Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden; a psychological analysis, as in, a modern interpretation. A Tale for our Times.
There is nothing either
good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Shakespeare.
Introduction.
I have disliked the story
of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden since I first heard it (quite some time
ago now).
I thought that it was
highly ungallant of Adam to blame Eve; that the serpent had a rough time as
well; all of them get chucked out of the Garden of Eden; and what was wrong
with eating of the Tree of Knowledge anyway? – isn’t gaining knowledge what
you’re supposed to do in life? God seemed a bit mean about the whole thing as
well; quite vengeful in fact. Why would I want anything to do with Him? Not to
mention hoping I could find a lot better husband than that wimp Adam.
I also felt the implied
blame; that being thrown out of Eden was the woman’s fault; it seemed to me to
be part of some kind of built-in failure if you were born a woman; a way of
explaining why you didn’t count, or were automatically wrong in whatever way.
Men use it as the ultimate reason not to listen to a woman! This story is told
to a great many people! It’s a story I would have thought that women could do
perfectly well without.
So, the years have gone by
and even though I forgot about such things, yet still the questions remained –
what on earth was this story about?
I have seen various
interpretations over the years, although none of them made much sense to me.
Could this story make sense in any way and is there anything that can be learnt
from it?
My aim is to look at this
story in a natural psychological manner, and try to unravel what the words are
saying while remembering that these concepts are translations from a different
time and culture.
The story.
The story really begins
with God making the world in 6 days and His seeing that it was All Good. It
then turns to the making of the Garden of Eden, with Adam being made/formed ‘in
the image of God’ for the purpose of to ‘till it and keep it’. There is also
the strong implication that Adam is important for the Naming of all things. He
is expressly commanded not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
(TKGE), with a warning that he will surely die.
Adam’s female partner is
formed from Adam’s rib, and Adam names her Woman. The bible specifically states
that they were naked and not ashamed; they neither knew nor noticed whether
they were covered or not; they accepted themselves as they were. They were
quite un-selfconscious as is any young child or animal.
The serpent tells the
woman, the fruit of TKGE is good to eat, and it will make you ‘more like God’.
So she eats it, gives it to Adam, and then their ‘eyes were opened and they
realised they were naked’, so they tried to cover up (aprons of fig leaves).
This was the first decision that they made that they were not alright as they
were.
God comes walking in the
garden and can’t find Adam, because they are both hiding from Him.
[So, if God is all-seeing
and all-powerful, and knows everything all the time, how come he couldn’t find
Adam? I was brought up with the implication that God could stick his finger on
you, no matter where you were in the whole wide world; in other words ‘you
can’t hide’, and so you had better be good. In this story, God has to call out
‘where are you?’, so, can you hide, or not? Does God see everything, or not?]
So then they are found
out, and there’s a lot of blaming – no-one is going to take responsibility
here. Eve blames the snake and Adam blames Eve.
God curses the serpent,
then the woman, then Adam; apparently comprehensively and thoroughly. There’s a
lot about getting back to the dust – “you are made of dust”.
The story then moves on.
Adam names his wife, Eve.
[Rather a change in pace here.]
God gives Adam and Eve
clothes, [which seems quite kind of him?]
Then God throws them out
of Eden and then makes sure that they can’t get at the Tree of Life (TL) by
guarding the garden with cherubim(s) and a flaming sword; which seems a bit
‘dog-in-the-manger-ish’. But before that he says ‘the man has now become like
one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to eat of the TL and
live forever.’
So now we start asking
questions.
What is the Garden of
Eden?
We don’t know, but for
most of us it has the quality of Heaven on Earth; a garden of God; a divine
garden. It’s a garden and beautiful; it’s warm, and the weather’s perfect, and
everything we need just drops into our hands. So, we don’t have to do
anything do we, even though we are supposed to ‘till and keep? It’s all there -
how nice. But why do we need a heaven on earth as well as a heaven above? This
would mean that there are 2 of them. So…
What do we think Heaven
is, and why do we want it?
