anyway?  It’s all a human thing.

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WHO KILLED COSMOLOGY?…

an unscientific paradigm tale of seeing and knowing....

    Once upon a time, on the lovely great green Leaf, the greatest teacher in the leaf world gave his usual speech on modern cosmology.  “We now know that The Great Leaf Boom began in a single point, the cosmic seed, about 14 billion years ago growing forth to become our leaf universe”, he said.  He went on to say, “The latest very compelling evidence and final proof of The Great Leaf Boom is the detection of the distant micro rustling of distant leaves proving once and for all that the great growth of The Great Leaf Boom grew forth from the cosmic seed”.  This new evidence came atop of lots of other things such as the fact that the farther away things were, the faster they were rustling, even though this may not have been an actual fact it was declared an official fact by the king anyway.

    When a young student came in with a drawing of an idea, called The Trunk Theory about something called a "tree", the teacher explained patiently that this was not science but more along the lines of metaphysics and pure make believe.  He also said that all of the other far fetched ideas about things such as “soil”, “air”, “water”, or even going as far to theorize some gigantic realm called “Earth” was just preposterous, not to mention the even wilder ideas about stuff called “space” and a humongous thing called “The Sun”, and this weird “galaxy” idea someone came up with, well that was just insane altogether.

   All that there was, according to real science, was The Great Leaf Boom sitting alone in no space and no time coming from nowhere and returning to nowhere too.  "Science, in order to remain true to itself and endeavor to be pure and exacting in a professional way must remain within the lines of what is observed and avoid swaying into things that are “holistic”, “integral”, or common sense and natural.  We must continue to search for final details and fine tuning of The Great Leaf Boom model without being tempted to lean into fanciful notions related to general "reality", the professor explained.

   All theories needed to relate to the one true theory and explanations could only lead toward proving it alone.  Anything that would go against it, such as one wacko theory that expansion of the leaf universe was a separate phenomenon not related to any “boom” but rather related to everything local moving from an area of dense gravitational force to a much lesser one, like a bubble rising in the sea, must surely be total fantasy and unworthy of consideration.  After all, if it did not relate to The Great Leaf Boom, then it was unworthy, and there was no evidence whatsoever of this bizarre thing called a "sea".

   So, the greatest professor of all the leaf world continued to give this same speech year after year adding new details here and there and changing the age occasionally a billion or two more or less.  Many people believed that The Great Leaf Boom was the one and only true story of the cosmos and thought it wonderful that everything could just grow out of nothing from a little point this way and that everyone in the world had one single thing to believe in.  They even believed themselves to be like The Great Leaf Boom, coming from supernatural origins and not needing any sort of outside source or a root system to sustain them at all.  ("root": see outlandish theory)  Eventually, over time, things became so out of balance on Leaf that the ecosystems could no longer sustain life and Leaf became devoid of consciousness.  And that was that.

    There were no minds alive to think about weird ideas like air and water and soil anymore, and Leaf just hung there swaying in the wind under the Sun drinking up the water from the rain and in the Earth not seeming to care that there were no professors or students to ponder what was what or who was who, until one day it fell to the ground.   The old tree remained in the same place it had always been, next to the little creek among others of it’s kind with the occasional squirrel scampering through it’s branches.  It was not happy or sad or curious or confused.  It just grew in the sun and spread out it’s seeds making more trees down the little creek until it grew very old and fell over and went back into the Earth itself. 

(any resemblance to any particular person is purely coincidental and this tale relates to the overall field of popular Western cosmology in general related to the state of global devastation of ecosystems and constant extinction of life forms and it is a criticism of Eighth Grade text books in particular circa 1964 and the nature of restrictions in teaching science in general)

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Point missed?...seeing the universe through Big Bang colored glasses?...

   The short story above is one I wrote the other day in about the time it took me to type it, about 10 minutes.  Whether it makes a point or not is important, but the fact is that I seem to have missed the point I had set out to make in the first place is a bit odd.  What I wanted to get at was that ones system of thinking or cultural paradigm forms a sort of bubble around the types of inquiry or research one might be drawn to or think of at all in the first place.  For example, I learned in school that the center of the Earth is made of molten metal.  Since I was taught this fact, it would never occur to me to question what else it might be or what other forces or elements might be at work to form a planet or generate graviational and electromagnetic fields.  Also, it would be quite disturbing to realize that things presented to me in school as facts were in fact something else, such as theories, best guesses, logical conclusions, or most likely scenarios...things other than facts as I understood the term "fact". 

   What young person would dream something like "When I grow up I want to discover what is at the center of the Earth" when they were taught this was already known?

   So, here I am about to miss the point yet again which is that the importance of cosmology and the larger picture is partly that it relates to everything else...the nature of light or the atom, and the center of the Earth and Sun and the formation of galaxies, and what makes everything tick.  Someone once asked me "What difference does it make what the universe is all about?", and I realized that it makes all the difference in the universe.  There are great discoveries to be made all across the board and there is no place where one should not look.  The fact that there is so much unknown can be made a positive thing rather than something glossed over or hidden.

   Without diversity in thinking and cosmological paradigms, what is left as a field of study becomes stiffled and weak and less able to handle complex questions and creative models.   Be that as it may, or may not be, the most important thing, and the central theme of this site, is that when ideas crash into the realm of human behavior making it possible to destroy and despoil everything on Earth while believing that we have become superiour supreme intelligent beings is just not right.   We need all the help we can get, and there should be want ads for brilliant minds in every field with nothing closed or marked "case solved". 

   It should be obvious to anyone from outside the Western paradigm of thinking and envisioning that I am a man working inside this bubble struggling to discover for myself ancient wisdom of the Mayans (to use one culture to represent a full rainbow of cultures, cosmologies, and ways of being in the world, etc., including native American wisdom of many colors...) and to connect the dots, so to speak, and make sense of the many many dreams and visions I have had since I was about 12 years old.  Actually, this goes back farther to one night when I called my parents into my room as a child exclaiming that there was a flying saucer up in the sky. When I learned that it was actually a multi-colored star, the cosmos of mystery opened up for me.  Sirius is still "my star", and I always have a sense of awe and mystery when I see it.

   Standing, or swimming (as I love to do), under the stars reminds me that we are all "under the stars" together.  If there is ever a day when all the forms of wisdom around the world and throughout history all comes together in some kind of cosmic blend, the stars will still be there as they have for millions of years with countless names.  A star by any other name is still a mystery.