My small-town Kansas high school was the home of the Mighty Dragons. Whether our sports teams won or lost, our pride was never shaken. Of course, it helped that we had a cool mascot – a fire-breathing dragon.

In mythology, culture, literature, and art, dragons are a global phenomenon. The Chinese dragon is popularly associated with water and possesses a higher intellect than humans. Artistic depictions of St. George battling the dragon to free the princess often show the princess praying. In other art pieces, the princess looks peaceful and sometimes bored but never terrified.

GAME OF THRONES’ Queen Daenerys Targaryen is called the “Mother of dragons.” Chinese mythology also has a mother of dragons named Wen Shi. If art imitates life, there isn’t much evidence that women fear dragons, mythical or not.

But snakes and humans have an entirely different relationship. Barring the rare exception, we are deathly afraid of snakes. It’s in our DNA. Our survival as a species depends on that fear. I’m no different. I’m not too fond of snakes, but if you do an image search of “snake handler” or “snake hunter,” you’ll see that men outnumber women ten to one.

The Bible tells of two meetings between a woman and a reptile. The first meeting was the serpent event in the Garden of Eden. The second was in a vision of signs that appeared in “heaven” in Revelation 12. The first sign or symbol was a woman crying out in the pain of childbirth. The second sign or symbol was a dragon that stood in front of the woman, waiting to devour the newborn child. It’s interesting to note that pain in childbirth is a condemning consequence of the woman’s first encounter with the dragon in Genesis.

This passage in Revelation 12 is the primary reference associating the original serpent as the embodiment of Satan. Verse 9: “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”

Notice that the word “dragon” is used first. It is hurled or thrown to the earth. Even though the context of the term for earth here is in contrast to heaven, it also means ground or soil. The dragon of Eden met the same fate. In the Genesis story, the consequence of the first meeting with the woman was a physical change that caused the serpent to crawl on its belly on the ground, eating dust. (Genesis 3:14). The next verse, Genesis 3:15, is the second curse on the snake – mutual hatred between it and the woman perpetual throughout time. 

But whatever it was before a slithering source of fear, the woman had no problem with it. I believe that the original form of the serpent in Eden was a beautiful dragon and, not unlike the Chinese dragon, had a superior intellect. How do we know? The first verse of Genesis 3 says so. “Now the serpent was more cunning or crafty than any animal that the most high or supreme God made.”

So here we have a context of the introduction to Genesis 3. Remember the previous sentence is the last verse of Chapter 2. “The man and his wife were both naked and felt no shame.” But everything was about to change.

Investigating Chapter 3 at a high resolution, we see the roots of our meta-narrative and the origin of the human condition.

The use of a snake in this story is brilliant. Its symbolism is entirely genderless. Determining the sex of a snake requires an expert and sometimes an expert with a probe. There was no bias in its seduction. So naturally, the clever snake chose the last thing created and the human highest on the value hierarchy to deceive; the woman.

There is another possible reason that the crafty dragon chose Eve. Her access to truth was tainted. And when the snake shows up to knock you out or shut you down, whether in front of you or in your head, all you have is the truth.

In the next chapter, I made a list of things that matter in Genesis 1, and we see that chronology matters. The order of events in Chapter 2 shows that the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was specific and delivered only to Adam before the creation of Eve. God said to Adam, “Don’t eat of the tree, or you will surely die.” But when Adam told Eve of the commandment, he paraphrased it. “You shall not eat from it OR TOUCH IT, or you will die.” It wasn’t much of a change from the original truth but was enough to reveal a chink in the armor for the dragon to exploit.

As a traumatic deviation from the naked-and-unashamed connection between Adam, Eve, and God, the dragon asked Eve. “Did God really say ‘you shall not…?'” These seven words introduced the possibility of something other than absolute truth and revealed God as the oppressor and “you” as the victim. The assertion is “something is wrong here.”

The entire question was a brilliant negative proposition in the form of a question. “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” This question is like asking a husband, “do you always abuse your wife?” Replying “no” would suggest that it sometimes happens but not always, and of course, saying “yes” would land him in jail.

Eve took the bait and stepped into the trap. She argued the opposing view with one exception and invoked God’s command as she heard it from Adam. “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'”

The dragon quickly tore down her position with an emphatic reply, “you shall not surely die!” The original Hebrew text reads more like “you will not DIE die.” Your information is insufficient; therefore, YOU are insufficient. “For God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.”

