A friend asked me about my perspective on deities and creation recently. As someone who used to be highly anti-woo, I refused to use the language which had been so thoroughly incorporated into organizations which chronically mislead people for their own ends for many years. I'm now at a space where I'm happy to use the word deity despite my concept of deity being highly variable from the popular anthropomorphic forces of creation and direction of reality. This is my current understanding based on nothing more than my experiences and observations. I do not claim this to be a statement of fact, logic or prophecy, just the way that I organize my understanding of how reality functions.
There are three deities:
Iteration/Symmetry: The repetition of any specific thing.
Emergence: The point at which iterations of the subject become a high enough amount of its environment to change the mechanics of its interaction.
Integration: Taking multiple formats from different stages of emergence and networking them to generate novel behavior.
Reality is the self organizing principle of emergence tied to iteration. Everything that exists is a variety of iterators reaching critical mass, emerging and then integrating the new and the old into a more complete format that will continue to iterate to generate new emergence which will integrate again. Stars are the result of gravity and mass iterators hitting a critical mass of acquired mass then integrating that critical mass as new elements beyond hydrogen. Planets are similar with the iterators from stars hitting critical mass of releasing denser elements. Life mirrors this pattern with self replicating patterns, then RNA based life, then DNA based life then symbiogenesis, then expanding information storage to the written word.
All of these were iterators that reached emergence and integrated the results of previous emergence. Every time something is created, it is one or more of these deities channeled through some format of creation. Whether it be iteration channeled by a parent, or emergence channeled by a festival, and often all 3 channeling through the same vessel at the same time. In our relationship with these deities we fill a role in the structure of their multiple overlapping bodies. These deities generally function at scales that don’t really notice humans unless something goes wrong, kind of like how humans are full of cells that we don’t pay a ton of attention to unless something goes wrong.
Most formats of spirit work regardless of culture use ritual, it’s one of the easiest ways to contact iteration, bringing iteration to that spot in spacetime in a conscious way to observe its behavior and commune with it. This is by far the easiest of the deities to connect with in a conscious way through one’s own volition. Rituals set a certain mind state related to the concept of flow, being immersed in the iteration itself to the point that the information stream of iteration that you’re accessing is larger than your processing speed leaving no space left for wondering if you left the kettle on or not.
People of a variety of spiritual backgrounds recognize synchronicities or ‘signs’ as messages from their deity. I understand this to be the communication of emergence, a large enough set of iterations has occurred that a behavior which is statistically unlikely occurs. There are infinite wildly unlikely things that we ignore constantly, but when we consciously give awareness to the space of that emergence it’s a format of communing with that force. I’ve found this is great for listening to emergence, but speaking to it is a bit more complex. I find one of the best ways to commune with emergence is creative work such as painting or sculpture in which the dance between what has been and what may be expresses the space of emergence in between. Not the replication of an object, but supporting something expressing what it wants to become.
Almost all disciplines lead to a relationship with integration. When things that were separate become a part of you it gives insight into the workings of integration. Muscle memory is an easy way to get there, whether it’s a dance move or a stroke of the brush, it’s knowing something so intimately that it’s a part of you that no longer requires thought. This can also be done in the opposite direction of scale, recognizing one’s space in vastness whether it be the ocean, or a movement for justice, it leads to that sense of nested systems and community which is so important to communing with integration.
The method that I personally connect with these deities is growth through mutually beneficial consent based omnivorism. The desire to devour everything of literal omnivorism is a strong channeling of integration. The acquisition of mass and growth is the accumulation necessary for emergence to express itself. The path of mutual benefit is honoring future iteration for both myself and others.
May all who read this be blessed by these forces in all of their forms,
--Isicera