The Birth of Eve

There once was a beautiful walled garden that stood by itself in the middle of the world. In this garden grew every kind of beautiful flower and tree. Peaceful animals lived in it; birds and butterflies and innocent horses and sheep and squirrels flew and fluttered and roamed and grazed and scurried through the garden to their hearts’ content.  

The garden was tended by a man and a woman. They both lived and worked in the garden and had always lived and worked there. They took care of the flowers and shrubs and trees and were friends with the animals and made pets out of some of them. The people were very beautiful and happy, like the animals and flowers and trees. Everyone was happy in the garden because the garden was perfect, and nobody knew anything else.

Then one day, a new animal arrived from somewhere outside of the garden. No one had ever seen anything like him before. He was very long and thin and instead of walking on all fours, like the horses, or on two legs, like the people, he wiggled on the ground because he had no legs. Everyone welcomed this strange creature into the garden, and he seemed relieved to be there. The people picked him up and put him into the knothole of a giant and beautiful tree, the tree that the people called The Tree of Life, since the main part of their diet was made of its fruit.  The animals wanted to know what he called himself.

“I am called a serpent,” he said. He curled up in his knothole with a happy sigh and fell asleep. He slept for many days. The woman came to check on him every day and left him some berries and grass and nuts to eat. She was worried that he might get hungry while he slept.

On the third day, the serpent woke up. The woman saw that he was awake and was delighted. She asked him how he felt.

“Much better,” he said with a sigh and shook his head sadly. “This is a beautiful place. What is it called?”

“Eden,” said the woman. “Thank you. We think it is a beautiful place. Where did you come from, serpent?”

The serpent sighed. “I would rather not think about where I came from. It was not a beautiful place. It was horrible.”

“What does horrible mean?” asked the woman.

The serpent looked at the woman and shook his head. “If you don’t know what horrible means, I’m not going to be the one to tell you.”

So the woman told the man and the other animals that night that the serpent was from a place called Horrible, but that he didn’t want to talk about it.

“He is our guest, so we must honor his desire to not speak of his home, although it is very strange. Everyone knows that home is the best place in the world,” said the woman. The man and the other animals agreed.

However, the woman was very curious about the serpent’s home and about the outside world. She had never been outside of the garden walls because . . . actually, she wasn’t sure why. So the next day, she went to the Tree of Life to talk to the serpent and found him sunning himself on a branch near his knothole.

“Serpent, tell me about your home,” she said.

The serpent shuddered. “I told you, I can’t tell you about my home. Even if I wanted to tell you about it, you couldn’t understand. I want to forget about my home. Now don’t ask me again.” Then, as he saw that he had hurt her feelings, he added, “But if you would be so kind, tell me about your home, this garden. I would like to hear of good things.”

So the woman told him about the Garden and the flowers and shrubs and trees, and the birds and butterflies and innocent horses and sheep and squirrels that made their home in the garden, and how she and the man took care of everything, and lived happily under the shade of the giant trees. The serpent listened to her speaking and saw how good and kind and innocent she was herself.

“This is a good place. You should never leave this place,” said the serpent, when she had finished.

The woman blushed. “How did you know that I want to leave it?”

The serpent shook his head. “You should never leave this place. This is paradise.”

“What is paradise?” asked the woman.

The serpent looked at the woman and smiled sadly. “If you do not know what paradise is, I’m not going to be the one to tell you.”

And so that night the woman told the man and the other animals that the serpent had said that they should never leave the garden because it was Paradise.

“Why would we want to leave it?” said the man. “It is home, and everyone knows that home is the best place in the world.”

The animals all agreed, but the woman was silent. She was frowning. A new thought had come to her.

“How do I know that home is the best place in the world if I’ve never been out in the world?” she thought. “How silly they all are, thinking they know everything! They know nothing, and neither do I.” She felt irritable and restless, stayed awake all night while the man slept and the butterflies and birds fluttered and twittered through the branches of the Tree of Life.

The next day, the woman slowly walked to the Tree of Life. She looked very sad.

“Serpent,” she said. “I have made up my mind. I have to leave the garden.”