I think most people would
consider heaven as a place where everything is comfortable and ‘lovey-dovey’
and nice, and we don’t have to do anything, (no body, and so no
work) and it just stays comfortable and nice and most of all safe (no ‘bumps in
the night’) forever. This is a terribly long time, which gives a very static
quality. Would we get bored if we only played harps forever?
I suspect that we do carry
an unconscious idea of what Heaven is, and I suspect that that is what we
expect/wish that Life could be, especially in the Garden. Somewhere where we do
not have to do anything, and it all just drops into our hand when we
hold it out. Instead we find ourselves out of the Garden and that Life on Earth
is not very heavenly at all. Heaven thus becomes taught as ultimately a Reward
for suffering or enduring/coping sufficiently with life as lived on earth
(once!?); ie, we need to be good; thinking and doing the right things to make
sure we get back in.
Another way of saying the
above is that for us the ultimate reward for our Life is to get Off Earth as
fast as possible, without committing suicide, (because that is ‘cheating’). We
are using and following religious/spiritual/’heavenly’ creeds as a way of
coping with the fear we have of living on earth.
We also assume/are taught
that God lives in heaven, and therefore, not on earth. But when we are in
heaven there is also the quality that although we are ‘in the house of God’, He
is not really accessible to us. He is a long way away; the boss; no
relationship except perhaps being told if we are ‘good or bad’, and other
people/beings help us with that.
What is the Difference
between the heavens?
So, what were Adam and Eve
doing in Eden that they would not have been doing in Heaven? Adam has been
placed there to ‘Till/Work it and Keep/Care for it’. Adam will have to do
physical work if he wants to eat. Keeping implies to me that we are in charge
of ensuring that all God’s creations are kept very alive and very well to keep
them going, as in, sustain and protect them. I take this as the primary
instruction for humanity. Look after the garden and the animals for man’s own
sake. (In the process of learning to look after God’s creations, we learn to
look after ourselves as well.)
The problem here is that
looking after one’s body, and tilling and keeping a garden and staying alive
and well involves physical effort. Perhaps we are supposed to actually do
something after all.
What then is the
difference between being in or out of Eden?
We are not specifically
told that Adam talked/communed with God, but the implication is there because
both of them hid after eating the fruit. Thus, in Eden, we are accessible to
God/Life and He to us. ‘God comes walking in the Garden’. This does not
happen in Heaven, and it does not seem to happen out of the Garden either.
Talking/communing implies relationship and equality and the Garden appears to
be the only place it can happen.
Also, in Eden, although
they are ‘naked’, they don’t notice the differences between their own and other
bodies or animals. They were not ‘ashamed’ of their bodies. Once having eaten
the fruit, they consider themselves naked and cover themselves ‘down there’,
(aprons only, not the breasts), and are afraid of God, so they hide and become
inaccessible to God, who wanted to and still wants to (?) talk to them. They
then have to be thrown out of Eden to stop them from eating of the Tree of
Life.
Well, then, what are the
animals doing that’s different between being in Eden or not? The answer here
seems to be that there is no difference. In the wild (whatever actually remains
on earth currently) animals eat and are eaten and Life flows on, maintaining
its extraordinary beauty and balance. The birds in my garden hunt for food
every day, but all still have to keep a watchful eye for predators. The animals
have not been thrown out – they are still there. Neither do the animals need
warning not to eat of the TKGE. They will have eaten the fruit and can, with no
consequences. So, the problem of being thrown out of Eden is man’s alone. If
animals have no trouble with the TKGE, and humans do, then the problem lies
with our being made ‘in the Image of God’. So, why and how?
What IS the Image of
God?
Man alone has been
fashioned in the image of God, so what are these qualities that distinguish us
from other forms of life.
Important differences
include awareness/attention and a drive to be like God, which are what?.
Self-Awareness/Attention.
We get into deep water very quickly
here. Whole books are devoted to this topic. The points that I want to make
here are that we have the ability to think about or be aware that we are
thinking. Some part of us knows we are thinking. Animals can think, but do not
appear to think about their thinking. We also seem to have choice in the way we
use/focus/direct our attention or awareness. At the very least we can direct
our attention internally or externally to ourselves, and this tale revolves
around how we use this attention/awareness.
