Pray to the Moon when She is round,
Luck with you will then abound,
What you seek for shall be found
On the sea or solid ground.

Monday, May 14, 2012

For the Files: His Own Cosmology


I wanted to write about a dream I had last night, but the Little Lad who claimed he was "so tiiiired" stayed up very, very late. This led to a conversation which I do not want to forget. It caused me to have one of those curious, child-inspired moments where surprise & a touch of awe blend together to make you cock your head & flash them a crooked smile while you stall-out in wonderment. It made me think & think again. So, the dream discussion will have to wait. This is one "for the files."

I read to the Little Lad from "A Little Book of Fairy Tales, Rhymes & Riddles," a small book which arrived in this special package: In the Drip of an Eave (something I intend to discuss further if life ever permits). He has been very enamored with the various rhymes & stories in this book. In fact, he startled me today by unexpectedly reciting one of the rhymes verbatim -- I had no idea he had memorized it. I did not think I had even read it enough times for him to have learned it.

By this evening, I had already read everything in the book with the exception of "The Maiden Without Hands" which I specifically avoided because it relies very heavily on certain concepts: "God," the "Devil," evil, piety, angels, etc. I knew this would require much question asking & answering -- not really the attributes of a sleep-inspiring bedtime story. Besides, we work very hard to leave concepts of cosmology open-ended, so concepts such as these require careful, delicate explanation. Honestly, sometimes I am just not in the mood, especially when I must explain belief systems which contain -- in my experience -- a great deal of objectionable content.

Anyway, we came to a part of the story in which the King employs the assistance of a priest who was to speak to a spirit for him. Of course, this precipitated a deluge of questions, beginning with, "What is a priest?" "What do they do?" In the course of this discussion, I tried to make it clear that there are many different names for people who are variously ordained to provide services to many, many different kinds of "churches" & that all those different people believe very different things about how the world works. I even gave him examples of people he knows personally who believe different things, attend various churches, or don't subscribe to any of it at all. All of this, of course, was explained in child-speak. 

Once he seemed satisfied with my overview of human belief systems, he asked me if I knew what he thought about it. "Do you know who my god is?" "No," I answered. "You," was his reply. To this, I said, "I am not a god, I am just a human." Then he said something like, "Well, I believe in a goddess, like the one you sing about." I said, "Oh, like an Earth mother goddess..." He thought about that a moment. Then, his face transformed, like suddenly he remembered something he had long forgotten:
Dreamily, he looked over at me from the pillow, "You know what I think?"
"No, what?"
Smiling, faintly, then mirthfully, "I think there's thousands of gods... thousands of them."
Looking dreamily across the ceiling, he continued, "This whole universe is made up of them. They're all out there in the universe, curled up."
"Curled up?"
Now, with a broad smile & great certainty, "Yes, curled up out there, like in eggs. Like all the solar system is filled with gods all curled up in eggs.

He went on to elaborate on size & scale & how they can be small & large. Like Jupiter, or Canis Majoris. I confess I failed to absorb a certain amount of the elaboration because my mind was reeling with images of colourful, curled up space gods whirling through the Milky Way in their eggs. Neither did I ask any further questions of him -- to insure that I would remember his words, his vision, just as they were & save them here. When years have passed, long after these entries have been printed & bound, I hope he has a chance to read this & consider how his cosmology has changed. Or hasn't.

Later, I will ask him to tell me more about it.

In the meantime, I wish for dreams with deity-filled eggs of the comos, big & small. All of them, out there, just being... & making up everything.

An egg. What god resides within?
Photo by Little Lad, taken with his own camera.


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a picture! And I applaud you for raising your little man in such a way that he feels free to interpret those concepts as he may, rather than by a specific set of rules.

Papa Fauna said...

:) now that gives me a smile, thank you love.

Moma Fauna said...

It seems only fair & appropriate to let him come to his own conclusions. I think as a parent we must reinforce certain intrinsic human values, but "how it all works" is really better left to them to figure out for themselves. Why take that experience of discovery from them?

It's funny about the photo -- he has about 2500-3000 images offloaded onto my computer & I wanted to include a photo of his, so I began the great search. It's weird & wondrous to sift through his thousands of photos b/c I see things through his eyes, so to speak. Anyway, lucky for me he photographs all sorts of randomness (or perhaps not so random?) & there was this egg, the only one. Just perfect.

Moma Fauna said...

ah, figured it might. you can thank him when you get here.

Moma Fauna said...

you know, i was wondering about that -- somewhere in your photos i think i saw one with the two of you together & i thought she looked to be about his age. it's really pretty amazing to look at everything from their perspective, not just what they choose to photograph, or how they do it, but also just their physical perspective. it is also quite humorous... i never realized how much time they spend looking up our noses!

it has been so long since i read Watership Down, was that where the cosmology Adam's wrote was? i don't think i have read any of his other work. perhaps i should -- the ideas sound fascinating. of course, Adam's cannot take credit for Little Lad's idea, never having read Adam's himself, ha! But, neither can I. I have never really told him exactly how I see things, although he has gleaned some from my actions. i love his theory too. i wish i had thought of it myself. ;)

Anonymous said...

I don't know how I missed your post...

I'm very glad you found something useful and inspiring in the kit, and it warms my heart to think of it being used in ways I never imagined when I devised it. Please do post your honest feelings about it when you have time!

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