Resurrection of the Word : The Book of Adam

ADAM: Have I been born? This birth is a sleep worse than death. Breath, this breath in me, is a home-sickness worse than death. I am whole, infinite, and my solitude distresses me more than death. I have looked on the creatures and called them by their names. I have seen the universe but I have not recognised myself. I called for help and no fellow-man came to my assistance. I was alone and terrified in the midst of the world, existing but not living. Terrified, I was overwhelmed by drowsiness. I know I slept for a long time: I am still asleep and dreaming. Forms which are the substance of my dreams appear to me and within me. I am dream. I am sleeping. My distress is unutterably horrifying. Lulled by sleep I walk the tranquil Earth. Beside me walks the increase of my fleshly body. I see it before me, multiplied, countless and, as do the images in my dreams, it invokes me. I am within the dreams' images. I am them and my desires are fleshly. I am the desires within the images. I am the images. The feminine flesh speaks to me; my flesh speaks to me; the land speaks to me and likewise the rising waters. This is what the feminine says: "Look at the beasts, nature and the peaceful rhythm of procreation. Flesh begets flesh and is content with its function. Watch the insects: the bees enjoy their diligent labours un- disturbed, steadily and calmly providing nourishment, their bellies pregnant with future generations, the queens laying their eggs. Movement? Yes there is, but in the peaceful cycle of seasons and days. Take a look at it; it's wonderful. Doubt in its function does not arise because desires are carefully limited by a common formula stamped on each individual. 63 by the group. Look at it again; it's wonderful. Accumulated in an unalterable and collective operation the past life of the species fixes the limits of a secure equilibrium for each one". Thus she speaks and thus speak the innumerable female tongues. Slowly I enter the vast mouths and am slowly swallowed deep into these flabby, lukewarm, dark intestines ... I bury into the past; its voice speaks to me. I don't know what it is telling me. . . . A prohibition? A result? What is it, who is she? ... Feed, what does that mean? Is it her? Ah, behold, I cry. There she is. She made me eat something. Who is she? What does she want? What is it? I do not know. I do not know ... the pain is excruciating; a great cracking noise inside and then pain. I am torn to pieces and fall down. Suddenly I sce myself: I am naked! What is meant by my being naked? I do not understand. Does it mean I am deficient in something, not enough of it and too much of it at the same time? And now I hear the voice. Evening falls. Night calms the creatures and the vegetation. Evening hides the beings and the plants. But I hear this voice that pervades the garden at nightfall. I hide. I crouch under plants. The voice reaches me. It surrounds me and I surround it. Suddenly I am there in front of myself. Adam is in front of me; I am the voice. I see myself; I look at myself; I am ashamed! What is meant by being ashamed? I do not understand. Does it mean that I am deficient in something, not enough of it and too much of it at the same time? I listen to myself explaining things in my own voice. I don't understand. From where I am I hear badly. It is witli great difficulty that I understand what the small voice is explaining about the great voice that pervades the creatures at nightfall ... Then ... After the sky grows black with leaden clouds, I am overwhelmed 64 and tremble too much even to groan; my being is crushed by terror ...      It goes on and on... . I hear shouting. I am dead. I know I am dead ...      It still goes on.      Then at last there is a lull. Breath is in suspense.      A glimmer?      I look, yes, I dare to look at the mud from where I am.      It is a glimmer. It really is a glimmer ...      It is her.      It is no longer this woman and her womb, it is a light.      It is her illuminated, the charm of this light ... O Woman transfigured! Eve, mother of all that do live!      I see her as she ought to be,      As she will be.      O Eve, if man is fated to live      I entreat your forgiveness      For what I have done to you.      Harken to my repentance      My remorse      My grief,      For at last I hear you! MAHOYAEL: These revelations of Adam cannot be counted upon. He does not understand the drama of his birth although it has been going on for a long time. The Woman brings this about, she is the one who understands because she is compression's structural Energy. Only byforcc could his mad mental projections be imposed on her, furthering their collapse. At each step towards Genesis the woman is transfigured. Ischa becomes Hhcvah. Much later Sarai becomes Sarah: then Rebecca and Rachel, goddess-like women, appear: finally Mary is deified, but it is Miriam of Magdala who fulfills the symbolic cycle. The contemporary psyche is far from this. What millions of centuries there have been from the communities 65 of female insects that eat the males until the birth of the Word! It is a fable that Nature plays and passes over to the psyche on its way to consciousness. And in the millions of centuries to come -- if the earth docs not die from human pollution -- termites and bees, imperturbably, will turn around and around in their closed circle, while men lament their sufferings throughout unending Apocalypses. For there never will be a Birth. The Intemporal is lost for ever in the Temporal. And when the Universe is re-absorbed in the Night awaiting it, it will still be only the beat of its intermittent sequence. An awakened consciousness engaged on the meaningless adventure of Existence can only be dumbfounded. Having remarked on this astonishment once I would not dictate anything more to the scribe had I not bid him not to neglect the dust. Indeed, it seems to me that the smallest detail of a myth when seen, explored and examined in depth, can loosen a consciousness that is under its subjugation. If it is true that Adam has taught us nothing, the myth is at least unrolling now on several registers at once. It is very complex. I shall not attempt an exhaustive explanation as it already contains all, innumerable, concrete accounts of the unconscious through the ages. I will only elucidate a few of their aspects, as they appear in the legend of the Garden of Eden. The serpent is associated with the most ancient cosmogonies. According to some of the Egyptian theories it is the oldest being and even precedes the creation of the Earth. One often comes across the theme of the proud serpent who later falls. The serpent is phallic and, rising from the ground, seems to be engendered by it. Symbolically it is associated with the life- restoring, dynamic forces, springing from the earth. The female earth, in begetting the serpent, engenders (in the world of symbols) its first son, and frees him after swallowing and burying him for a very long time. Thus the serpent symbolises the resurrection of the Word. But he does not walk upright; he crawls. This son failed. He is the degenerate son of the saurians of the Second Stage 66 of development, which were standing erect again. These saurians were the real ancestors of man. At that epoch they were the best possible strain of the earthly seed in the human genealogical tree, that had not deviated into the animal side branches. But they were unlikely to live. The Great Serpent must hand down the human strain, as powers are handed down. This is what is narrated in his Book. This is the great drama being performed at this birth of the human stage, symbolised by the flourishing of the first garden. Yes, the Earth is now truly submissive. It has to produce beings who are completely straight, upright, phallic, dynamic, who will develop the Word in the human tongue. Once the transference has been completed the serpent collapses exhausted, emptied, and expires. Henceforth Eve will oppose him. There will be enmity between her and him, for the forces of expansion in him are broken to pieces: he crawls and returns to the Earth's female womb, while Eve, on the other hand, advances to new transfigurations. 67

Carlo Suares, Resurrection of the Word, Shambhala, 1974, pp. 63-67