THE GARDEN OF EDEN, THE FLAMING SWORD, THE GARDEN

OF EDEN

Does each human being have to eventually deal with a realization that

the very fact of being born begins with one’s self-becoming, one’s own

birth, traumatizing, injuring, the beloved mother? Does the physical

harm the baby causes the mother in labor, the mother giving birth,

become something that causes the baby to believe that the mother

indeed will retaliate, that maternal love cannot be trusted, ever? How

does the birthing mother forgive the baby? Is the mother so grateful

that the birth process has ended that she loves the baby because the

baby is born, is no longer being born, but is born? Does the birth

catastrophe for both mother and baby become a mutual forgiving?

 Does life begin as “etzev”, labor? Eve experiences etzev in childbirth,

Adam experiences etzev in tilling the earth. Both labor — and labor

is difficult. Does labor define life? Is the caesura the recognition that

joy, hope, delight, life itself, is defined by the discovery of what actual

life demands of us?

Is life the catastrophe?

Is the flaming sword barring access to the Tree of Life in the Garden

of Eden the first breath we take?

If life is the first catastrophe, and if breathing to sustain life is loss of

Paradise, we also discover that within the complexities of life, and, of

course, breathing, is the essence of Paradise. Every now and then, we

are welcomed back to the Garden of Eden, and, as we are distracted

by the catastrophes of life, we hear a murmur in the breeze, “Come

back soon. Your Garden is eternal.”