A New Cosmology

Women’s Bodies Encode What Humankind Needs To Know

If we want our culture to value the diversity of women’s bodies, we need to change our cosmology. We need to alter the words and images we use to explain how the world began, how it works, its purpose.

Our cosmology is the biggest idea we humans have, shaping every institution of culture. These days, our cosmology and culture deny the world-birthing power and world-serving wisdom implicit in women’s bodies, whatever our race, age, shape, or size may be.

We need a new story. Forget the Big Bang. The world begins with the Great Mystery unfurling herself into Time:

Sparked by her desire to learn, play, and grow, Woman created the world, and the world was Woman.

From the substance of her body, Woman gave birth to stars, planets, moons, suns.

With the heat of her fire, Woman set the Earth into motion, giving birth to day and the year of time.

With the coolness of her waters, Woman set the Moon into motion, giving birth to night and the month of time.

Stirring fire and water into the substance of her body, Woman gave breath to creatures of the land, sea, and sky. Encompassing all-that-is within her limitless love, she placed a portion of herself into each of her creatures, into every particle of creation.

True to her original impulse, she provokes her creatures to learn, play, grow. As they expand their love for themselves and each other, she loves even more lavishly. As they perceive their own and each other’s true beauty, she knows herself even more deeply. Balance and harmony flourish.

The world’s origin: ever-expanding love. Its operating principle: differentiation and integration. Its purpose: evolution of consciousness. The prize: a just and sustainable human society, also joy.

The story is more than myth. Beyond the scope of this essay to describe in full, astronomical evidence indicates that women’s bodies code the way the world works. Our volumes and curves, our rhythms and cycles, replicate the structure and function of the universe. Beginning with the correspondence between menstrual and lunar cycles, continuing to planetary orbits and beyond, we embody the mathematical relationships implicit in universal principles of time and space.

As women exult in the diversity of our bodies, we reveal creation’s original impulse: unconditional love. As our culture celebrates our bodies’ diversity, we can fully and freely enact the wisdom our bodies encode. We generate a just and sustainable human society. We lead the world into life-affirming balance and harmony.

Here’s the bold, big-multiplier idea: Establish a cosmology that understands the world — and humankind’s hope for survival — through the curves, shapes, and rhythms of women’s bodies. Express this cosmology through images of the feminine as a sacred state and sacred way of being. Integrate this cosmology and imagery into every cultural institution — including architecture, education, the economy. For every obelisk, a labyrinth. For every missile, a village well. For every gun, a community garden.

© 2010 Lisa Sarasohn