Being like God. What is
that? This is another huge topic. A
definition could be the drive to manifest/embody the expression of one’s own
uniqueness or ‘essence’. In general, the more a person is able to express their
own selves, the greater the feeling of internal satisfaction with life. The
problem here is in how does one work out what that expression actually is? This
puzzle of how do we work out how to be and do God is a strong drive for human
beings whether we know it or not, and it is why the snake was able to
‘tempt’ Adam & Eve by telling them
that eating the fruit of the TKGE would make them ‘more like God’. Remember
that A&E are all of us as human beings.
However, another of our
‘talents’/proclivities seems to be Naming.
Naming. Adam is also there for ‘Naming’. Can we humans assume
that animals don’t Name things? I do not know, but I do know that we simply
continue naming and labelling forever. Most people would not be able to not
name something for an hour; we cannot not name/label things. Naming identifies
our own experiences to us for ourselves. The implication of the story is that
God wants us to name what we find. The trouble is how/what we name things, and
the names/labels we use, because ‘naming’ implies identification which implies
contrast/comparison. We need to be careful about our comparisons.
Naming is very important
and I think it is easy to miss.
The story goes ‘out of the
ground (earth) God formed (makes/creates) every beast of the field and every
bird of the air, and brings them to the man to see what he would call them’,
and that became its name. The only way I can ‘get at’ this concept is to
imagine what it would be like to have made all these fantastic and wonderful
things, and then just hand them over to my child to name them whatever it
pleased, with the instruction to look after it. This is a tremendous gift as
well as a great delight in whatever the child does with it.
Being able to think about
our thinking, wanting to be like god, and labelling our experiences, are
the attributes that equip us to learn about who we are through our experiences,
but notice that these inbuilt ‘tools’ that we have can be used incorrectly as
well as correctly.
To me, the implication of
all of this is that God wants us to have the physical experience of Life and he
wants to know what we make of it. It delights Him. He knows that it is all
good. We are the ones who are not very sure about that bit. But it is also
clear that Life on Earth is a Gift, and we’re not sure about this either.
So then we turn to….
What is this Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil?
The bible story
specifically refers to the tree as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Wikipedia tells us that the words should have been translated as the Tree of
Knowledge of Everything or the Tree of All Knowledge.
Any
explanation/interpretation will have to encompass both concepts.
The name is commonly
shortened to the Tree of Knowledge. We admire knowledge; we think it’s good to
know lots, and we admire those who know lots; we can let them tell us what to
do. Yet how does knowing everything lead to the effects outlined in the story,
naked, afraid etc.
What then, is this
Everything we think we want to know? Everyone has their own ideas about what
everything is. It is not possible to know everything, and we kind of know that
and keep wishing we did. We think knowledge of everything might help bring
control (of fear). Maybe we would be more powerful and know what to do to
manipulate life to give us what we want.
There are 2 things that we
don’t notice here.
One of them is that this
Everything that we want to know about is all that is in your life that is
external to you. It is not knowledge of you; it is knowledge of everything but
you.
The focus of your
attention has become external to you. We are now ‘looking out’ rather than a
‘looking in’. It is a focus on the world rather than on your own self, and then
we start trying to know everything about the external world using our inbuilt
naming and comparing.
The other thing that we
don’t always notice or remember is that there is a difference between knowledge
as a concept or information about whatever, or what you think you know, and the
actual knowing that comes primarily from your own experience through your
body’s senses. It is the difference between theory and practice, and we have to
be careful about which is which. In this story the TKGE is about our concepts
rather than the actuality/reality.
Eve and the snake
Eve has been formed from
Adam’s rib. She has Adam’s abilities because she is made from him. She has come
from inside him. This is often taken as a weakness on her part and a potential
depletion of man, but I suspect that she is more able to feel or sense into
another’s internal state. That’s where she ‘comes from’ so to speak.
We are not told what she
is doing, but I would imagine she was observing and getting to know herself,
her surroundings and the creatures in the garden. And she would be ‘sensing in’
which is a skill used by all ‘primitive’ peoples. I also imagine that she
observed animals eating the fruit of the TKGE without any ill effect.
