CHINESE CREATION
In the beginning, there was an enormous egg containing chaos. On the inside the chaos raged on and on- both yin and yang were mixed together. All the opposites were writhing together; male and female, cold and hot, wet and dry, dark and light.
Finally the egg burst open, and out leapt the giant dragon Pan-gu. Yin and yang swirled around him and he pushed the two shell halves apart. Thus the opposites were separated and the earth began to take shape.
Every day for 18,000 years Pan-gu grew ten feet – thus the sky was raised a little higher every day. Once the sky was 30,000 miles above the ground, Pan-gu stopped and began to hammer out the mountains and fill the valley with water to form great oceans.
He created rivers with his fingers and stamped the earth down to create flat lands. He gathered raw light and tossed them into the sky to become stars.
After 18,000 years, Pan-gu had grown old and tired. He had made the world with his hands and formed the basic principles of yin and yang. He wanted to lay down and sleep forever. Once he lay down he never rose again. When Pan-gu died, his body formed huge mountains. His skull formed the top of the sky, his hair formed all flowers and plants, his bones turned to jade and pearl and his arms and legs the four directions.
His blood became the rivers, his breath turned into the wind and his voice to thunder. One eye became the sun and the other the moon.
For many years the world was a very beautiful place but also lonely; there were no people.
The half-dragon goddess Nuwa was born after Pan-gu died, from part of the mixture of yin and yang that he had separated. She decided to create humans to have some other beings to talk to and share ideas with, but mostly just to love.
Nuwa went down to the edge of the Yellow River where there were vast, soft mud banks. She began forming figures out of clay. She decided that it would be much more practical for her creations to have legs instead of a dragon tail, thus her humans were not made in her image.
No sooner did she set the first little mud man on the ground did he start to jump, and dance and sing. He began to speak. “Look at me!”
Nuwa was delighted and began making more and more humans.
She made hundreds and hundreds of mud humans, but soon realized that it would take centuries for her to make enough people to fill the vast earth completely. Nuwa grabbed hold of a muddy stick and flung drops of mud across the land.
As the sun dried each drop, it became a new man or woman. Some say that these humans were the less intelligent ones. Those formed by Nuwa’s own hands became great leaders.
She told them to go and populate the earth. As they grew she loved them and protected them, and was revered as the mother of all humans.
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