The day it changed was like this:
We were beside the pool. The sun burned dazzling bright. The waterfall churned, sending forth little waves, crests shimmering gold like nectar. We lay on a sun-warmed rock and breathed in the drowsy scent of myrtle.
What glory there was in our Garden. All that was pleasant to the eye and good for food. Hard rosy apples and blood-red oranges. Lemons as fat as quails that dropped from the branch if you so much as looked at them. Walnuts and pears, over-ripe figs, almonds, and olives. Jewel-seeded pomegranates and sharp-tasting quinces. Everything always in season, no tree ever bare. The sweet heady scent of blossom at all times, even as there was fruit.
Now I come to think of it, it never grew. The fruit was merely there, ever ripe for plucking.
I did not know that was not usual. How could I?
Beyond the orchards lay the grainfields: the golden barley and swaying wheat. Adam’s irrigation, his basins and levées, taps and dams, ran through them, bringing life-giving water from the four rivers that bounded our Paradise. The chest-high stalks bowed low with the wind. Always full-grown. Eternally ready for harvest. Since the first planting we had not sown new seed.
Looking out over the fields stood our sturdy cabin, crafted from the trunks and boughs of tall cedars and graceful pines, roofed with date-palm thatch. Beside it, my rose garden. The sweet scent welcomed me every morning and sent me joyful to sleep at night.
The animals came to drink from the pool. We had many rams and ewes, boars and sows by then, thanks to Adam’s breeding regime. Sturdy bulls and sweet-eyed cows. Bearded goats. Plump-breasted ducks, feathered fowl of all kinds. We looked at them, and they were good.
The heat was thick in the air like honey. The lilies danced on the breeze. The sun beat upon the glittering water and reflected into the sapphire sky.
Adam turned to me, his lips wet with lust. He put my hand to his thickening part and it reared with life and vigor. I climbed onto him, my fingers rooted in the black-curls of his chest.
“No.” He squeezed my wrists. “Lie under me.”
“I don’t want to.” I lowered my hips, enfolded him deep within the core of me, to prove my point. I proved it well enough.
He groaned with pleasure, then pushed at me again.
“I said, lie under me!”
“No! You lie under me!”
I thought he was joking. And truly, I was very content where I was, filled with the joy of him. But his eyes weren’t smiling.
“I am your lord and you shall lie under me!”
“You are my what?” I laughed and felt him shrivel like a prune.
Oh, he was angry then. “I am your master!”
I rolled beside him and shut one eye against the blinding sun. Lord and master indeed!
“We were made together, you and I, and I am your equal.” I caressed his broad chest and kissed his plum-red lips. He softened. “And while I’m at it,” I laid my head in the hollow of his shoulder, “I’ve had it with your edicts and orders, your zeal for improvement. Let us return to how things were before. Let us live and work together in harmony once more.”
He squeezed my hand and my spirit soared.
“Shall we not have more time for leisure? Must we toil all day under the hot sun, for more bounty than we need? What call have we for surpluses to trade, money to exchange? Let us rest and enjoy what we have been given, for we are blessed indeed.”
He smiled and my heart leapt with love for him.
“As for your weapon—” I eyed his great bronze sword laid beside us. “Is it really necessary? I am the only one here. The animals are tame and do our bidding. Why do you carry it?”
Well, he did not like that. The tenderness drained from him like blood from a sacrificed lamb. He slammed a balled fist into the rock.
“Do not question me!” he roared. “It is my strength, my right hand. I carry it to protect you because you are mine! I wield it to remind you of your weakness!”
I froze to hear these words. Why did he think I was his? Why did he want me to feel weak?
As it turned out, the sword he claimed was for my protection was no defense against that which hurt me most. His body that I loved so much, he used against me. His oak-strong arms held me down and his tender hands crushed my wrists. He forced me beneath him and pinned me with his legs, a knee bruising the inner flesh of my thigh, his foot pinioning my ankle. The hard boulder bit from below and he pummeled me from above and within. He smothered my mouth to stop me cursing and looked over my head as if I were not there. Where once we had pleased each other, now I was but a vessel for his desire. With violence he had his joy of my body and there was no joy for me in him.
Was it worth it, Adam? You took by force what you had always had by love. It cannot have been sweeter.
Perhaps you have been told I was banished because in my anger I cursed and said His name.
But that is not what happened.
In truth, He is a jealous god. He was angry because it was not Him I named at all. In my fury and despair, I called to Her. To the Holy Mother who loved us, who nursed us, who should have protected me.
“Asherah!” I cried, when Adam had slunk away among the barley-stalks, shame-faced at least, the tip of his ridiculous sword trailing behind him. I wiped his dew from my bruised thigh with a bulrush.
“Mighty Asherah, Giver of Life and Queen of Heaven, why have you forsaken me?”
There was no answer. She had been quiet a long time by then. I had seen Her only once in recent weeks, when She came to the Garden to bequeath to me the Secret.
I washed Adam’s stain from me in the pool. I stayed a long while under the waterfall. Its rumble filled my ears, its icy embrace numbed my senses. All around me, water tumbled and churned.
I dived below the surface where there was stillness and peace. I scrubbed the blood from my limbs with silt from the very depths. I scoured my insides clean of his seed.
When I was out and warmed again by the sun, I crushed the leaves of soothing aloe and healing comfrey and bathed my bruises in the sap. I sat on the rock and cradled myself. The myrtle drooped in sorrow. A bearded dove, perched on a carob tree, wept. Fat drops fell from his beady eyes, his head tilted in sympathy.
In the distance, thunder rumbled. A cloud rolled in, low and black. The dove took wing and soared. Here He comes. I steeled myself.
He boomed my name. “Lilith!”
It was as if the mountains cracked and spoke. It echoed in the plains and valleys, blasted from every crevice and cave. The leaves whispered it as they rustled in the wind. The bulrushes wailed it, bowing low to the tempestuous pool. The waterfall thundered it, Lilith! Lilith! as it cascaded down the rockface. The river babbled it, splashing around boulders, rushing onward to the sea.
The sound came from all around, at once inside and outside of my head. The word throbbed and pulsed through my veins. My temples bulged.
LILITH!
I misled you. I did say His name, too.
It is forbidden, but words do not scare me, for I have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, which grants mortals the Wisdom of gods, and I am Wise.
And I know the Secret.
I know that like a ram, a bull or a boar, He cannot create life alone. He did not birth us.
Asherah did.
But since She has been silent, (where did She go? Why did I not notice when She went?) He tells us that naming is Creation.
He names and it is so. He breathes and gives it life. It’s why Adam loves to name things too. Naming is to man what birthing is to woman.
They can name things all they like, it does not change the truth.
Life comes from a Mother.
He cannot fool me as He has deceived Adam!
What can He do to me now? He is not my god, no Father of mine. He did not protect me! He did not avenge my violator! He thinks to punish me for Adam’s sin! I will say His name whenever I please.
“Yahweh, Yahweh, YAHWEH!”
I screamed it from the mountaintops, I hurled it against the cliff so it rebounded one hundred times in number, but not a gnat’s wing more in strength.
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