But Adam has already told her that if they eat the fruit they will die,
so she would be immensely curious as to what was going on here.
If she was ‘sensing in’ to
the snake, it would be saying, ‘sense everything, feel everything, touch
everything, know everything, experience everything. This is what makes all of
us Know Everything (in our world). For the snake, Knowing comes through the
senses of its body; its experience, and the snake is the very closest to the
earth. The snake doesn’t have the self-awareness or the labelling that humans
have. It simply experiences All of it with no judgement in terms of avoiding
doing things in case it might have a ‘bad’ time. It still goes out and does
‘snaky’ things. As with all animals, it uses all its senses, resources, and
skills, and it has to be careful and wary to be successful and stay alive. It
is using all its senses all the time to survive.
She will have tried the
fruit through the snake’s example and advice which was correct for it.
We continue to consider
the snake as a dreadful beast that lied to us, but what if its advice is
correct for people as well as animals? The actual problem is the difference in
understanding between animals and humans; there is a difference in attributes.
The snake is not talking about the knowledge of good and evil that will help us
have a more ‘heavenly’ or easier time; the snake is telling us something
completely different. It is talking about the knowing that comes through its
own senses and experience, because that is all of what it knows. It is we
ourselves who confuse trying to know everything about everything as ‘being like
God’. It is our own attributes that are getting us into trouble because we are
using them incorrectly when we label concepts/things as ‘good or bad’, and
think that we know about something when we actually do not.
Eve does not notice any
effect on her, and she then offers it to Adam. Adam has the choice of eating it
or not. He can listen to Life or listen to Eve. However, curiosity and
exploration, particularly of forbidden fruit, appears to be built in to us
humans, and there’s a certain inevitability here.
The temptings
We are tempted by the
fruit of the TKGE. We want to know it all. Not only do we wish to be like God,
but I think we really do not like not knowing what will happen next. If we have
knowledge of everything then that should help us navigate Life, and in
particular help us keep the ‘good’ bits and avoid the ‘bad’. We are thinking
that if it make us ‘wise and God-Like’, then we will be able to direct our
lives as we want them to be, and be gods in our own world.
But what actually happens
is not what we expect.
Eating of the Fruit of
the TKGE.
Specifically, eating of this
fruit leads to..
We become aware of our nakedness (we begin
to compare - to what?).
We feel a need to cover ‘down
there’ (from whom? and why?)
We run and hide and then…
God can’t ‘find’ us.
In steps then;
Firstly; our attention
which was internal to us and un-selfconscious while in the garden has turned
its focus to the world out there. Animals are completely un-selfconscious. They
do not spend their time comparing themselves to ‘anybody’ else at all.
‘Self-conscious’ means looking at ourselves from another’s point of view, ie
external to self.
So then, we try to
encompass this with our comparing, judging and naming, and notice above all
that we are an animal. And then, we decide we’re a pretty fragile looking
animal; just skin and no covering and feeling very exposed (naked), and then
And then, we try to make
ourselves feel more secure. The fig leaves are an attempt to cover the base
chakra which is concerned with our connection to the earth; (security; feeling
safe).
And then, we take fright,
(the coverings are not enough) and bolt off to hide as fast as we can – it is
overwhelming.
Being alive on earth as an
animal is pretty different from ‘heaven’ after all and now highly unsafe. We
are now hiding from life and God.
Nakedness is a comparison
word which is looking externally; skin versus fur or feathers. Adam’s use of
the word ‘naked’ told God what had happened.
If the purpose of Life on
Earth is for us to learn about ourselves and our capabilities, then we need to
learn the difference between Knowledge (told stuff) and the
Knowing/Understanding that comes only from experience (we have to do
stuff and find and realize things for ourselves).
This focus on the external
and the consequent fear, judgement and avoidance makes us ‘die’ to the risks in
life, and we can no longer be naturally ourselves or engage in Life/living. We
are not going to welcome experience unless we know beforehand what’s going to
happen (we are judging it) which defeats the whole purpose, and we are not
going to grow in self-awareness. We are afraid of Life and living, and we hide
when God comes walking in the garden. It is possible to hide from God, and He
can’t find us when we do.
