What is Cosmology?

Cosmo-logy is derived from the Greek word kosmos, which means “order”, “good order”, “orderly arrangement,” and the word logia, “study.” Cosmology is the study of the order of the universe. [Universe: from the Latin uni, one, and versus, turned].

Is cosmology a science?  A philosophy? Mythology?  It is all of those things. The cosmology of a people – a culture or civilization – is its story of origin.  It is the origin and nature of reality as that culture understands it, experiences it and is shaped by it. 

One of my teachers, Dr. Larry Edwards, defined cosmology as “The principles of living derived from our story of origin.”  African teacher Malidoma Some says that a cosmology is “The foundational model for life itself.” [Malidoma Some, The Healing Wisdom of Africa.]

The Big Bang theory is an example of a modern-day cosmology.  The Old Testament Book of Genesis is a cosmology; Aboriginal Dreamtime is a cosmology.

The cosmology of a culture or civilization is embedded in its stories, myths, and art.  The story of origin is implied in a culture’s scientific pursuits, in their social structures, and in their religions and philosophies.  A society’s standards of business practice, economic world-view, educational curriculum, and religious beliefs pivot around the fulcrum of our story of origin.  Our cosmology effects our everyday existence in every way imaginable.

Some cosmologies are literally set in stone, written in books, or survive in an unbroken legacy of oral tradition.  Cosmologies change and new ones emerge, because new information is always presenting itself as the human story unfolds from generation to generation.  Discoveries open up new channels of thought, new evidence for us to ponder.  As story changes, culture changes.  Old structures break down, new ones arise that reflect the new experience.  Sometimes the information serves to validate and reaffirm what has been known and passed down through the ages; and sometimes it serves to remind us of what has been forgotten….

Poetry, music and musings is how I explore and tell the story that is emerging as the people of Earth attempt to integrate the barrage of new information that is making its way into our lives at an ever-more accelerated pace from all directions – from the ocean, the stars, the shifting landscapes of ecosystems and technology to sources of information and energy beyond our ken. 

After hundreds of years of conditioning, it is no mean feat to turn the volume down on our anthropocentric rationalism to be able to hear what is coming in on the wind, and to trust the deep knowing of our intuitive selves – the hackles on our necks and the butterflies in our stomachs. 

This is the grand shift – from mentally analyzing the universe and our relationship to it, to simply, and profoundly, falling in love with it.