troublemakers

Original Sin Revisited.

{Art: Adam & Eve by Thomas Hans}

 

What happened to the world once that fruit was bitten?

It has happened to us all. That moment upon waking when something is missing. A feeling of something full yet empty. That moment you’re aware you’ve dreamed something wonderful and profound and phenomenal, yet for the life of you, your rational mind has no recollection.

You are left with merely a feeling, a sense of exaltation and grandeur — but in equal ferocity — sadness because you will never know the reason for your exalted mood. You will never know the dream.

Isn’t it interesting that even though you cannot consciously remember — your subconscious still knows something’s there?

It seems to imply that we as human beings operate on two entirely different levels of reality at the same time. The emotions part, the part connected to something beyond our knowing, something wise — and the knowing part, the learned part, the part that is necessary for our everyday living.

When Eve ate the fruit from The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was she really being disobedient? Or was she doing God’s bidding by introducing God to the world? Perhaps she was the braver of the two?

Perhaps the original sin wasn’t a sin at all.

Charles Dickens says:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”

Hmm… sounds like life, doesn’t it? Sounds like what happened to the world once that fruit was bitten. Sounds like you can’t have one without the other.

{Art: Lucas Cranach The Elder / Courtland Institute Gallery}

 

What if our rational existence — that of Life — is the platform for experiencing God?

While walking this plane of existence called Life — we experience failure, triumph, defeat, exaltation, pain, beauty, joy, war, peace, turmoil, ease and everything else you can imagine or rationalize. The eb and flow. The equal and opposite. The dark and light. Etc., etc., etc.

When you think back on all the experiences you have faced and endured and triumphed and had pain over — do you ever truly regret? Or do you see that all the good and the bad have worked towards your highest sense of being. Your greatest good. Your most beautiful self?

What if God is both heaven and hell, and we experience God right here on earth? Not someplace after?

To live is to know the face of God.

I’d venture to guess many of you have been to hell already in this life and I think just as many of you have seen heaven too. Did you recognize them for what they were or did the mythological ideologies of heaven and hell blind you to the reality of what they truly are?

So then what about after life?

After life, I can only imagine that we merely rest — in the infinite with the Infinite. Regardless of who you are, what you believed or how you lived.

The infinite does not discriminate. It does not care whether you were a sinner or a saint. I think that if the Infinite were capable of asking a question in the after life it would simply ask:

Did you live?

But I might surmise that life (and living in knowledge of good an evil) is the only place we can be conscious of Infinity, because once we become the Infinite we are all-knowing and to be all-knowing is to lack for nothing. We will not desire heaven (or hell if you like it like that) for it will no longer matter.

After life we become the all-around-us, as if to sit in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve gained knowledge of good and evil. Aware of nothing but that they were peaceful. It was only after Eve ate the fruit that they began to understand things. That knowledge and life was born — as in the human experience.

In the afterlife, I could entertain the concept that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil will be merely a tree resting quietly on some distant, obscure horizon, elusive perhaps, like a mirage, but whispering, ready for when we want to try another bite. Ready for when we want to take another go at experiencing the face of God.

Therefore I believe that only in life do we learn God, who is both heaven and hell. Only in life do we witness creation, miracles and on the other side of the coin, destruction, chaos and pain.

But to walk through hell is to see the gates of heaven and return to God, realized.

In the end, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you believe. You are me, and I am you, and this (gesturing to the all around us) is God.

Can you feel it? Like that dream you had last night that you just can’t remember but you know happened.

***

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Kristi Stout

Kristi Stout

Kristi L. Stout is an artist, mother, and lover. She considers herself a Renaissance woman, in service of Love in its many forms. It is her belief that inside each of us is our own sacred, Wild nature -- a hidden instinct that is not forgotten as much as it is dormant, like leafless trees in winter. It is the part of us that is connected to all things. A knowing without knowing. The part deep inside that understands darkness is necessary for the moon to simmer silver, and recognizes that even if you’re lost in the middle of nowhere you can always find a sacred somewhere -- like an internal compass pointing true north to your heart center. Her passion project, work in progress, is She Is Wild. You can find more of Kristi’s work here or connect with her on Facebook.
Kristi Stout