« Enlisting John Steinbeck in the Cause of the One Earth Project »

As promised in the previous blog entry, we’re now heading into a bend in the road toward a greater understanding of why Multi Earth living mesmerizes us and holds onto us even when our best rational judgment says, “Stop now. Cast aside Multi Earth ways and leap into One Earth’s commonsense!” It’s time to meet up with myth — especially myth’s great ability to describe the truth and power of the paradigm in which we live. To help us see how myth works, I bring John Steinbeck into this blog.

When novelist Steinbeck concluded East of Eden in 1952, he considered it his magnum opus, his greatest work. Within a month it was a bestseller. By 1955, it had been adapted for a movie starring James Dean. The story has had staying power in popular culture. ABC produced a miniseries in 1981, and an all new movie produced by Universal Studies will bring the story anew to audiences in 2012.

From the first time that I heard of Steinbeck’s book, I loved the title. Because I was steeped in biblical stories from the moment I left the womb, I recognized that the title came from the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. The story follows immediately upon the story of Eden and the eviction of Eve and Adam from the garden. But why, I wondered, did Steinbeck choose it? I’ve subsequently learned that Steinbeck drew his inspiration from this biblical story and felt deeply challenged by it. Growing up in Salinas, California, and the rich agricultural fields of the Salinas Valley, Cain, the farmer, resonated with him.

East of Eden unfolds mostly in the Salinas Valley, dealing with themes of jealousy, love, depravity, capacities for self-destruction and greatness, and most of all, guilt and freedom. All have parallels in the Cain and Abel scenario. While he was writing, Steinbeck tried a number of titles for his work, but none satisfied him. Then, when he again read Genesis 4:16, which says, “Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden,” he was delighted at how well the last three words nailed the description of life in his book. He had his title.

Though Steinbeck never called the paradigm he described in East of Eden the Multi Earth paradigm, and never used One Earth to name the paradigm that he hoped we humans would choose, his story describes precisely such a choice.