The serpent, sunning himself on a branch near his knothole, almost fell off in his surprise. “My friend,” he cried, hanging upside down from the branch by his tail, “what are you talking about? How can you even think such a thing?”

The woman gently lifted the serpent back onto his branch and looked into his shiny black eyes, which were full of concern.

“I can’t help it. Ever since you came I haven’t been able to stop wondering about the rest of the world. You know so much, and I don’t know anything about anything. I want to understand the world better, like you do. I want to explore it and find out what kind of a place it is. I’m tired of being stuck here.” She waved her hand at the living green walls around her.

“My friend,” said the serpent, agitated, “you cannot leave this garden. You do not know what kind of a world it is out there. You do not even know the words to describe what kind of world it is out there.  Your home is here, and the one thing you do know is true: Home is the best place in the world.”

The woman stamped her foot impatiently. “How do I know that home is the best place in the world when I have never been out in the world?”

When the serpent saw that the woman was thinking this way, he realized that it was useless to argue.

“It was better for you to be ignorant,” he thought. “It is my fault. If I had not come, you would have been content here inside these walls. Now you can’t be content here anymore. And you have lost your home, although you don’t know it yet.”

“My friend,” said the serpent slowly, “What will you do? Will you leave the man and the animals?”

“Yes, I have to,” she said. “But that is why I am sad today. I have never been apart from them before.”

That night, the woman told the man and the animals what she planned to do. They were distraught and tried to persuade her not to go. The man even started to cry. The woman put her arms around him to comfort him and then he said, “If you go, I must go too. I have never been separated from you before.”

The woman smiled and her eyes shone with hope. “We will find something wonderful, I know it! We will find what the serpent said . . . Paradise!”

“Perhaps we will find Horrible, too,” said the man, trying to be excited.

“All the better,” cried the woman. “I want to find it all!”

The next day the woman and the man got ready to leave the garden. All the birds and butterflies and innocent horses and sheep and squirrels and the serpent came to see them off. The woman went from animal to animal and said goodbye with a tender kiss and a pat on the head. She was calm, but glowing with excitement and purpose. Finally, she stopped at the Tree of Life and affectionately rubbed the serpent between his beady black eyes with her forefinger.

“So you are really going?” said the serpent gloomily.

“Of course I am!” she said.

The serpent did not smile back. “If you are going to go, you need to know one thing.” He sounded so serious that everyone became quiet and stared at him.  “There is no Tree of Life in the world. Don’t try to look for it. If you try to look for it, you will go hungry looking. But there is another tree; it grows abundantly throughout the world. It is called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Its fruit is edible.”

“How will we recognize it?” asked the man, who was feeling frightened at the thought of not being able to eat from the Tree of Life.

“You will know it when you see it,” said the serpent, and he slid back into his knothole.

There was nothing left to do or say, so the woman and man walked out of the garden to look at the world and see what kind of place it was.

The day after they left, the animals woke up confused and anxious. They went to the serpent and said, “Brother, help us! You are wise, and we need a leader now that the woman and man are gone.”

“Leave me alone,” said the serpent from inside his knothole. “I am no leader, and I am not wise.”

“But you have been throughout the world and have seen so many things,” said the animals. “We must have someone to lead us.”

Still the serpent said nothing and stayed inside his knothole, for he was consumed with guilt over what had happened to the man and woman. The animals wandered around the Tree of Life all morning and could not eat or rest. Finally, a horse said to the other animals, “We should follow our two people. What is this place without them?”

So the animals left the garden to search for their people. But the serpent did not follow; he stayed in his knothole in the Tree of Life.

And so the serpent spent a very lonely year in the walled garden. He missed the company of the kind woman and the simple man and the animals. He rarely left the Tree. He lived his quiet days eating fruit and sunning himself on the branch by his knothole. One day, as he slithered out to breakfast, he looked around the garden and noticed that things had started to change. The more delicate and fragrant flowers were wilting, the trees and shrubs were turning brown, the grass was scraggly and tangled, and the heavy vines were beginning to grow out of control. Strangest of all, the garden walls, which had stood for centuries without maintenance or repair, were beginning to crumble. The serpent sighed and went inside his knothole and did not come out again for a very long time.

