I am often asked, "Where do you come from?" For many people, there is a simple answer. My husband, for example, was born and raised in a small farming community of 450 people. When he is asked this question, he can easily respond, "Hay, Washington." Yes, you heard right...HAY, Washington!
My story is not so simple. I was born in South Ruislip, United Kingdom, to a father who was a Mississippi-bred, American Airmen stationed in Chicksands, England and a mother whose family had emigrated from Poland during World War II, to Hitchin, England. That doesn't seem too complex, you might say, but let me throw this into the mix. Although I was born in England, I spent very little of my childhood there.
Before the age of 18, I had lived in three countries and ten towns. I graduated from a Department of Defense School in Wiesbaden, Germany called General H. H. Arnold High School. As a child, the longest period of time I spent in any once place, was five years in Germany. I have had people ask me if I was from Germany and I've even had people ask me why I do not have a German accent. I have had people ask me where my accent is from. My answer differs because if I'm talking to my father or his family, I tend to sound a little like them. Ya'll understand? If I'm talking to my mother or her family, I sound a little more aristocratic. I may not look the part, but I sure can sound the part!! In my normal day-to-day life, I have been told I sound like I'm from the midwest and even the northeast.
So when people ask, "Where do you come from?", the only answer I can give is "Everywhere!" Then the questions really start!!
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
9 Types of Creation Myths
One would think there would be one shared creation story, but as we saw in the lectures from the Big Myth website, there are numerous stories about how life on Earth began.
According to the book Creation and Procreation: Feminist Reflections on Mythologies of Cosmogony and Parturition by Marta Weigle, there are nine types of creation myths. Some cultures or religions, such as Christianity, take from multiple creation types to explain their beginnings.
- Accretion or Injunction stories are based on the earth, wind, fire or water uniting to form the world. In the Scandinavian creation myth, the cold of Niflheim and the hot of Muspelheim meet in the emptiness of Ginnungagap, where the ice melts to form the father, Ymir.
- Secretion myths state that vomit, sweat, urination, defecation, masturbation, web-spinning, and virgin birth or cloning created the world. Secretion myths do not, however, tell how the Earth and cosmos were created, only how humans came to be. According to the Scandinavian myth, Ymir's sweat created man and woman.
- Sacrifice stories use the idea that the act of killing a god causes creation. In Hindu creation stories, the god, Purusha, is dismembered, so creation can occur. His body becomes different parts of our world, such as the sun, the sky and the wind.
- Division or consummation myths are ones where creation occurred from the splitting of a "cosmic egg" or the consummation of earth and sky. In Finnish culture, Kalevala or Water-Mother, moves her knee causing 6 duck eggs to open and form the earth, sky, sun, moon, and clouds.
- Earth-diver myths believe the cosmos is formed from the sand or mud of a vast primeval sea. Native American creation stories refer to Earth-divers waking to find there is no land upon which to build a home. They dive into the water and retrieve a small piece of mud, thus creating the world.
- Emergence stories state that the first creature, human or race came from another world that is too small to hold them. Again, many Native American tribes believe that man fled a dark, cramped place and found a new world of light.
- Two Creators myths are those where two gods either cooperate or compete to create the world. The Acoma Pueblo believe the world was created by two sisters who rise from the ground and work together to invoke the sun and give life to plants and animals.
- Deus Fabor stories talk of the creation of the world by a god or maker, in his form. Christians believe that God created man in his own image.
- Ex nihilo myths are those where the world was created from nothingness. In the Christian Bible, the Book of Genesis talks of God speaking the universe into existence.
In the end, it is important that while our opinions of how life on Earth began may differ, we are all human beings and we must respect these differences, if we are to grow.
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