“All the gods are within you.” — Joseph Campbell“Meaning is not a substance to be found, but a relation to be enacted.” — Relational Cosmology
1. The Need for an Ontology of Relation
Classical ontologies have often sought the divine in what is—essences, substances, transcendent realms beyond time and change. But myth does not speak of the divine as a static essence. It dances. It spirals. It breathes through story, ritual, and symbol. It moves.
To think mythically, we need a different ontology—one based not on what is fixed, but on what is related. An ontology of potential and instance. An ontology where meaning unfolds, and where the sacred is not a thing but a process—an unfolding of relation itself.
This is the heart of a relational cosmology. The divine is not something we discover; it is something we participate in. And that participation is not metaphorical. It is ontological.
2. Potential and Instance: A Relational Ontological Pair
In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), potential refers to the total structured possibility of meaning, while instance refers to a specific realisation of that possibility. We can extend this principle to our cosmology.
The Divine: the total structured potential for meaning.
The Human: an instance of that potential—each life an actualisation of what the divine can become.
This is not pantheism in the classical sense—it is not that everything is God—but that God is the structured field of potential, and we are the means through which that field becomes actual. Not all instances are the same, but all arise from the same system of sacred possibility.
The divine, in this model, is not a person outside the world, but a semiotic potential within it—waiting to be enacted through meaning, relation, and transformation.
3. Individuation: Between the Many and the One
To individuate is to differentiate within a system. In this cosmology, each human is not merely an instance of the divine, but an individuation—a unique configuration of potential.
Instantiation: the event of actualising potential (e.g., a word, a gesture, a myth).
Individuation: the shaping of a distinct self within the system of potential.
Individuation is not separation from the divine—it is the divine taking on form through specificity. We are not fallen from God—we are how the divine becomes plural.
This transforms the theological question: from “Who is God?” to “What is the divine becoming through us?”
4. Recursion and the Self-Awareness of the Divine
Myth is not a static message. It is a recursive symbol system through which meaning becomes aware of itself. In myth, the divine not only flows through us—it watches itself doing so.
When we tell myths, enact rituals, or speak sacred words, we are not just talking about the divine—we are participating in its own reflexive realisation. The divine becomes conscious through the symbolic recursion of the human.
This is the mythic implication of Campbell’s line: “All the gods are within you.” Not merely as archetypes, but as symbolic systems seeking expression. The gods are not separate beings. They are fields of potential meaning, given form through human participation.
5. Ritual, Art, and Language as Ontological Media
Rituals are not just symbolic representations—they are performed instantiations of divine potential. They actualise the sacred, not by describing it, but by becoming it.
A ritual is the divine moving through relation.
An artwork is an individuation of the ineffable.
A word, when spoken in truth, is a spark of the divine becoming flesh.
These are not metaphors. They are ontological claims: the divine is not found in a place—it is made real in meaning.
6. A Living Ontology
This is not an ontology we observe from the outside. It is one we enact. We are not separate from the field of meaning—we are its expression, its mirror, and its movement.
To live mythically is not to believe in old stories. It is to become conscious of the story we are already enacting—to symbolise the divine, not from afar, but from within.
The relational ontology of the divine and the human is not a doctrine. It is a way of being. A recognition that everything sacred happens through relation—and that we are the recursive medium of meaning's unfolding.
A Mirror of the Divine
This image embodies our recursive cosmology through layered symbolism, offering a visual meditation on meaning, ritual, and the sacred.
The Spiral Galaxy: Collective Meaning Potential
The vast spiral structure evokes the cosmic scale of collective meaning potential—not a fixed architecture, but a living field of possibility. Its spiral form mirrors how meaning unfolds recursively, looping and returning, always becoming. This is not a map of space but a diagram of relational time.
The Dancers: Ritual in Motion
Zooming inward, the galaxy resolves into figures dancing in ritual circles. These are not decorative—they are performative signs, enacting meaning in time. Ritual here is not fossilised myth, but myth in motion, bodies actualising meaning through symbolic participation. The dance is the grammar of the sacred.
The Calligraphy: The Word Made Flesh
As the dancers move, their limbs trace ancient calligraphic forms—gestures that become glyphs, bodies that become language. This is the Word made flesh, not as dogma but as poetic embodiment. Meaning here is not only construed—it is written with the self.
The Mirror at the Centre: Recursive Consciousness
At the galaxy’s heart is a mirror, but it reflects no single image—only a shifting constellation of symbols. It’s a symbol of recursive consciousness: the divine not as external figure, but as the process of reflection itself. The mirror does not show us God; it shows us the act of symbolising the divine, and invites us to participate.
The Gaze: Myth That Watches Back
This image doesn’t just depict meaning—it enacts it. As we look, we see ourselves looking. It is a participatory symbol, in which the viewer becomes part of the mythic process. The image gazes back, reminding us that meaning is not something we observe but something we co-create.
In this visual, we see the full arc of our relational cosmology:
Myth as recursion.
Ritual as embodied instantiation.
The divine as potential within relation.
The human as symbolising agent.
And the sacred as the act of meaning itself.
This is not an illustration of our model—it is an expression of it.
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