That is the condensed version of any good sales pitch. The tyrannical oppressor doesn’t want you to be on his level. But you’re entitled and deserve to be. And if you act now to seal the deal, you will have a brand new experience of being like God. The invitation is to demand equity (fairness) and equality of outcome. This same invitation is the number one cause of murders on the planet throughout history and the trigger of every genocide—all of it inside a subjective morality, measuring good and evil based on fear and passing judgment at will.

“When Eve saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to Adam who was with her, and he ate.”

This interaction sounds like a couple walking onto a car lot and getting sold a luxury car from a fast-talking salesperson. First of all, he convinces them that something is terribly wrong with what they are driving now and they’re stupid for owning it. But today is their lucky day. “Take this luxury car for a test drive. Feel how powerful yet quiet it is. It’s so comfortable too! You deserve a taste of the good life. Oh. You think that you can’t afford it? Of course you can! I’ll set you up on a 5-year payment plan. Just sign right here.” It all feels so good at the moment, but when they look closer at the contract and compare it to their bank account, they see that they just signed away their financial dignity for the next five years.

When Eve and Adam ate the fruit, the contract became real to them, as did the price paid with the loss of their dignity. Acting on their entitlement resulted in shame and a traumatic awareness that they no longer had the connection with each other they had before.

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves waist coverings.”

Their first response was not, “On no! I disobeyed God.” For the first time in their lives, they were aware of nakedness. Giving into entitlement exposed their identity, and they urgently needed to manage their shame by covering themselves.

The online Oxford dictionary defines SHAME as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.” I believe that shame is more refined. My understanding of shame is that it is the pain of the traumatic realization of disconnection. Disconnection has various sources. Most common is the awareness of personal loss or insufficiency resulting in feelings of unworthiness and/or rejection.

In discussing shame with my sister Teresa this past year via text messages, she sent this response. “A bit about coping: I’m finding that coping, AKA managing, is all I remember doing. As shame became the outcome of my childhood, I found myself putting on behaviors and personas I believed would minimize the shame.”

It’s intriguing and brilliant that she described coping as her entire focus and putting on behaviors and personas like costumes to mitigate shame. For Adam and Eve, covering their nakedness consumed their attention. Isn’t it interesting that the lasting remnant we still have to this day from Eden’s story is clothing to cover, at a minimum, our sexual identity?

But the fig-leaf-covering coping mechanism for Adam and Eve wasn’t enough. When they heard God walking toward them, they ran and hid behind the trees. This was the beginning of what all humans do in reacting to shame’s disconnection. We SELF-MARGINALIZE. We prefer to play the victim, complaining that it is OTHERS that marginalize us, but that’s just not how it happens. WE run. WE hide. And usually from the people who love us most.

God called out to Adam and said, “Where are you?”

Adam said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

Adam replied, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me some of the fruitof the tree, and I ate.”

Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The harsh results of shame immediately surfaced; blaming and complaining. “THAT woman, YOU gave me.” The burden of guilt is often too heavy to bear, and the finger-pointing begins. Blaming and complaining are functions of disconnection.

If you believe or pursue a high ideal such as God, you’ll discover that disconnection can be painful or fatal. However, you might be able to reverse engineer your pain or anxiety. Your stress is probably a loss of an essential connection in your life. Listen to your complaints of victimhood. What does your loss of dignity feel like? What happened? What entitlement was worth trading for your dignity? Dig deep and assume responsibility and gratitude. Tell the truth and commit to it. The dragon will fall silent. Redemption and connection are once again available.

In summary, there seems to be a unique existence in the human connection of “naked and unashamed” that is void of individual identity. That space of unity represents the divine feminine and that which the cosmic masculine desires to dwell. Like Snow White’s poisoned apple, the dragon’s deception exposed Adam and Eve’s individuality. The immediate result was shame and the subsequent denial of responsibility. The divine feminine died that day.

In the same way that God sacrificed an animal’s life to replace the humans’ temporary fig-leaf coverings with more permanent leather coverings, humanity continued animal sacrifices to mask the shame of their sin. Those sacrifices carried a dim hope that one day, there would be an offering sufficient to resurrect the divine feminine and restore unity with the Creator. Humanity longed for that noble prince to pierce the darkness, fearlessly confront the dragon, and deliver true love’s kiss that dispels the evil curse once and for all and gives new life and new love.