Nature's Heavenly Body

Where did we come from? Where did each tree, each plant, each bird came form? What existed before this world we know today? How are the gods related to nature? Through mythology, nature's heavenly body is described, but not explained. We get to know how we got here, how the holy spirits, the gods, developed nature's evolution.

After reading Ishmael and Gilgamesh, I got a very uniform concept of the QUESTions, specially, how did we get here? But, in Bulfinch's mythology, the concept I get is totally different. When Dryope turns into a lotus plant, for example. This goddess turns into a plant after tearing apart another one, which curiously was nymph Lotis. "The plant was no other than the nymph Lotis, who, running from a base pursuer, had been changed into this form. This they learned from the country people when it was too late" (Bulfinch, Myth VIII B). They learned when it was too late. I compare this moment when Dyrope tears Lotis to these actual moments of life. We are in the verge of destruction, we are in the moment of desicionof either taking the planet to destruction, or to revival. But humanity will never realize their big mistake until we are breathing carbon dioxide, in dry lands, no water, no oxygen; we will realize when it is too late.

But looking it in another manner, we can also interpret this myth to nature's heavenly body. It makes me think, 'inside every object, every piece of creation, there is a god, a heavenly body'. We constantly interact with heaven, not literally, but in an indirect way. When we cut down trees, when we burn a forest, we are killing a god, just like Dyrope killed the nymph Lotis. Every day we interact with god, we either kill him by tearing out the lotus plant, or heal him by provinding him sunlight and water. Eventhough we don't see him physically, god is an inner force, inside every human, inside every plant. And as we can kill the god in the plants, we can kill the god inside us. Killing it by rejecting faith, rejecting our religion, by cutting the tree, by losing our confesion.

"Then the lips ceased to move, and life was extinct; but the branches retained for some time longer the vital heat" (Bulfinch, Myth VIII B). She died, her lips stopped moving, Dyrope was emotionless. We can take Dyrope's experience as a learning lesson for today's society. Sometimes we underestimate God's power, and as well we think we are superior, or that he doesn't exist. But in the merriest moments of our life, any day, we will encounter god, and he won't be very happy of our attitude, and he will turn us into a Lotus Plant. Dyrope now weeps, mourns under the bark of the tree, without her child, alone in the nether world, because of her absence of faith. Then, the next time we cut down a tree, lets do it with conscience of thinking that a body lies beneath it, and that we are killing nature's heavenly body.