Where else should we start but with the failure? If we take that old story of God and Adam and Eve and a certain serpent in their Garden of Eden, this paradise of plenty, we have a man and a woman created fully adult yet fully child-like, held in innocence until the breaking of the injunction to not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How were we to get out of our child-like dependence? It had to be by breaking the rules. There is a sense in which every part of the story is necessary to give some insight into our predicament as thinking animals; held in animal nature with minds that soar to the heavens. Of course we might see it as tragicomedy or we might see it as a policier – it was all a set up, the cops planted the evidence via an agent provocateur and then arrested us with smirks on their faces.
Whatever it was it was surely necessary for our innocence to be rudely disillusioned though whether that means we should leap directly into the murk and confusion of guilt must be rather doubtful. But let’s leave the question of guilt to one side for the moment, let us see it as a struggle through to awareness. And awareness it has to be said is an opening to something bigger. The room that we were in suddenly gets bigger. The Garden of Eden became an exercise in limitation: let’s check this out. Is this really the case? So we have exploration, development of hypotheses, dialogue, feedback and I could add the overused cliché of journeying.
So, it’s thanks God (Mum, Dad) for all you’ve given us but hey, this garden is beginning to get a bit on the small side. You know it as well as we do, after all you’re throwing us out, but actually we got there first . . . well Eve here got chatting to some serpent and well you know how these things happen I guess, one thing leads to another. Anyway, we’re off and thanks again. No hard feelings eh! Yeah, we are a bit scared but I think we‘re going to be okay . . . there is one thing though, one last thing, could you give us your blessing. We’d like that if you could see your way to bless us, we would really appreciate that.
The garden we’re in currently is that of the Market and the great patriarchs of the Market have told us that we must never interfere with its pure workings. So we have to work (if there are any jobs) harder and longer with less complaint, be flexible, go here, go there for less money and at the same time consume, consume, consume.
Is it time to leave this Garden of Market? I suppose that depends on who you are. For those cocaine fuelled traders and bankers, millionaires, billionaires presumably not. It remains snouts in the trough time. For the rest of us?
You mean you’re getting itchy feet, too?
Perhaps thinking moving into another sort of space where less is more . . . meanwhile there’s ever more exploring to do, learning to keep up with and the never ending spiral of dialogue.