Garden of Compromise

This is the story of the bony beginnings of Mankind, a tale of how things came to be, and an ironic, irrational, feeble explanation of the beginning of this living Life.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form (the function was there, truth be told, eternal and infinite,looking for a meme and a will) and void (called space and time by science); and darkness was upon the face of the deep (the unknown and unknowable.) The imagination of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, "Let there be light" and there was light. Essentially, God was irrational in a huge, metaphysical way; after all in the Void were all sorts of ideas and universes ready to boil out of the ether into reality, to create reality, but no one had ever had the bold irrationality of our Lord. His cosmic Self stirred, there was a stirring witin Him, and so life was created, basically, to satisfy His need for stimulation. From the Void He rose full-formed and ancient, an embodiment of the All, in order to be entertained.

God said, "Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that crept upon the earth." And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and Potential became a living soul. Potential may or may not be the first man made ever, this is outside our understanding, outside time and knowledge, but he was the first to satisfy God's requirements; the potential for love and war, truth and fantasy, comedy and drama.

And so, Potential was made, in the image of God (that most complex yet basic of all personae's). Potential was the mold, if you will, of all our Selves that came after. Potential was the most elaborate, psychotic psychosis, the most frugal, flashy id; the most resplendent, regressive creation of the cosmos. Potential was like a baby: selfish, selfless, not self-aware, feeble, savage; ignorant. Potential spent untold, unrecorded epochs of time after creation chasing beasts, naked, ravaging them with his teeth, beast-like himself. Potential was a savage, lived savagely, unaware of his potential, potentially king of the beasts, but no more.

This was a reflection of God at this time, Potential was in His image after all, neither was self-aware, there was no self-awareness at this time, there was no self, only potential. It was a pristine world; God's brilliance sat naked in this reality, His radiance unfettered by moral judgments, and likewise Potential galloped nakedly through creation, unfettered by his humanity, and wallowed in his being. Potential was the noble savage unleashed, complex biology and no more. Yet, the potential for our history germinated there in his brain; awaiting the unleashing.

The Lord God planted a garden; and there He put Potential to rule over the Garden, a seething spot in the center of reality. The five Earthly senses, this plane of reality, this mortal coil, was linked to the Garden of Compromise; reality was anchored to creation through this place; it was the eye of the hurricane, the fingerprint of the Creator. This is where God limited humanity, laid out the confines of creation, the borders of our biology, the outskirts of His omnipresence. Within this Garden was our drama to unfold, within this corral was the experiment of our biology to occur, the most noble savage yet, Potential was to enliven creation with his antics.

Potential yearned for contact, yearned for interaction on a level he could relate to. God saw this and made him a helper, Template, an upgrade from Potential. Potential was the origin of all who would come, but Template was the processor from whom they would come forth. God foresaw, in Template, the precursor for conflict, for which Potential yearned.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “0f every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

The nature of the relationship between God, Potential, the Garden, and Template necessarily made Template the lowest on the totem pole, hierarchally; she was the newest, the least unique, and subservient. She was after-all second, second-made, and secondary in the patriarchal system of creation.

Subliminal, the serpent, was subtle, and sublime, and sensual in his cursed ways, and naturally envious of Potential and Template, for in his subliminal way his limitation was influence, not creation, so Subliminal hated the parents of mankind.

Subliminal asked of Template, "hath God said, 'Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Template answered, ''We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, 'Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

Subliminal hissed in his scaly way: “Ye shall not surely die, but rather, your eyes shall be opened." And mother of mankind, the Template of all who would forevermore be born men, was tempted, and found lacking, ravished by the whispered rustlings of the subliminal. The itchy tickling in the back of the brain, the grasping barb, our own self-imposed mortality reared at us in antiquity, as it does today.

The serpent in the template of her personality awoke the potential of her psyche for doing mischief, and her reptile brain could not resist. So Template ate, and tempted Potential, and he ate, for the potential was there, in him, created by God, and Template was but a form for function, and the design of her personality was to be filled by Potential, so they ate, and the Garden was compromised, as its confines became clear, as grim reality intruded, and innocence was lost.

Potential's and Template's eyes were opened, they became man and woman, forever to suffer death, and disease, and despair. What they lost was grace, and judgment, and favor of the Lord; for the knowledge of good and evil was not theirs, they did not gain some secret insight into creation; rather, they sat, judged lacking; poor, and humiliated before God.

Potential and Template vainly tried to cover their nakedness (physically, spiritually, realistically) - as we still do. Their vine and fig leave clothing is exactly like our feel good humanism, our selfish escapism, our consuming materialism. The induction into the punishment of our reality because of their banishment from God's favor is the lot of man. The Garden was compromised; humanity shall suffer the consequences.

Potential and Template heard God walking through the Garden, so they hid from Him, as we do, hiding in trees and chemical stupor, jungle and pointless hedonism, leaves and ignorance.

“Hide? From whence and where have you hidden from Me;" asked the Lord, “For didn't I create even the hidden spots? Tell me, why do you hide."

Answered Potential, "I was afraid because I was naked."

Naked! The least of his worries, as for time uncounted, Potential had rooted with the pigs naked; ran with deer naked; slept in the grass naked; yet the difference was not nudity, for he had always been naked, but his awareness of otherness from God, his awareness of being outside of God, the nudity of his self-awareness.

Of course God knew how, and why, and when this awareness became, yet He asked: '''Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou should not eat?"

Potential blamed Template, and Template blamed Subliminal, as I blame you and you me, as if blame were of any consequence. When the Garden was compromised, self, awareness, nakedness, despair, dejection, shame, were unleashed as consequence.

The consequence for Subliminal was to be cursed amongst all creation, to be evil on his belly, eating dust forever for eternity. The consequence for Template was sorrow, pain, and subservience wherein Potential was to rule over her. For Potential the consequence was the terrible judgment and disappointment of the Lord.

Therefore the Lord sent them forth from the Garden, to wander the earth, to live apart from God in futility, and to till the ground from whence they was taken.

At the east of the Garden, Cherubim and a flaming sword turned every way, to guard the way of innocence lost.