This is what happens when
we have eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Everything or of Good
and Evil.
Then why is the TKGE in
the garden?
Thus the next question is
why is the tree there in the 1st place? But All of life has to be
there. If we are of God/Life, why do we need something different from God/Life?
God can warn us about it,
and has, but we have choice, as always.
I suspect that, once
again, we are assuming that if God says it is All Good, that means that it is
all heavenly, but in heaven we are dead (static and knowing only theory), and
God wants us to have Life, and the experience of being part of it, and I
suspect also that Life has to encompass All things. It is the so-called ‘good’
that teaches us about ‘bad’ and vice versa. All of it is in fact a duality, and
it is these contrasts that awaken our awareness of ourselves; ‘consciousness
loves contrast’.
The cursings
These follow after Adam
and Eve have hidden and then, when found out, have blamed others rather than
themselves.
Thus, the cursings follow
the blamings.
Blame holds decisions and judgement. Its use can be of
self or others or whatever. It ‘feels’ easier and better, because it helps us
keep a distance or detachment from our own feelings of guilt or shame at our
part in this situation.
Thus it….
§
Implies something should be different from what it actually
is and indeed that you know what that should be. You can’t accept the reality and prefer denial. We will also
wish to control the situation in some manner if possible and wish/demand that
the situation be changed.
§
Disempowers us – we’re
not going to look at our own part in this, and hence become powerless – it’s
not my fault, I’m a victim, so I could not avoid this – you made me do it, and
so on. Its use shrinks us – we cannot grow.
§
Builds a barrier (or
even enmity) between ‘blamer’ and ‘blamee’ – the guilty person should ‘pay’,
which may suit me very well. There is a disconnection.
§
Prevents any further
information/dialogue between the parties, or any real partnership, or shared
endeavour. Thus, it ends relationship.
Which all leads to increasing
fear and greater pain.
God curses the
serpent/snake 1st, then the woman, then the man.
For the snake, he says ‘on
your belly, you shall crawl’ which has led various people to wonder if it used
to have legs. I’m not sure about such things, but the gist of it is that the
snake shall be the lowest of the low, and that is how we think of snakes, so
much so that it is supposed to be symbolic of Satan. Yet other cultures do not
think of snakes in such a way. The woman’s attitude to the snake as the ‘cause’
of her distress puts tension and distance between them. There will be no
befriending or potential sharing because there is blame. In blaming the snake,
Eve now fears it and she is disconnecting herself from a major symbol of
feminine energy in other cultures, and from close connection with the earth.
Similarly, Adam’s blaming
of Eve puts distance between them. Guilt is painful; trying to ‘make it up’
with someone who wants to keep blaming us is painful, Eve will suffer more
pain. The distance between them will mean that neither will be able to fully
utilise each others’ skills, or be really in equal partnership.
These ‘curses’ are thus
the natural consequences of blaming others, and for Adam, of having eaten the
fruit, which has changed his attitude to Life and being in the Garden of Eden,
and his connection to God, because of the change in focus regarding the self
from internal to external .
When you focus on the
external, Name/label/judge/decide things as good or bad, and baulk at exploring
and experience because you are afraid, you are always thrown out of the Garden.
You are dying to Life.
Thistles can be a dreadful
weed or a medicinal herb, or information about the state of your soil. Your
attitude is your decision is your choice.
Is working the soil, and
eating what you grow, a blessing or a curse? It is nothing but your
thinking/naming/’knowledge’ that makes it so. What you have ‘made of’ (ie decided
about) Life is making your life.
There is also much about
dust. We are made of dust and return to dust. Dust is earth without water. We
are made of earth and so are all other living things. It is our mortal ground.
I would take this as an
instruction to come back to our bodies, and to being an animal; to ‘stay’
inside our bodies, and learn to use our senses, both physical and non-physical,
and develop our skills and resources.
Considering the trouble we
get into when we try to be above such things, it is probably an instruction to
get our hands dirty, and by this I mean, yes, get rid of false pride and
blaming, but also to do things; to create things of the earth as God
does and to go back to tilling and keeping.
We are matter. Do we
matter? And To whom and how?
