The Consciousness of Eden: Sacred Union + Wholeness

You are whole. Never broken. Yes. Even within the imperfections. Yes. Even as the excruciating wound oozes with puss. You are whole. Within the the holy mess and very human flaws within flesh. You are in the garden of eden even if it feels like the blazing fires of hell. God never left you and you never left God. You may forget. You may feel like you are drowning. You may even feel like giving up and fantasize about being out of the body. Yet, if you can come back to the loving presence within your heart you unite with God. You return to a state of being which has always existed before there was a somatic experience of separation or shame. Every time you return to loving presence, you become one with the entire Universe itself.

In the mythological creation story, Adam and Eve were known to be in the garden of paradise- purity. Eve was tempted by the serpent, whom was depicted as bad or satanic. After Eve eats the apple Adam and her ‘fall from grace’ and original sin is born- aka shame. In traditional Christianity, this is where there was  ‘separation’ from God and man became mortal. The serpent is an ancient symbol of the divine feminine and primal goddess- the sexual force of creation. This myth with a goddess consciousness lens holds a very different perspective than traditional Christianity. In the traditional story, because Eve followed desire or free will and fell into imperfection, she transgressed from the sacred into a flawed human who was ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. The divine feminine flip to this myth would be we have always been whole, even within imperfection. WWe never left the garden. The divine feminine cyclic journey is about forgetting and remembering, seeking sacred union with God within the dynamic nature of being human.

The serpent is an initiatory force into the mystery school of being Divine in body. The serpent opens up the portal for Adam and Eve to birth into human form. This is similar to a soul  birthing through the star gate portal of the womb through the act of love making. The soul. Once formless. In the etheric realms. Miraculously brought into form through the feminine body- creation herself.  You can view the serpent and apple as the womb herself. The birthing portal of new life. Blasting Adam Eve into a fresh dimension of experience- being human.

This relates with John Bowlby’s attatchment theory. Attachment theory is a psychological and evolutionary theory which dives into the relationships between humans.  At first, young infants are not aware that they are separate beings. When an infant is born their neocortex is not formed, so they don’t have a concept of an individual self. They are merely one with the present moment, or you can say God.  Bowbly states, “At birth, the newborn has no sense of time in the way adults experience time as a flow .The newborn lives in an eternal now. What she is experiencing at this moment is all that there ever has been and all that ever was. We believe that at the very beginning of life she doesn’t remember being hungry or empty and she doesn’t know she will be hungry and empty again. What she is experiencing now is all that matters. “ (Karen, 2001 ) As the child develops shame begins to imprint in their system through misattunement from their caregiver. This is where they forget they are one with the eternal now moment (wholeness, source, god, mother ), begin the play of forgetting, and take on a deceptive ego identity.

Shame is the core of the traditional story. Because they believed in ‘forbidding the order of god’ shame became the somatic affect of separation, the sacred core wound. The separation wound is sacred because it is the holy alter of union. The game of self actualization. The gnosis of oneself as Love itself. The goddess consciousness flip of this myth is one of radical self love and acceptance. The sacred feminine is paradox. Soul and body. Imperfect and whole. Light and dark. Death and birth. Pleasure and pain. She is the force of evolution. Without the goddess, there is no form or play of consciousness. She is the dimension of full spectrum feeling and the richness of being alive. Through her kinky longing to know God through duality, she is taken and ravished into love making with the Universe itself.

In classic tantric traditions there is Shiva and Shakti. Shiva represents the divine masculine, the inner sky of consciousness. Shakti represents the goddess- the primordial cosmic energy which manifests itself into all expressions of matter. The divine feminine is the raw material of experience itself, the masculine is pure consciousness. The garden of eden psychology represents a state of innocence and perfection, then split into seemingly separate reality. In tantric traditions all is one. God consciousness is in all. There is light in the dark. There is holiness in the mess. There is divinity within chaos. Because all is wrapped with Loving presence. The garden of eden represents union with the universe- or wholeness. The apple represents Venus, the archetypal goddess relating to desire, quantum time lines, and spiral cycles. Eve embarks on the mythical tale of human desire and freedom when she decides to taste the nectar of the apple. Because humans have free will, they will misattune from Loving presence and experience the clouds of shame.

