For Your Consideration

by Laurie Rae Dietrich, Editor, Coreopsis Journal

I want you to consider something. I want you to consider that you are a god. Or a God. Or a Goddess. Whatever word you use when you want to describe a Creator, One who makes Something out of Nothing. Maybe you are not drawn to the language of religion. Maybe for you a Creator is an Energy, an Original Pattern, the Big Bang.

I want you to consider that you are the Big Bang.

I want you to consider the power and the responsibility of that.

I want you to notice that you and I, in this very moment, are engaged in an act of magic and creation. I spelled out this spell, I made sentences that do not exist, in this relationship to each other, anywhere else in the Universe. These words you are reading right now, in the order you are reading them, came into existence out of nothing, out of a soup of potential – alphanumeric characters – that I shaped to fit my purpose.

These words traveled, through space and time, to reach your eyes where they became a real thing you are experiencing in the world. Thoughts you are having, connections you are making, ideas you are generating in response to these words that never existed before. We are making magic together, changing consciousness at will.

What is a “spell?” This might be a reasonable description: I wrote words and when you read them our minds touch, you and I, even if I am thousands of miles away, even if I am thousands of years ago. Our minds touch and something new, unique in the world, is made. A circuit closes, a synapse flares, a neural network is activated, awakened, begins to branch, root, flower. Seeds are planted that will blossom someday in words you write, perhaps, or words you say, or things you do that will connect with others, close new circuits, flare and root and flower again.

This is the magic of words. The ways we share stories are the ways we share consciousness. This is the power of myth-making. For of course myths are only the stories that we tell again and again. The stories that tell us how to think about ourselves, how to treat the others, how to celebrate (or worship, or fear) divinity.

I want you to consider that when you tell a story, you shape the world. Even if it’s a story you only tell inside your head. The story of your patterns, perhaps, your always and never. The story of your deserving, of your not-deserving, or the story of your grievances. How do you treat the people you pass on the street, on the days when you are telling yourself the story of your grievances? How do you treat them on the days when you are telling yourself the story of your abundance?

I want you to particularly consider what happens when you tell a story out loud. Stories of what is good and valuable. Stories of who doesn’t matter, of who is dangerous, who should be feared. As human animals, we have given shape, with our words, to all the contents of our consciousness. Including our fears. Including our prejudices. Including even the gods who tell us what is right and wrong.

Those gods some of us like to shrug and say everything is in the hands of? I want you to consider that we created them. With our words. What world, fellow gods, do we make when our words come from the language of fear and exclusion, of not-enough, of hierarchy, of materialism? I want you to consider that if you look around, right now, today, you’ll see what a world shaped by those words looks like.

And I want you to consider that we, together, created that shape. We use language, all of us. We use words. And those word form sentences that form stories that tell us how to feel, what to care about, how to act in the world. We shape our world, starting with our words. We are the storytellers, the magic-makers, the world shapers. We are the gods.

I want you to consider, just for a moment: if what I’m saying is true, how might that change the way you walk in the world? How might that change the way you talk in the world? If only just for today?

Artwork:

Laurie Dietrich is a theatre artist and ritualist living and creating in South Texas for over 25 years. As a co-conspirator at ExpandingInward.com, she travels to create and facilitate community intensives and rituals that use story-telling and myth-making to empower personal and spiritual growth. More information at www.lauriedietrich.com.

Photo: L. Dietrich, 2015, All rights reserved.