The aftermath
Then, after the ‘curses’,
God says ‘man has become like one of us knowing good and evil…’. This sentence
puzzles all of us, but it may simply be a reference to understanding the things
that tempt man. Man has got what he wanted, but it isn’t good for him, and he
is now in great danger of being able to access the Tree of Life. I take this to
mean that ‘living’ while ‘dying to the reason for being alive’ is not the way
to go.
God gives them clothes,
drives them out, (they have, of course, driven themselves out) and protects the
garden with cherubim (singular or plural unspecified) and a whirling and
flashing sword in the East. What are these?
There is little in the
bible about cherubim, but it appears to be a symbol of ‘realized’ man; a man
who knows all of himself, which is quite something.
The sword is also a
puzzle, but I can think of one flaming sword that few people will face, and
that’s the burning fiery discomfort in the gut from guilt and shame that occurs
when we are faced with our own part in the things that happen to us, and the
consequent dent in our self-concepts. Many people would die rather than face
this sword.
CONCLUSIONS. WHAT’S IT ALL
ABOUT?
What are we left with?
I think we are left with a
clearer understanding of
§
How we get thrown out of the garden, and
§
How we get back in, and
§
Why we want to be
there, and
§
What we’re supposed to
do when we’re in it,
all of which seems to me to be
quite handy really.
We
can even hypothesise about the Reason for Life, and what we and God might be
wanting.
Therefore, in order….
How do we get thrown
out? By eating of this particular
tree. When we focus on Everything but ourselves we are ‘looking’ the wrong way.
There is too much for us to cope with. Fear, judgement and avoidance overwhelm
us. The External focus debilitates us.
The irony here is that we
try to cope with this fear by trying to eat even more of this fruit of the
TKGE.
Almost every aspect of our
current media is a focus on the external. All opinions are about external
things. Remove your focus from the external and stick with yourself and what
you know and find for yourself. In particular, practice suspending judgement,
and try seeing what happens when you remove blame from anything, including
yourself.
How do we get back in? Stop being ‘above it all’ and hiding from life. We
are of earth and we are an animal, and here to learn about ourselves through
experiences. (Notice that all animals need clean air, clean water and clean
earth.) Develop your senses, skills and capabilities, and take pleasure in what
you achieve, create and realize. (Developing your senses includes refraining
from deafening your hearing and ingesting vast amounts of sugar.) Keep your attention
focused internally. In fact, the primary commandment of all appears to be ‘Know
Thyself’ as in, realize/remember/recognise all of you.
Take responsibility and understand
your own part in all of your experiences, particularly when you would most
like to blame anything else. Face the flaming sword.
The greatest changes in
the last 25 years include the access to ‘alternative’ information/ideas about
life, and the modern development of tools to face your own judgements and to
learn about yourself and your uniqueness (All your own Good and All your
own Bad). However much these tools remain under the radar of public awareness,
they are not far away, but they are certainly not part of our standard
institutions.
Realized woman is able to
stand up and be herself before and with God/Life.
Why do we want to be
there? I suspect our deepest wish is
to ‘talk with God’. In the garden of Eden (where our focus is internal) we are
not afraid or self-conscious and we can welcome and embrace Life and be in
partnership with it. It is in this way that we can become truly safe. The
implication in this tale is that God/Life has never stopped wanting to talk to
us. It is we who are afraid and hide.
What are we supposed to
be doing when we’re there? Doing
what God/Life does. Learning about who we really are and creating, wonderful,
beautiful, useful things. Notice that, as we create, we learn about ourselves.
That’s pretty good, so create more. Our children are brilliant at telling us
about ourselves; we are just not always sure we want to know. Children are of
course, not the only way. Having fun, learning about ourselves, playing with
our children, making things of earth, looking after all the other animals and
ourselves so that we are all vibrantly well and happy (Tilling and Keeping it).
Coming into equal partnership with all Life/God so that it can talk to us and
we can talk to it so that we learn about ourselves and others. It is in this
partnership with God/Life that we can find a security that is much greater and
more use to us than being safe because nothing can happen to us. It is the
security that needs no security.
