by Debbie Naples
Once in the Garden of Eden, flowers bloomed, water flowed; humans ran with wolves, no one had shoes. When it rained, the earth was fed, and the plants and animals and humans rejoiced. In the sun they basked. One day everything changed and Eve got herself and Adam kicked out: For good. Naturally they were thrown into the desert, with big angry cobras, deadly scorpions and hot burning sand and wind that accelerated the aging process and eventually would lead to a whole industry of plastic surgery and face-paint. But that is not our story.
Back to the garden. So there the two of them land in the middle of the Middle East naked, unemployed, uninsured, homeless, unvaccinated and filled with regret. Who even knew if they were literate or artistically gifted, or even good at math? It’s just not recorded. Yoga was not invented, music was voice propelled and electricity resided only in bolts of lightening and as static in their hair.
What to do, everything had already been named and they were fully-grown. Cain and Abel not withstanding…Adam and Eve started another GARDEN! This time with irrigation, later to be completely dismantled by the Mongols in the 13th century, but that is not our story.
Adam and Eve made a new garden outside the Garden of Eden, scorpions and lions drank from the ditches, whatever; if you don’t bother them they don’t bother you, ‘sort of’ it’s like a ghetto,: eventually someone does get killed—just because it’s hot.
Later, much later in this series we will explore just how the ‘other’ Garden is going, and exactly how Adam and Eve made the tragic choice to eventually move to New Jersey where they felt it might be safer. Not to mention: improved irrigation, absence of cobras, and excessive access to Yoga and store bought vegetables. But that story is centuries away. We have not even begun to discuss xeriscaping in burning biblical deserts and the undiscovered nutrition of the cactus.
That’s for next time.