The Universe is a Green Dragon - a Cosmic Creation Story

Brian Swimme

The universe is a singularity. To speak you need to compare things…..But there is only one universe. We cannot compare the universe to anything. It is outrageous to compare the universe to a green dragon, I know, but I hope this will express some of my astonishment at what we now know about the universe.

At the beginning…..To speak of the universe’s origin is to bring to mind the great silent fire at the beginning of time. Imagine a universe out of which everything came forth…..all that now exists was there at the beginning, in that great burning explosion of light.

Humans can now interact with the cosmic radiation from the origin of the universe… Everything that now exists in the universe came from a common origin.

To learn about creativity we must begin to understand the creativity of the Earth. We know of no other planet with Earth’s creative power. I speak now of Earth as a whole, as a creative entity. Earth creates the land masses, the mountain ranges, the atmosphere…..Earth will continue to create for billions of years….Earth created the oceans, a stupendous feat. We have yet to find another ocean in this galaxy, another lake or river. We know no others beside our own.

For all we know there may be no other planet with such creative power. Page 30

We are the latest, the most recent, the youngest extravagance of this stupendously creative Earth.

The universe continues to unfold, continues to reveal itself to itself through human awareness.

The human provides the space in which the universe feels its stupendous beauty….

I sometimes think the primacy deed of a parent is to see the beauty and grace of children. Children are magnificent gorgeous beyond telling. They themselves have no idea of the beauty they embody. Can you see the tragedy of a child with no one to feed and cherish its beauty? No one to fall in love with this magnificent creature. No one to celebrate its splendour? Page 32

We are here approaching an ULTIMATE MYSTERY…….All that has existence erupted out of nothing, all of being erupted into shinning existence.

The creation story unfurling within the scientific enterprise provides the fundamental arena of meaning, for all peoples of the Earth. For the first time in human history, we can agree on the basic story of the galaxies, the stars, the planets, minerals, life forms, and human cultures. …..

We are enveloped by a universe that is a single energetic event, a whole, a unified, multiform, and glorious out-pouring of being.

We have a vast new empirically grounded story of the universe, one that explodes beyond any previous telling of reality, one that encompasses all peoples because it is rooted in concrete experience. Within this emerging story we can continue our journey to our fullest destiny.

To become love in human form is our fullest destiny. Page 40

The universe is a single multiform event. There is no such thing as a disconnected thing. Each thing emerged from the primeval fireball, and nothing can remove the primordial link this established with every other thing in the universe, no matter how distant. You and everything you do and become are further articulations of the primal fireball. Page 60.

Those who awake to the splendour of the universe ignite life in others. Are you aware that you can and you alone are able to draw forth life in ways that no one else in the universe can?

The ultimate mystery from which all beings emerged prefers Ultimate Extravagance, each being glistening with freshness, ontologically unique, never to be repeated…..not one is redundant. Page 61.

….The simplest prokaryotic organisms struggled ceaselessly and with stunning success, altering the nature of the Earth permanently. They roamed through life and hatched those seeds of power we call genes. ….Your life emerges through their creativity….All the hundreds of thousands of genes in our bodies that enable such lambent beauty to delight the planet were handed to us by these primitive creatures. Page 62.

The powers that build the universe are ultimately mysterious, issuing forth and operating out of mystery….We are still learning what is means to become fully human Page 87.

To live as a mature human being is to journey home, and our home is enchantment. Page 95

Page 99…is a chapter on memory. The cosmos remembers in its own way and we see this most clearly in the land.

The sequence of molecules that make up your DNA is a sequence of memories….When you eat grains, legumes, and good fresh meat and vegetables, you enable your body to remember its powers. …..Eating is a form of memory….To exercise means to bring into action. To remember is to know. To know the story of life includes eating natural foods. The body remembers damaging events of the past so that the mistakes can be avoided in the future.

Life Page 113.

For billions of years, death was not a necessity. Death was an invention of evolutionary creativity. Don’t think of death as extinction….Rather than hiding from your death, embrace your death. It will serve you. Page 117

Cherish your awareness of death as a gift to you from the universe. Page 118.

The creation of new life form is not determined, but is the outcome of life’s intrinsic freedom. Page 120

Play is essential to the human species. Page 123.

Fire Chapter.

We are in the presence of unseen organizing activity Page 129.

We must face the mystery of unseen shaping.

There is nothing that does not exist outside unseen shaping. The Earth is a self-organizing process of astounding complexity and achievement.

The ground of being is generosity. The ultimate source of all that is, the support and well of being, is Ultimate Generosity. All being comes forth and shines, glimmers and glistens, because the root reality of the universe is generosity of being. That’s why the ground of being is empty: everything has been given over to the universe; all existence has been poured forth; all being has gushed forth because Ultimate Generosity retains no thing.

It was out of the dynamic of cosmic celebration that we were created in the first place. We are to become celebration and generosity, burst into self-awareness. What is the human? The human is a space, an opening, where the universe celebrates its existence. ….

….To remember the beauty of the universe, to enhance your sensitivity to the magnificence of the Earth, to pursue the central allurement of your life: all lead to a super-concentration of being, with its inevitable desire to celebrate itself. ..
…Profound joy insists upon song and dance. Don’t ask anyone what to celebrate: don’t even ask yourself! Let celebration be. Let generosity of being happen. Nothing more is required.

Take the supernovas as your models. When they had filled themselves with riches, they exploded in a vast cosmic celebration of their work. What would you have done? Would you have had the courage to flood the universe with your riches? Or would you have talked yourself out of it by pleading that you were too shy? Or hoarded your riches by insisting that they were yours and that others did not deserve them because they did not work for them? Remember the supernova’s extravagant generosity and celebration of being.