The Fall & The Underworld

Part One

Hello friends, and all out there in the slam dance of static, drama and heroism that is this moment. It’s hard to think about much other than what’s going in Ukraine isn’t it? Up at the cottage I’m blearily deep in Cossack and Ukrainian folktales, and the metaphysical roaring of Old Russia. Meaning flops around like a salmon out of water. The following essay is not the result of that, but was written a few weeks before the war began.

*

Eden can be inside.

I didn’t know that when I was young. I thought it was some region way back in a Religious Studies class. But no, it doesn’t have to be. Or at least not entirely. It has greater agency and wider purchase. To be clear, I’m not advocating complete internalisation (there’s all sorts of problems if you go entirely down that route) but hear me out. As a kid I did love the sound of the four rivers pouring from Eden: the Pishon, the Gihon, the Hiddekel, the Euphrates. I just didn’t know those rivers could pour into a human heart.

The old Celtic idea was that when you were profoundly entwined with your original nature you could find yourself there. In the garden. It was a realm you dwelt in, a consciousness that curated you. Eden blossomed you. An interior flowering that made its presence known in your words and deeds. Eden not as a terrain confined entirely to Jewish theology but also a dynamic field of nourishing relatedness. Something marvellous, and sometimes exacting.

Exacting because you can’t just wander in and out. Not when you’re all grown up. And as you may remember there’s an angel with a sword of fire blocking the way. There usually is with holy ground. You have to give something up to experience entry, and it may cost more than you expect. Let me suggest what it is, in a roundabout way.

There’s an Irish phrase that’s lifted straight from the mouth of God:

Cop on to yourself.

Not copping on to yourself, being puffed up and filled with hubris is the big sin. The great divine turn off. Being a jumped up, cruel, delusional nasty piece of work. A rusty pipe drips poison. That’s what halts all deepening. That is what we are instructed to put down and walk away from. Do that and anything is possible.

This is a wonderful and terrible notion all at the same time. Wonderful that you could abide there. Terrible that something is announced by your words, deeds and presence. I wince when I think what has announced itself through me over the years.

The way I see it is this. Next time you are in a group conversation pay attention to where the most warmth, humility and insight is coming from. Have a good look at them because they may be speaking to you from Eden. Or they may say nothing at all, sheer presence can do it.

By their fruits you shall know them.

And what do I mean by the phrase original nature? I mean the state you were intended to be in. Before being so spun sideways by general skulduggery and random betrayals you built any number of defences to stop people getting too close. The problem is, after a while, you can’t get too close either. Not to the stuff that matters. As I’ve said before, most of us are heavily defended against an experience of our own beauty. Our heart becomes a kind of endangered species. We just catch the occasional glimpse in the tree line. Years pass and at some point we will understand the meaning of exile. At some point we will wish to return to the garden. And now we’re getting to why I’m talking about Eden.

At the end of my forties, I visited a forest for 101 days. I needed to stop talking. I was bushed. Every day I lay a gift down at the roots of a hazel bush. At the end of this extended spiritual pummelling, I was given just nine words:

Inhabit the time and genesis of your original home.

I didn’t know what these words meant. There’s a kind of bump or skip in them that makes them hard to digest. But I know now.