One day, years after the people had gone away, the serpent looked to the east and saw someone walking towards him. He thought it strange that anyone should be in the region at all. There was nothing to see there, for all that remained of the once verdant and pleasing landscape was harsh, dry brush encircled by a perimeter of fallen stones. The garden had vanished; the Tree of Life stood green and alone in a deserted wasteland.

“It must be some poor lost soul,” thought the serpent.

The figure came closer and grew in size until the serpent could see that it wasn’t a man, but a woman. Then, with a little start of surprise, he realized and it was she, his old friend. She walked slowly towards him, head down, back bent forward a little, as though she carried a great weight on her shoulders. Every now and then she would look up, scan the horizon, frown, and continue walking wearily towards the Tree. She was hesitant as she climbed over the fallen stones, and picked her way around the dry bushes as though she couldn’t understand how they had gotten there.

When the woman walked into the shade of the Tree, she looked up into its branches and noticed the serpent. She stopped and stared at him, her eyes blank and wondering. Then she blinked. “Serpent?”

“Hello friend,” said the serpent.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Why aren’t you in the garden?”

“I am in the garden,” said the serpent. “Well, anyway, and I am where the garden used to be.”

“No, this is not the garden,” she cried. “There is no garden here, and never has been.” She took a step back and stared. But she looked and looked at the Tree of Life and realized there could be no mistake. It was the same Tree, and she was standing in the middle of her old garden.

“No, this can’t be,” she said to herself. “I did this? I did this? How could I do this? How could this happen?”

“The punishment rarely fits the crime,” said the serpent. “That is the way of the world.”

“But I committed no crime!” cried the woman. “What crime did I commit? What law did I break? I was curious and restless. Is that a sin?”

The serpent said nothing.

She looked around her, tears streaming down her face. “All I wanted was to come home,” she thought. “And this isn’t home anymore, but there is no where else for me. Where else can I go?”

“I don’t know,” the serpent said. “I don’t know. This is my fault. If I hadn’t come, you would have been content.”

                  Suddenly the air turned gold and white, there was a rushing wind, and a sound of roaring, and God appeared before them, in gold, white and pink robes. He was too bright to see, but his voice was strong and made the ground around the Tree of Life tremble. The serpent hid his face, but the woman looked through her squinting eyes, although she knew it was perhaps dangerous, because she wanted to see God.

                  “I sent the serpent to the garden,” said God. “Do you think he could have come otherwise?”

                  “Why,” asked the woman. Although she was afraid, she was also angry. “Why would you do that?”

                  “You wanted to leave,” said God. “You were unhappy. You were restless and curious. You were meant to be all of those things.”

                  “But the garden was so beautiful, and now it is gone!”

                  “There have been and will be many gardens,” said God. “Each has its time, and each comes to an end. You may mourn for it, for you loved it. But it is not a calamity. ”

                  “But the world is a horrible place,” said the serpent, still not looking at God. “And now this innocent woman and man have to live in it, and make a way in it, and deal with all of its trials and horrors and pains. It is not fair, and you know it!”

                  “Serpent,” said God. “You are a catalyst of change; this is your function in the world. Remember that you do not know things that you have not been given to know. You bring knowledge, but not wisdom. The woman will find wisdom another way. It would be best if you would not speak of things you do not understand.”

                  The serpent was quiet.

                  “Woman, where is the man?” God asked.

                  “I don’t know,” she said, looking confused. “We had a fight—I wanted to come back to the garden and he didn’t want to. I haven’t seen him for a long time.”

“Woman, it is time for you to build a new home,” said God. “You will always be able to come back to the Tree, for it is yours. It will live without tending, and it will welcome and refresh you when you need it. But you leave it again for now and find the man, for he cannot live without you. This is your first necessity.”

                  The woman said, “You forgive me then? For leaving the garden?”

                  “Why do you ask for my forgiveness?” said God, and the cloud disappeared.