The Hunting of Original Sin: Tale A Bite

Find Bosch's Unicorn.

Remember this: A sin was committed in the Garden of Eden. One bite was all it took.

Recently I was watching True Detective and Matthew McConaughey’s character Rust made a comment:

“It’s a form of meditation,” says Rust. “I contemplate the moment in the garden, the idea of allowing your own crucifixion.” (Screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto); Episode 1: Somebody’s Memory of a Town.

Which upon seeing this, the center piece for this little drama is a dead woman strapped to a tree in prayer position with a set of buck horns attached to her head.

Previously I was inspired to mull over the idea of Original Sin because the world is fraught with meat eaters or vegans fighting all the time. Just having this whole cycle of viciousness swirling around my plate at dinner time made me feel there truly was evil in the air. I noticed when you see cooking shows or food photos no one ever comments negatively on those. The food is already on the plate but let someone post something pre-pot and the guacamole flies. It is almost or non-existent on cooking shows. You just don’t see it. Andrew Zimmern can eat all he wants and no one complains. Maybe they write secret caches to these chefs no one knows about. I doubt people write critical letters about food choices in literary cookbooks with meat photos or that section on butchering.

Original Sin could have been "not being able to take instruction or general nosiness". I then thought as I ate my food, it had to be eating itself.

Meditation on topics of interest have always brought a sense of the 360 view of the world but only being able to look at one view at a time with bias seemed relevant. You have to give it the old college try. For all intents  and purposes, we will set aside the fact eating is a biological function where you slice, dice, cook, chew, digested and excrete; moving on.

I have for some time thought about man’s sin in the Garden of Eden. Life for man was pretty much sealed when Eve bit into the mystery fruit of the tree of knowledge. “Just a little bump”, as Wang would say.

I did reference out several sacred texts but for all intents and purposes is sourcing from my Archeological Bible.

Enter nakedness and Veganism.

Meditation: A snake convincing you to eat something you are not supposed to then suffering the consequences.

Genesis 3: 1-7

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,

3 but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”

4 "You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.

5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some an ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Here we have Eve in the Garden conversing with a snake, who cons her into eating the apple from the tabooed tree. Yet after they eat, Adam and Eve do not die, but see they are naked. Up till this point, there was no meat involved but the beginning of a quest for knowledge and hunger ensued. Did I mention the Holy Dictum of Curses? Even in this day and age man has a voracious appetite for knowledge and food.  Human kind quest pass the horizons of Earth, into the depths of space, so we can pretty much know everything that an omnipotent being would know. At the same time, totally eradicating the idea of a higher power. There is the idea no creator exist; just biological and universal hiccups and brain farts. You have haters of creationism and Darwinism. It almost compels a person to believe you have to be on team A or team B, unless you’re taking the job of referee. There is no end to it.

As I read along, the Curse of Veganism was uttered by the All Mighty.

Genesis 4: 17-19

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat of it,”

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken for dust you are and dust you will return.”

Sounds pretty dire to be cursed then all your offspring be-damned to eating plant life. Not that plants are bad.  I read some in the Qur’an and there were paragraphs where someone complained about eating quail. This is probably where we could assume agriculture began. Someone in time yelled, "I hate quail!"

Along the way, people acting badly came onto the scene. God flooded the world but before he cried all over the lands, directed Noah to build an Ark. Everyone knows the Ark was this big boat and animals of every kind were on board; two by two. When the waters receded, the rainbow hit the sky and those same animals were now on the menu. White dove of peace on top.

Enter those blood thirsty Meat-eaters of every course and kind. If it moves, it dies.

Genesis 9: 3-5

3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

4 But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.

5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.

Conditions, Conditions.

As always, with being given everything, there are “conditions”. Always read the fine print. It would seem the Devil is not the only one trying to pull a fast one between the lines.  He’ll give humans everything but you can’t eat meat with lifeblood in it. It has to be Kosher. The quicker and humanely you can dispatch an animal, the better off you and the animal are. At the same time, it’s kind of sad when you see an animal hand-raised by a person, the animal trusts them with no idea of the harm that is coming, and they are butchered for the plate. People scarf the food down and move on to the next.

If the belief in curses (as an uttered curse) is intended to cause harm, or a form of judgment with punishment, then a body could deduce:

a) We have to kill something we grow to love to survive.

b) God slipped another instruction into the mix and if we don’t obey will be cursed further, killed or go to Hell and be tortured for all eternity.

c) Humans are constantly hungry and never feel satisfied.

d) No matter how much we eat there will be no end until we go back to dust.

e) The animals are going to report on us at Judgment Day for being overzealous Pac Men on planet Earth and the Holy Ghosts are in hot pursuit.

f) All this mumbo jumbo is wrong and Darwin is right. 

That is how curses work. The punishment usually fits the action that caused it. Take a bite today curse you tomorrow. That bite will follow you through eternity and all your ancestral lines. Snow White bit an apple then fell asleep and the Prince had to kiss her on the lips. That crap is situated around the mouth where all the trouble started, so keep your mouth off of things you know are bad for you. (Mild creepy laughter inserted here).

I guess people might need to start watching out for hairy palms and the symbol of the pentagram.

What does this have to do with hunting? Hunger is the punishment for the original sin of eating mystery fruit and going against God's conditions of anti-nosiness. Don't have dreams of grandeur either because you'll get slapped down eventually. (I am sure the Pope will argue this but he's taking selfies). As people who hunt, we go out into the world and seek sustenance to bring home in the form of dead animal carcasses, plants, root, mushrooms, whatever won’t kill you, is not nailed down, or outside the law. I forgot road-kill.

Eating is a never ending requirement for being human. People get so desperate for food that they put manufactured poisonous garbage in the ole pie hole to make things better. Empty calories stacking up by the minute and an ever expanding waist line compensated by the Fashion World’s stretchy jeans or pictures of unhealthy people being sold as an ideal. That’s a curse because it makes us blind and we just consume more and more till eventually diabetes, cardiovascular disease, renal failure, or some form of cancer gets you. It would be more poetic to choke on a chicken bone, a crust of bread with no corner to weep in, or even die for that matter.

It’s the same thing for people who fish.  Something has to go on the plate at the end of the day, whether we rip it up by the root, pluck it from a tree, or chop it's little head off. God that sounds awful! Once cursed as a vegan then rewarded as a Meat-eater. Don’t forget the Devil is in the details; read carefully. There is still Judgment Day ahead so don't get comfortable. Hail and brimstone await. 

 

Hunting is an activity to combat the toils of hunger. God’s curse on us all along was female menstruation and childbirth but that is another story; a dangerous one.

 

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

 

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth, Gypsy woman selling curses.

 

Cited Sources:

“Somebody’s Memory of a Town.” True Detective. Screenwriter: Nic Pizzolatto. Dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga, HBO, 2014. Series.