Today I find myself exploring my intuition…and my coffee. I know this sounds rather odd, but I enjoy many things. I do find that I wildly respect those who find one thing and make it their life’s work. Me? Well, I’m not so lucky, but I do appreciate that I’m willing to explore many things on my journey.
I was having a conversation with a friend about what I saw in my latte foam this morning. He saw a serpent, I saw, well, a penis. (Insert Freud, although I tend to be more Jungian.) That led my mind back to the Garden of Eden, which I explored in one of my recent short stories, “Barren Eden.” What occurred to me was that we are told that Eve was tempted by a serpent with an apple. Indulge my next thought if you please. What if that was just a “coming of age” story? What if the serpent was a metaphor for a young Eve being tempted by a man, ushering her into puberty? The apple representing his scrotum, containing the seed of life.
Side Note: Some scholars believe the apple was in fact a fig, based on the probable location of The Garden. If this is so, then I can absolutely see a scrotum easily represented by a fig. And figs have many seeds.
Anyway…what if the Garden of Eden represents blissful youth? The serpent representing a young person’s desire, and reaching puberty offers a new way to look at the world. Once Eve ate the apple (or fig), she was given the gift of knowledge, and only with knowledge can she ascend to the next phase of life. She could not move from childhood to adulthood without knowledge of herself, mind and body.
It’s “out there”,” but in my mind, it makes a strange amount of sense.
