ADAM & EVE and APPLES

 

The Apple fruit has long been an ancient symbol of sexual gratification.   Apple as the forbidden fruit in biblical times has been known for temptation, sin, seduction and also in garnering knowledge.  Persuasion of the carnal kind, women tempt their men in dubious ways and capitulation gives way to endless ecstasy. And believe it or not it started with an apple.

As I bite into the rosy apple, the luscious juices flowing down my chin – the fresh scent of apple blossom catching my breath, all those sensory perception of life, death and dirty thoughts coming crashing into that very first crunch. 

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” always associated with good clean living while Snow White’s poisoned apple linked with evil thoughts, murder and death.   In between life and death there is Adam’s discovering knowledge by Eve tempting him with the forbidden fruit bringing about sensual and erotic persuasions. The Apple is  many things to many people. 

Supposedly a fruit that gives pleasure, another kind of Apple truly sends me happily to a corner for hours on end.  The Apple Mac is attached to me in more ways than one.   It sends me to sleep with those hypnotic YouTube movies. It wakes me up with my Itunes music. It entertains me with movies and it is the tool that makes my living.   You might say all of these things can be done by any other brand.  And you would be right. It's just a smoother ride, and subconsciously it's the bite that's tempting.   

One of Steve Job’s fruitarian diet was an Apple.  Returning from an Apple farm he made the decision to call his company Apple because the name sounded ‘fun, spirited and not intimidating.” Although never suggested anywhere, there is the  subliminal message of  association with the Tree of Knowledge.   Job’s unintended biblical meaning perhaps underlies his religious skepticism. 

To appreciate apples in a way different to the weekly shop at the groceries, God’s condemned fruit is abundant in many parts of the world.  One area of the globe, majestically hidden in the foothills of the Himalaya range is Himal Pradesh where the variety wows you with sheer disbelief that nature has managed to propagate a whole spectrum of a species in Latin called MALUS.

Throughout history, apples have symbolized pleasure, love, and fertility. Of course, all of this does not prove that the sin of Adam and Eve had anything to do with sex. But it is a strong indication that many interpreters throughout history did believe their sin was a sexual transgression.

The apple has multiple symbolic meanings, many of which are sexual. Erotic associations likened apples to female breasts, while the core of an apple cut in half has often been compared to a woman's vagina. In ancient mythology, Dionysus, the god of intoxication, created the apple and presented it to Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

In the Middle Ages, the forbidden fruit was often identified as a fig, not an apple.  It was later replaced by an apple and became a symbol of the forbidden fruit, it's Latin name meaning “apple” and “evil.”

Many interpreters throughout Judeo-Christian history have understood the sin of Adam and Eve to have something to do with a sexual transgression of one sort or another, it shouldn't be surprising that the apple was the fruit of choice to depict the sin of Eden.   It has also been  used as a symbol of fertility.

Apples play an important part in several Greek myths. Hera, queen of the gods, owned some precious apple trees that she had received as a wedding present from Gaia, the earth mother. Tended by the Hesperides, the Daughters of Evening, and guarded by a fierce dragon, these trees grew in a garden somewhere far in the west. Their apples were golden, tasted like honey, and had magical powers. They could heal, they renewed themselves as they were eaten, and if thrown, they always hit their target and then returned to the thrower's hand.

In Athens, newlyweds divided an apple, then ate it prior to entering the bridal chamber.  Sending or tossing apples was also a part of courtship. According to folklore, the apple is one of many foods believed to possess aphrodisiac powers. In ancient Greece, if a man wanted to propose, he would simply toss the lady of his affection an apple. If she caught it, he knew she had accepted his offer.

Even in Islamic folklore, it is told that the prophet Mohammed inhaled the fragrance of an apple brought to him by an angel just before his last breath of life.

In Germany, during medieval times, a man who ate an apple that was steeped in the perspiration of the woman he loved was very likely to succeed in the relationship.

In Medieval England, an autumnal celebration centered around the fermented fruit of the apple tree and the almost Bacchanalian merriment that would ensue. (The supposed purpose was to ensure a bountiful harvest, or so the story goes.)

Apples contain phenylethylamine (PEA), which gives you a natural feeling of well-being and excitement.  High in anti-oxidants their free radical-fighting power boosts natural anti-aging abilities while helping to fight cancer.  Although apples deliver a jolt of sweetness, their high pectin content keeps a sugar rush at bay, preventing the hyper high.

So with historical facts and myths, we come to savoring the definitive species  that has taken me all the way into foothills of the Himalaya range.  During the British Raj, the summers were spent up in Shimla, the weather akin to summer time in Britain rather than the sweltering wretched humidity found in Poon, or Bombay.  Samuel Evan Stokes introduced the apple crop in the hills around Shimla while working with the Leprosy Mission of India.

Stokes brought in Red Delicious and saplings of Golden Delicious to his orchard in Thanedar . By 1926 the whole of India couldn’t get enough of it, they were an instant.  The popularity of these divine fruit  spurred locals into planting Apples, rather than their usual crops of potato and plums. Soon orchards cropped up all over the valley of Himachal Pradesh, to meet this demand. Thanedar is 80 kms from Shimla on the old Hindustan-Tibet road, rising to an altitude of about 7700ft, the majestic views unfolds magnificent panorama of mountains.  One step closer to God.

Having gorged myself on all different strains of Malus, and unable to decide between the Golden Delicious or the Ambrosia or the Pippin or even the Braeburn; suddenly none of them swayed me anymore once an offering taste of preserved jellies, jams and chutney of the various breeds.  Now I was in heaven and utterly understood why Rudyard Kipling called this place Kotgarh “the Mistress of the Northern Hills.” 

Lack of restraint, lack of will power, lack of faith in God, always denouncing authority, I would have been easily seduced by the serpent, if this was the Garden of Eden and that had been my Adam.    It would be a toss up between the effects of a Male Homosapien or a Malus Hornet.