The opposite of life is not death, rather never knowing.
Yet knowledge has been called a forbidden fruit and a poison … the root of all evil … a bitter token of death. And Eve, she who was tempted to partake, has been made to suffer for it. The tempter? A god and a devil. And why not? For knowledge is something that many hate and all come to regret. We are fallen, and from what? From the opposite of life.
It seems to me that some of eastern philosophy is driven by an ancient will to return to that place of non-being — a striving to escape the cares of this life. What is it called? Transcendence? And western philosophy likewise. Do we not speak longingly of that realm where there is no death, only eternal cycles of … what? The answer is in our gods. We call our gods everlasting and unchanging, omnipotent and all-knowing. These are beings beyond our kin and the embodiment of our wildest contradictions. We want to live but not pay the price of death. We want knowledge without consequence. We want to believe in impossible things because we are still children.
Oh God, the Eternal Father, hallowed be thy name … You. Complete. Me.
No. I’ll take my bite of fruit with Eve, to live and die. I accept my lot among the transient living as the cost of leaving the never-born. Oh yes, to live is to fail to see the whole for all the pieces. And what should we expect? We are ourselves just pieces … pieces who think about what we see and thereby come to know something of ourselves and our place among so many other pieces. So long as we live, may we never be be healed. Only death take us back to that eternal unity where there is no pain, no caring, because there is no knowing.
Blessed Eve, mother of all living. Partake so that we might live …
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NOTES:
- The Image – Charismatic, mystic, arcane. Feminism illustrated with the imprint of an ancient knowledge. This is what I see. Attribution unknown.
- Resources – Special thanks to all those who tell our children stories about Eve and, more importantly, manage to do so in a truthful way. Also to ff42 and DKL whose comments in a discussion following last week’s post are reflected here.
- About – Cipher on a Wall is a weekly column and forum here on Doves & Serpents which explores the realm of mind, memories, and dreams. You can find an introductory post for Cipher on a Wall here and a full archive of posts here. My name is Matt, and I’ll be your host for the duration.
Giving up belief in “everlasting and unchanging, omnipotent and all-knowing” gods is frightening. It’s much more comfortable to believe that someone kind and loving is in charge–even though evidence for that is lacking throughout much of the world.
But giving up belief in the impossible, or at least the unlikely, frees an individual to take personal responsibility to make the most of this life for self and others. It is the bite of the apple.
Ann, it’s true. And in a way the ultimate comfort is in that bite. It’s like before, you’re afraid, out of sorts, and uncertain of self — lost really. Then after you just are and everything else just is and you’re home. Eve says, “come, partake so that we might live,” and you do and only then realize that living right now is what you are and ever will be. There’s comfort in that and a kind of healing after all.
Beautiful Matt. I love the idea of dualities, but I love even better thoughtful, unexpected dualities. You’re right, the opposite of life is absolutely “never knowing”. Life should be unfettered with “shoulds”, lived with eyes wide open.
The picture is amazing. I saw the same things you did. Eve has always fascinated me.
Thank you, k! In a way, perhaps the only way that matters, Eve is our god (heh, “the Eve-God Theory”). She represents that moment when life becomes self-aware. Everything before and after should mean nothing to us.
Eve rocks. The whole story never made sense while I believed. But, toward the end of my belief, I looked to the temple narrative of Adam and Eve as the pathway to the greater light and knowledge that I desperately desired. Ironically, the same act that led me to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the narrative (partaking of the bitter/sweet forbidden fruit of knowledge) is the same act that led me out of faith. In the end, I found the greater light and knowledge that I sought, though definitely not what I expected. Thanks Matt for your thought provoking essays.
You’re right. The primary literalism we were taught is so shallow in comparison. And I realize that we were also meant to appreciate the symbolic but I have to say, so long as I held the literal meaning, the symbolic seemed mostly window dressing and bonus material at best — pure conjecture at worst. The literal view is meant as a control device, I think.
But now, as you say, Eve has become something other than a tool of a necessary evil — she has become the pathway that leads away from never-being/never-knowing to being because we know. And this path was surprising to me as well and continues to be, as life always is — one of the greatest and most pleasant suprises: finding that you and I are on this path together.
Eve as the typification for human self awareness? Interesting.
I’m ready to give up some beliefs, but not others. So I’m not sure I’m at the same place, but I know the feeling of before and after knowledge. Once alive you cannot become other than. In a way, I hold on to the idea that we can never really die, and in never ceasing to live, I cannot unlearn all that I now see as true. It’s still a frightening prospect for me though. Some days I want to go back to before.
I picked up a book called “The Book of J” where the author (David Rossenberg) expounds his theory of who wrote the first four books of the OT, what parts are original and in what context they were written. He suggests that they were written shortly after the time of Solomon by a member of the royal family and that originally, they were meant more as literature based in the cultural mythos than religeous texts. One of the most interest twists that he suggests is that the author was female, which in my opinion, makes the story of the garden that much more interesting.