The Fruit of Goodness

By Patricia Lynn Reilly, A Deeper Wisdom, The 12 Steps from a Woman’s Perspective

Imagine that it didn’t happen the way you were told in the religious communities of childhood. imagine hearing Eve’s words read from the sacred text one morning at your church, synagogue, mosque, or women’s circle:

As the Mother of all Living, I pick the fruit of life. It is good and satisfies hunger. It is pleasant to the eye. It is wise and opens the way to self-discovery and understanding. Those among you who are curious, who lust for life in all its fluidity, dare with me–bite into your life and the fullness of its possibility.

After Eve’s words are read, the elder women give an apple to the first person in the row. As the crone hands you an apple, she looks into your eyes and says:

Take and eat of the good fruit of life. You are good. You are very good. Bite into the apple and savor its sweetness.

After everyone has partaken of the good fruit of life, the closing blessing is spoken:

Open to the depths of goodness within you. Believe in your goodness. Live out of the abundance of who you are as a child of life. Affirm the original goodness of your children until the stories of old hold no sway in their hearts. Bite into your life and fullness of its possibility.”