The Offering

Now afterwards, Eve bore Cain, their son. Cain, their son, Eve bore afterwards, after their awakening and expulsion from the fecund gardens of blindness. In the desert lands the child grew. Under the open blue sky, he talked, becoming a man.

Cain cultivated the land. The dry barren earth parted, cracking with deep groans to receive his seed. Each one, containing within it all the information of life was placed in the earth womb. Dank and wet, ready for birth. He tended them with care. Knowingly, secretly, he worked to re-create the garden, to place in it a tree of Knowledge, to re-awaken the red and black serpent coiled around its base, to once again taste forbidden Gnosis.

When the moon was ripe for such things, under a sky full of lights, Adam again knew his wife, and again becoming pregnant, she bore Abel, son of the sun.

Abel grew to be a herdsman of sheep. Solitary among many, he wandered through the dry lands, weaving an existence between mountains, fending off wolves so that his lambs would grow fat, becoming a wolf himself.

When the season was right for such things, Cain brought in from the crops of his field, the fruits of his labor. Olives, date, plums- their baskets were full and the altar was scented with rose water and jasmine. To the stone pillars Abel brought an offering from among his lambs, an offering of death and blood, the finest of his flock.

The Ruler Of All turned his face toward the votive offerings of Abel and was satiated by what he tasted, but he did not accept the votive offerings of Cain who had labored the earth womb to create life. Cain felt only silence and a harsh dry breeze like a slap on his leathery skin.

In his arrogance, with bright power bellowing from his naked loins, Cain said, "It is I who am The Ruler Of All; there is none apart from me. It is The Ruler Of All who is I. Apart from me there is none. With my own hands I bring about creation. From clay and water, it is I who brings life to this land."

And, having expelled his power, the power to expel- that is, the power to blasphemy, to speak,
he pursued it. Cain pursued Abel, his brother. Down to chaos and the abyss he pursued him. Into the dark womb of earth mother, where knotted trees grow below the surface, having learned how to blossom without light.

And The Ruler Of All said to Cain, carnal Cain, now covered in blood and grime, "Where is Abel, your brother?"

Cain answered by saying, "Am I, then, my brother's keeper?” A smile curling on his upper lip, for he was now his brother’s keeper, a shepherd of men.

The Ruler Of All said to Cain, "Listen! The voice of your brother's blood is crying up to me!” And Cain was pleased and watched as The Ruler Of All turned his face to the offering of death and blood, fleeting life with all its energy. The Ruler Of All took sustenance from the death of Abel, more so than the lamb that had been presented at the altar, and said to Cain even as they were one, “You have sinned with your mouth. It will return to you, anyone who kills Cain will let loose seven acts of vengeance.”

Like the snake, Cain shed his old skin and became new, leaving behind him a shadowy reflection of himself. Blind, groaning and trembling upon the earth, he left his shadowy form behind and the instructor once more sought a new form.