Or
The Fathomless Beauty of Growing Pains
Psssst. Come here. Come here for just a moment. I want to tell you the oldest story in the Book.
It’s time we got that story straight. It’s been told upside down for so long. Like a dead snake, tail tied, dangling down a tree, its eyes no longer caring to look. I’ll speak true, I always do. Don’t mind my split splintered tongue.
I need to talk of Him. God, capital G guy. You know Him, right? So do I. Pretty well, If I may say so myself. The likes of him enjoy the business of destruction. Don’t get all ruffled up. Hear me out. Destruction is useful, sometimes beautiful, often needed. So that we have space to create more, and then destroy some more, and again, again, the endless cycle of change. And change is life, and life is change, blah blah.
But creation — friends, lovers, creation is the essence of the feminine. A natural birthright, you might say. And perhaps chuckle at your own clever joke. Creation is the doing of the goddesses. goddesses who, incidentally, do not require a capital letter to adorn their title. The goddesses who wait at the end and the beginning of all stories. They know it’s all gonna be alright.
This Guy we’re talking about in this very story, He decided to create. His skills are/were/will be top notch, no question about that. He is, after all, YHWH. And so, create He did. A whole universe. A perfect place, a beautiful place, a marvellous place, the best place.
May as well call it paradise.
Imagine eternity in such a place. Imagine eternity in a place with no pain. May I let you in on a little secret? A place with no pain is a place without stories. Because pain is the seed of every one of our stories. And oh how we love to tell stories. <Mostly to ourselves.>
In the Beginning, there’s nothing but that fertile soil of our soul. Then, a something, a someone sticks their fingers in the mud, digs a little hole, drops a seed. Of pain. Nestled in darkness, it slowly dreams. From that nourishing blackness, the seedling dreams itself into the light.
It can be many things, but let’s say it’s a tree, shall we? The tree of you. Unique, imperfect, distorted. It’s the most beautiful thing. So see there, the pain made you who you are. Even if you call it by a different name. Shame. Fear. Anger. Guilt. And so on.
For now, I will call it pain. Pain made you you. Pain got you so far. Pain got you here. And now, now that you are here, do you understand your story? The story given to you, so that you could grow to be you?
With this understanding, that is to say compassion, that is to say love, in time it will be time to say goodbye to your story. The time for a you of your own design and making, because you can, once you want it. For yourself. For yourself. <Sigh, finally.>
You let go, so you can be. The most beautiful version of yourself. This is your story. Your genesis story. Yes, of course it will be birthed in pain. Letting go of the story, the oldest story, is painful. Painful, and joyous. So, do you ken this? We need pain. We need pain to become. And then once more as we become ourselves.
Remember who gifted us pain? Not Him. Her. Eve gave us pain. Imagine eternity in a beautiful, perfect place. Imagine eternity in a place with no pain. It got pretty fucking boring pretty fucking quickly.
That oldest story, then, that Genesis story, that God story. It served us well, it got us here.
It’s time to let it go. It wasn’t Him, yes? It was her. That child, that rascal. Eve. She took a bite of the forbidden truth. In so doing, she birthed pain into the universe, made it so much vaster, so much more playful. Joy.
With sorrow you shall bring forth children, the story says, in The Language of The Name. Translations may vary. The sentiment is all the same. Through pain you will create. And women know about creation. An act of pain, and joy.
It’s time we got this story straight. Eve is not the original sinner. That shit makes no sense. Eve saved us from that endlessly exhausting painless perfection of paradise. Heaven, heaven is a place. Where nothing, nothing ever happens.
Eve. A mischievous laughing rule-breaker. A discoverer of worlds, a spirit of adventure. If she was a dude, she’d have gotten the oscar. She plucked down pain for us, and through it, change, that is to say growth, that is to say our way to ourselves.
Eve dared to allow the whole universe for us. A universe no longer predictable, with all the colors and smells and flavours and so many joys, and yes, many pains. Pain is not a punishment. It is that seed to grow our tree, to be all that it is to be, to be human, gifted with our own powers of creation.
Like any parent, He didn’t want us to suffer, ever. But He knew. No pain, no gain, more so in the forever. He knew one day we must leave His safe and perfect garden. So we can fully, truly, be. He left a backdoor. Don’t forget now, it was Eve who had the courage to open it and step through it. For that we should elate, not condemn her.
He did punish her. Not that pain bit. The other bit. Your husband shall rule over you. One tough fucking punishment. Not cool Dude, not cool. Well, we’re changing that story too.
I’m a humble beast. I saved myself for last. Now I talk about me for a spell. The serpent. Everywhere but in that Book I am the sacred symbol. Rebirth, creation, transformation, medicine. Elsewhere they all still rave about me. Go read the good Book. I just asked a question, I only offered an opinion, which, incidentally, was true. The narrator spins it, tells you ahead of time that I was conniving. A lie. All I did was tell her there was more to life than that.
This story ends. Look at what we’ve done here. See what’s going on? See you in lovely, beautiful hell.
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