A supernova event may be understood as expressing the poiesis of Summer Solstice: the Star matures, after billions of years of shining forth, and explodes. It is “simultaneously a profound destruction and yet an exuberant creativity.”[i] As Swimme and Berry tell it:
The more closely we look at any place in the fifteen billion years of the universe’s story, the more we realize that the universe is both violent and creative, both destructive and cooperative. The mystery is that both extremes are found together. … (this is because) our universe is self-energising. All the energy of the universe is needed by the entire universe for its own development. No development anywhere in the Universe can take place without energy. The second law of thermodynamics points out that constructive activity needs energy and inevitably produces entropy, or waste. Every development has a cost, an inescapable cost. A price must be paid for creativity; an energy payment must be made for maintaining beauty; an energy payment is demanded for any and all advance.[ii]
There is a sacrificial dimension that the universe has. There is difficulty with the word sacrifice because of a history of misuse, but “for our ancestors a sacrificial act was a way of making holy.”[iii] A supernova explosion is a sacrificial event, that “shapes the future and has been prepared for since the beginning of time.”[iv]
Brian Swimme develops this into how we (all beings) are Food for the Universe. He says: “Every moment of our lives disappears into the ongoing story of the Universe. Our creativity is energising the whole:”[v] thus we may understand ourselves as “the Bread of Life.” In the traditional Pagan version of the story, the God is the Bread – the grain that has ripened and become food.[vi]But in the earliest stories, the Goddess Herself was the grain:[vii] and I interpret that to mean that we are each the grain … the Sun ripens in all of us, we are each required to become food, we are food whether we like it or not. The Mystery of the Universe is present in each and all. Individual creativity is given away, and the model for this “Give-Away” as Starhawk names it,[viii]may be the generosity of the Sun, which is the very source of our sustenance.
An excerpt from Chapter 9, A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos, Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.
NOTES:
[i] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 49.
[ii] Ibid., 51-53.
[iii] Ibid., 59.
[iv] Ibid., 49.
[v] Canticle to the Cosmos, video 5 “Destruction and Loss.”
[vi] Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, 205-207. Starhawk also discusses “whether this figure should be specifically male, androgynous, male and female both, or an abstract representation of the sun,” 260.
[vii] See Berger, The Goddess Obscured.
[viii] The Spiral Dance, 236.
REFERENCES:
Berger, Pamela. The Goddess Obscured. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985.
Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Bergen, Norway: 2023
Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: Harper and Row, 1999.
Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Swimme, Brian. Canticle to the Cosmos. DVD series. CA: Tides Foundation, 1990.
PaGaian Cosmology 
Reblogged this on Fabienne S. Morgana and commented:
In the lead up to the Summer Solstice for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere – as always, I find myself returning to the insightful and poetic works from Dr Glenys Livingstone.
hello dear Fabienne
there seems to be a problem with the link to your reblog – it says “error”.
Thank you ❤
I’ll try another way xx
In The Spiral Dance, 205-207. Starhawk also discusses “whether this figure should be specifically male, androgynous, male and female both, or an abstract representation of the sun,” 260.
Being male myself, I see a role for both male and female in our Cosmos and Hir evolution. I assign Life Creation to the Female. I assign Energy to the Male.
Yes, Energy, the Male factor, is spent and wasted in Creation, just as a billion sperms are lost in Conception of one new Life inside the Female. The male energises the female, enabling Her to grow Life inside Her.
I equate the Male with heat, gamma rays, energy in every form, and the Female with Life, which uses energy to begin and to grow. I assign the Male role of energy provider to the Sun and the other stars, and the Female creativity to the planets. I use the pronouns I, E, Hir.
hello Aidan
I’m not sure which figure you are referring to exactly – the Sun, the bread or the grain: but no doubt I have most likely used the female metaphor for all. 🙂
It is indeed apparent that the male has a role in Cosmic evolution – diversity took a huge leap with the advent of meiosis (about 1.5 billion years ago), and thus also the other 2 qualities of cosmogenesis. She is all about enhancing creativity. Reproduction via mitosis still apparently happens in some species particularly.
I know many cultures use the male metaphor for Sun, and indeed one may use whatever Poetry feels best and is creative for one’s self, as you do.
As you no doubt know (but for any who may be reading this thread), I write quite a bit about my thoughts on femaleness and maleness in PaGaian Cosmology p.59-62 in particular (Chapter 2).
Your chosen pronouns are interesting – of course! ever creative as you are …