The same experience happens within early attachment. Bowlby states, “For the first 6 months of life, the baby ideally is simply enjoyed and taken care of. His sense of himself develops in the context of another who values him, holds him, takes care of him, and so on. When the young child’s needs are not met he always assumes there is something wrong with him, not his parents. He falls into shame” (Karen, 2001). Attunement is wholeness, or the consciousness of Eden (Shiva). When the care giver is misattuned they leave the garden and the child's system registers ‘there is something wrong with me.’ They become the shame ridden characters in Eden. The caregiver being God for the infant. Separation being the experience of misattunement (or imperfection). Attachment theory and the creation story weave a common thread with  ‘I did something wrong’. When the care giver isn’t attuned to their child, it isn’t because they are bad parents they are merely imperfect humans. To be human is to be imperfect while never leaving the wholeness of Eden.

There is a theory called Polyvagal. Shame expert Bret Lyon states, “Polyvagal Theory provides an innovative scientific perspective to study feelings of safety that incorporates an understanding of neurophysiology.(Lyon, 2021) There are three elementary states in this theory : ventral vagal (the social engagement system) sympathetic system (fight / flight) and the dorsal vagal (freeze / shut down / immobility). Shame is directly related to dorsal vagal - the freeze response. Typical responses when in dorsal are dissociation, numbness, depression, loss of energy, helplessness, shut down, and trappedness. 

Polyvagal theroy is connected to the creation myth because it is the scientific theory of the forgetfulness of God within. It is mysticism articulated within the palpability of the nervous system. Eden is a state of coherence. The tantric or goddess tradition approach to coherence God gnosis is through integration of imperfections, or split realties. Daniel Siegel states, “Integration”—the ways in which functionally distinct components come to be clustered into a functional whole—may be a fundamental way in which the nervous system functions.The “wholeness” of this integrative process can be described within the concept of “coherence” in which the disparate elements contribute to the flow of a system toward maximal complexity.”(Siegel, 2001) The experience of God is within the human nervous system. When applying this theory to the creation myth, Adam and Eve fell into a dorsal shut down state through shame affect. This became an imprint within the nervous system, which then perpetuates further disconnection and dysregualtion (forgetfulness) through lack of integration or digestion of raw energy. Shiva making love with Shakti on a moment to moment basis. Loving presence is the bridge back to coherence or ventral after a dorsal shut down.

Paradise ultimately is a state of being. It is a soothed and coherent state within the nervous system. It is inner peace and the heart frequency. It is the softness of pleasure. It is living more consistently in ventral vagus which requires meeting the many layers of shame and dorsal shut down with radical compassion. It is only through the presence of love the layers of trauma (separation : fragmentation) integrate into an embodied state of wholeness and one returns to the consciousness of eden. Experiencing consistent states of paradise requires devotion, persistence, and support. To be human living in year 2023 means you are probably living with a heavily dense traumatized body- yet returning to the embodiment of eden is where we are heading. Some may call this ‘ascension’- which also can be perceived as the dense layers of trauma/shame purification process through the presence of Love. Eden begins with meeting yourself with acceptance and softness one moment at a time. This is the core of healing shame and remembering who you really are-which is always one with God. You are God itself incarnated in human form- imperfect and whole.

WORK CITED:

Johnson, Alexis. (2006). Healing Shame. The Humanistic Psychologist. vol 34(3) 223-242.

Bret Lyon, P. D. (2021, March 4). Anatomy of a freeze – or dorsal vagal shutdown. Center for Healing Shame. Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://healingshame.com/articles/anatomy-of-a-freeze-or-dorsal-vagal-shutdown-bret-lyon-phdÂ

Siegel, D. J. (2001). Toward an interpersonal neurobiology of the developing mind: Attachment relationships, "mindsight," and neural integration. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22(1-2), 67–94. https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-0355(200101/04)22:1<67::AID-IMHJ3>3.0.CO;2-G