EVE'S GARDEN
ABOUT EVE ...
by Pamela Gaunt
Eve came into the garden as I was placing a snake and giant green apple onto the small wooden bridge under the Tree of Life.
Whooosshh! She arrived. That was the moment Eve’s Garden came into being.
Let me explain –
In my younger years I was a professional performer, then a feminist activist who co-created ‘ReSisters' women’s theatre company in London. More recently Artistic Director of Heart of the Dragon producing three major festivals in my local market town Newcastle Emlyn in Carmarthenshire, West Wales.
Now… semi-retiring from thirty years as a psychotherapist (greatly rewarded by accompanying so many people in their healing over all those years) I was enjoying quieter days imagining and making a garden alongside my home in beautiful West Wales.
That’s when Eve arrived.. so powerfully Within and Around me. In hindsight to be expected as Her name in Hebrew means ‘’Source of life’’ and, after all, she was/is Mother of Humanity!
You see, I am also a storyteller and priestess of the Goddess- I tell stories and find myself living them. Stories kind of… take over. Like that day with the snake and green apple on the small wooden bridge (which had been made for a stone arch to be built over the garden’s gateway.) I loved the shape and re-used it as a metaphor for the bridge between worlds –the earthly one and the archetypal story world.
It clearly worked!
That’s how I found myself in a mythic reality… the re-opening of Eve’s Garden.
Strange things had already happened leading up to that moment.
Inspired for some unknown creative mission- I had travelled back and forth to fill the back of my car with buckets of gold coloured gravel and I bought pots, special sculptures and collected rocks for borders etc.
The shaped areas became a mythological journey - starting from the Great Black egg of Creation.
Each area became a dedicated shrine to some important psychological and spiritual initiation.
An outdoor temple emerged. I loved it!
First time in my life I didn’t want to be anywhere else but Here. Home. Heaven on Earth. Returned to Eden.
White and red plants and black pots and ribbons emerged. These are the colours of three aspects of the Goddess- Maiden, Mother, Crone. They also represent spirit and matter/ masculine and feminine/Heaven and Earth.
Adam and Eve.
Tying red and white ribbons on the Tree of Life – I sited the Wounded Child who feels outcast/not belonging in the Garden. Then created his/her pathway of descent into the Underworld – enacting the oldest story written down five thousand years ago - Innana’s descent to meet her Dark Sister Erishkagal.
(All the later mythologies of Isis, Persephone, Psyche, Yeshua, etc. have the same pattern of a journey to hell/death/crucifixion necessary before the ascent/ re-birthing /resurrection back to a transformed life.)
The tomb/womb/place of the Underworld was marked by an Elder Tree half way down our hillside.
On my 66th birthday, 2019- in the pouring rain- -dear women friends played music, we lit a fire pit under the Elder tree and laid a golden thread- so there would always be a connection and guidance
between the deepest darkest place and the way home to Golden Light.
For me and for Humanity.
The next day- I tied black and gold ribbons to honour this place.
Then a global pandemic in 2020 – where, in ‘lockdown’, I found myself sobbing both at the suffering in the world and, during dawn birdsong, at the profound beauty of Paradise which is also in the world.
Black and Gold.
The completion of the journey emerged from 'isolation'. I planted a golden rose garden,
found a Golden Lady statue in a garden centre and positioned a beautiful red cushioned swing bench.
There is true delight in swinging on it daily to watch the orange, red and gold of the setting sun
I have many more stories to tell you- both of the ongoing creation of Eve’s Garden and also the mythologies woven into the landscape of West Wales. My long term ‘retirement project’- my legacy- will be to create an on- line free library of the oral art of storytelling these ancient and oh so wise God/dess stories.
Please go to ‘Stories of The Garden’ page to see more…
I want to thank teachers who have informed and inspired my journey back to Eve’s Garden.
and also
Andrew Harvey’s Engoldenment training
Martin Rutte www.ProjectHeavenOnEarth.com
Elayne Doughty Priestess Presence http://www.priestesspresence.com
and the Goddess Conference Glastonbury
Books;
Jane Meredith Journey to the Dark Goddess
The Secret Dowry of Eve Glynda-Lee Hoffman
Descent to the Goddess Sylvia Perera
Uncursing the Dark Betty De Shong Meador
The Tree of Life Roger Cook.
Songs
Joni Michell and Stevie Wonder
With deep gratitude to:
Web Design by Glenn Gaunt, Photography by Jonathan Gaunt, Illustration by Alex Crampton,
Pamela photos by Heledd Wyn and Dilwara