\nCreation stories effectively tell the story of the very first spring and in most cases the supreme being is either slain and dismembered, commits an act of self sacrifice or simply dies. In many cases the creator\u2019s body transforms into the sun and the moon (often the god\u2019s eyes), the air, the clouds (breath), rivers and oceans (blood) and rocky mountains (bones). These deities include the Chinese P\u2019an Ku, the Egyptian Osiris, the Hindu Purusa\/Prajapati, the Norse Ymir, the Penobscot First Mother and others.
\nA form of symbolic dismemberment is found in the Maori of New Zealand and their creation story, which describes grandmother Rangi and grandfather Papa in primordial times as one indivisible being that painfully\u00a0 separated to become earth and sky, allowing the sun to shine on the waters. As earth and sky, Papa and Rangi had eleven grandchildren who took the form of different types of clouds, from Glowing Red to Wildly Drifting. Rangi still weeps because of her separation from Papa and her tears form the morning dew.<\/p>\n
![\"cumulo\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1647\/2023\/03\/Cumulo-Wiki-C-David-Kratschmann.jpg\")
<\/a>The Maori creation story seems to describe the end of a divinely quiescent primordial existence imbued with male and female qualities and the birth of a perpetual, constantly transforming and riotous planetary water cycle. Lesser deities across cultures \u2013 the \u201cchildren\u201d manifested by supreme beings \u2013 were often equated with clouds ripped apart by thunder and lightning in spring storms to rain down divine and germinating waters. In Hindu tradition, the rainy season begins when the creator god Lord Indra used a trident-like vajra to send lightning bolts against the cloud-binding dragon Vrtra to release the waters of the world. A poet-sage who wrote the Vedic hymns, Dadhicha, agreed to his own sacrifice so his bones could be fashioned into the vajra. His sacrifice meant Dadhicha\u2019s soul would rise all the way to the highest heaven of Param Padam. Dismemberment and death followed by the reintegration and putting back together of the body is the most common feature of the youthful initiation of a shaman. Scholars believe a primary reason for the ritual is to break down cultural conditioning in order to make psychic space for the development of shamanic skills. The Aboriginal Wiradjuri of southeast Australia say when a shaman\u2019s apprentice flies to the heavens the creator Baiame \u201csings a piece of quartz crystal into their foreheads so that they will have x-ray vision.\u201d Quartz was always part of a shaman\u2019s medical bag because it helped navigate the spirit world and locate the wandering souls of ailing patients. In Buddhism<\/a> one finds the hand of a metaphorical horticulturist who chooses a strong genus of root stock and then grafts upon it a variety of stems, leaves, flowers and fruits. This common root stock of prehistoric symbols of clouds, rain, thunder and lightning were borrowed and remade. (Ben H. Gagnon is the author of Church of Birds: an eco-history of myth and religion<\/em>, just released on March 31 from John Hunt Publishing in London; now available to order here<\/a> and through other booksellers. More information can be found at this website<\/a>, including a link to a pair of videos on the book posted on YouTube.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In ancient springtime rituals of dismemberment, the breaking apart and death of the deity is associated with storm clouds ripped apart by thunder and pouring out life-giving rain. Creation stories effectively tell the story of the very first spring and in most cases the supreme being is either slain and dismembered, commits an act of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4854,"featured_media":1431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,171,99,1],"tags":[888,879,897,735,894,873,891,876,903,900,912,906,915,882,885,579,870,909],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-new-visions","category-pagan","category-uncategorized","tag-baiame","tag-bodhi-tree","tag-dionysus","tag-dismemberment","tag-eliade-param-padam","tag-forrest-river","tag-huaca-la-florida","tag-lord-indra","tag-maori","tag-osiris","tag-penobscot","tag-pan-ku","tag-rangi","tag-st-bueno","tag-st-tegla","tag-vajra","tag-wiradjuri","tag-ymir"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nIt\u2019s no coincidence that dismemberment rituals occurred in spring \u2013 they were celebrations of the birthday of creation. In ancient Egypt the floodwaters of the Nile made the dismembered Osiris whole again as the god of fertility and agriculture. In Greek myth Dionysus is torn apart by the Titans and reborn in spring plants and flowers.
