The Artistic Genesis - Birth of the Arts from Spirit

An imaginative reconstruction.

When writing about their own art form many practitioners will say that this (pictures, dance, drama, music, the word) was the earliest art form. I think they could be tapping into an archetypal arts impulse behind all the variety we experience here on earth. Then how do we come to that origin of ‘art’ as the foundation for the wonderful diversity of artistic expression?

With this question in mind, I’ve drawn on a number of sources to re-imagine Creation, a ‘Genesis’ placed in an artistic framework, which I hope will bring to light certain starting points to examine the source of our numerous arts.

Before the beginning we cannot describe what existed, except that it was power of a spiritual nature that held the cosmos as an idea within its being. This we may call the Ultimate, the Unmanifest Oneness. Archetypal Wisdom was within the Oneness, as was the creative thought, the first spark of life. This is known as Logos or sometimes Word because it contains the potential of all sounds, words and languages.

From the beingness and the motivation necessary for creation to begin there was movement and it was like the taking of a mighty in-breath.

On the out-breath Logos spoke and generated the beginning, which came forth as a dance. The pulsating energy from that dance set the cosmos in motion. The great cycles of all the heavenly powers swept out and around, and as they danced their movement vibrated in the spiritual atmosphere and set up a sound.

Each of these powers had their own sound, based on their distinct movement and these sounds made a ninefold harmony, like the ringing song of a wondrous choir, filling the universe. The sound as it flowed through the ether began to reveal itself, to become audible and then visible. It took the light as its form.

Colours appeared in this light, a different one for each of the tones. The colours wove themselves together, becoming more and more intense, some light, some darker so that spirit-forms began to emerge from the interweaving of darker and lighter colours.

The Word directed these proto-forms to the Great Mother, the World Soul, who gestated them in her body, the earth. One by one they began to take on myriad more solid forms. They became life on earth and as they evolved they were given names. And they were filled with Wisdom which flowed through them.

Matter is spirit made visible. And we humans became part of this created world, so the Divine lives in us in such a way that through us it becomes a conscious process. When we first experienced divine Wisdom, and discovered that it could be expressed in different ways, human creativity gave form to earthly art. Thus came the birth of the arts from spirit.

Excerpt from 'Prodigal Daughters' - p. 44-45