We learn to treat all as
sacred because God/Life is in everything.
And make friends with the
snake; its advice was correct. Get close to the earth and feel it; experience,
experience, experience and find out for yourself.
Share what we have found
in our own uniqueness with others; come into relationship. We are not meant to
be islands. We build through shared resources.
And I suspect that this is
the reason for it all, and I suspect that this is what we both (God and humans)
want. The actual Getting back into the Garden is an individual task. The only
person who can work on this is you. Start when you want.
And specifically..
To Adam.
Stop blaming Eve for your
choices, or your feelings of insecurity in life. (Whole religions may come
apart at the seams here.) You can find security for yourself if you are able to
give it to another? Are you able to use your natural masculine abilities for
the purpose of protecting/keeping life?
You have much to gain from
coming into equal partnership with women, and learning to appreciate her skills
which are different from yours.
Till and keep the Earth
together. We only have one.
To Eve.
Stop blaming the snake and
go back to making friends with it. Listen to whatever else it has to say. Go
back to all Life – the natural living world as much as you can, rather than the
man-made world. ‘Sensing in’ is a woman’s inheritance. How do we use it? It
needs peace and quiet and time (how much of these have you got?) to blossom and
develop. Remove your energy and attention from Adam; you are not guilty and
never were. Wait for Adam to come into partnership with you first, otherwise
he’s not going to learn, and he may not be worthy of you. He’ll ‘rule over you’
and not take any notice.
For a marvellous
description of a realized Eve, read the Anastasia books.
To both.
Partnership brings more
when together than 2 single people can do by themselves. We know that.
Earth needs all the skills
of both men and women together.
And above all – Know
Thyself. This is the Reason for Life. We are part of God and God likes knowing
Himself and does it through everything that he has created. We do this
ourselves when we learn who we are through our children and we delight in their
learning (hopefully).
Make beautiful and/or
useful things.
The more you know
yourself, the safer you will feel. There will be less fear in your life, less
need to hide from God/Life, and you will be able to listen to Life, and what it
has to say.
Life is a gift. Gratitude
can help us realise this.
‘Talking’ to God/Life.
I have used God/Life
throughout this discussion as a way of ‘getting a handle’ on concepts such as
Talking to God/Life. When I was growing up my concept of being spoken to by God
included trying to be ‘good’ enough to be spoken to, and then I might hear a
booming voice ‘telling’ me what to do. However, not only has this not happened,
it is not what I call partnership. My reasoning for using God/Life rather than
simply God goes…
§
If God/Life is an energy much greater than I am, and
§
God creates all Life,
as in, this energy/breath is in us all, then
§
All Life is a
manifestation of God energy and therefore any manifestation of Life (rocks,
plants, animals people and circumstances) can ‘speak’ to you, as you can
‘speak’ to God, if that is what you want.
So
what is this ‘speaking/talking’? All
Life has a resonance; that is the energy. Some things will ‘resonate’ with you,
and some not. The ‘resonating’ is the ‘speaking’ (loud or soft; nice or nasty).
It is your business to not only notice this resonance in you for yourself, but
to then work out what it means to you. You get to develop your own style. This
is how God/Life ‘speaks’ to you, as you ‘speak’ to Life through your own
resonance.
I imagine this is the
basis of most nature-based religions.
All Life is sacred,
including you. Treat it with proper respect.
In sum.
This is what I think that
this story is trying to say, and as you may have guessed from the title, I
think this story is very relevant to today. No-one will be more surprised than
I am at what I have found through this inquiry. I have found it very useful indeed,
and hope it may be of use to you.
Anastasia.
There are 9 Anastasia
books written by Vladimir MEGRE,(Russian) translated to English by John
Woodsworth, edited by Leonid Sharaskin, and published by Ringing Cedars Press,
2004 on, and are available in Australia. (and also available through Nexus
magazine)
The title of the 1st
book is ‘Anastasia’. They are just lovely.
Terms and concepts: Adam, Eve, Garden of Eden, apple, fruit, Tree of Knowledge, serpent, snake, tempted, tempting, psychology, meaning, interpretation, discussion, blame, guilt, pain.