\nThis concept is reflected in the ritual sacrifice of white, furry animals that were taken as symbols of the cloud, such as cows, goats and sheep. As scholar Andrew Lang wrote in The Making of Religion (<\/i>Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898), dismembering an animal was \u201can imitation of what befell the god (in the sky)\u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Lord Indra\u2019s trident<\/h4>\n
\nIn another twist on the same theme the Penobscot of Maine tell of a self-sacrificing \u201cfirst mother\u201d who was happiest when walking in the waters of a stream and grew sad when she came out of the water.
\nWhen her children grew hungry she asked her husband to kill her and drag her around a field in order to make the ground yield food. The first mother said, \u201c \u2026 when seven moons have passed let them go again to the field and gather all that they find, and eat; it is my flesh \u2026 \u201d Her husband reluctantly carried out her wish and her predictions came true.
\nAlthough Christ was not dismembered, his limbs being splayed on the cross resonated with the nature religions concept of springtime dismemberment and self-sacrifice that is meant to benefit the rest of the community.<\/p>\nSeeing with new eyes<\/h4>\n
\nIn Mircea Eliade\u2019s Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy<\/em> (Princeton University, 1964), the author describes a shaman\u2019s apprentice flying away with swans and ducks to a mountain where a blacksmith in a cave dismembers him and boils his body in a massive cauldron for three years, and then puts him back together with new eyes.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nAboriginal medicine men in the Forrest River region of western Australia symbolically taking a young apprentice to the sky on a rainbow snake, according to Eliade..
\nOnce ascended, the medicine man inserted small rainbow snakes and quartz crystals into the apprentice\u2019s body as part of his transformation into shaman who could see the spirit world. They would then return to earth on the great rainbow serpent.
\nDating back about 2,000 years in central Peru, the Huaca La Florida temple in Rimac included a four-year-old child whose eye-sockets were filled with shiny mica, buried under the corner of one of the temple buildings.
\nIn a similar vein the remarkable story of St. Bueno of north Wales describes him walking into the middle of a river to pray and not recognizing a servant who followed him. For some reason St. Bueno reacted by having the servant torn apart by wild animals. Recognizing his error, he reassembled the servant but couldn\u2019t find an eyebrow so he used the iron tip of his pastoral staff. Brought back to life, the servant became a priest who tended a holy well at his church at Lalanaelhaiarn, where the sick came to bathe.
\nSt. Bueno was also known for resurrecting slain women and making land fertile for fruit trees and cattle. Also in Wales, St. Tegla was said to place two stars in the eyeless sockets of man. These remsarkable stories and others can be found in Nigel Pennick\u2019s The Celtic Saints<\/em> (Sterling Publishing Co., 1997)<\/p>\nBuddhist spiritual transformation<\/h4>\n
\nFor example, the Buddha replaced the ancient belief that raindrops contained the seeds of vegetation with the concept of a divine rain that brings about spiritual growth. Tibetan Buddhism<\/a> holds that a bodhisattva who has reached the stage of the 10th bh\u016bmi shares the Buddha\u2019s divine ability to shower the world with spiritual rain.
\nIn Tibetan tradition, the Buddha transformed Lord Indra\u2019s vajra (a trident that shoots lightning) by turning the two outer points of the trident inward and creating the magical effect of transforming base emotions into spiritual purity.
\nAt the moment of the Buddha\u2019s Great Awakening under the Bodhi tree, \u201cthunder crashed, and great bolts of lightning flashed across the sky as if to rip the heavens in two,\u201d according to Thich Naht Hanh\u2019s Old Path White Clouds<\/em> (Parallax Press, 1992), based on the oldest remaining Sanskrit and Pali texts on the Buddha\u2019s\u00a0 life.<\/p>\n