The theme of growing up is rarely simple. It touches not morality, but separation. Not sin, but the exit from dependency. If we look at the story of Adam and Eve not as a religious prohibition but as a psychological myth, it unexpectedly becomes a map of maturation.

God in this narrative easily reads as a parental figure: caring, controlling, setting boundaries. Paradise becomes the space of childhood: warm, safe, provided for, yet without real choice. There is no need to bear consequences. No need to make complex decisions. There is only “allowed” and “forbidden.”

And then the Serpent ceases to be a demon. It becomes an impulse toward maturity. The fruit is not temptation in a crude sense, but an invitation to see the world beyond parental optics. It is the first step toward autonomous consciousness: the capacity to think independently, to feel independently, not leaning on external authority.

Seen this way, the “Fall” is not a fall at all. It is an exit. An exit from infantile dependence. A choice to risk safety for autonomy. The soul, as the breath of life, cannot be stolen. What can be lost is the illusion of supervision. And so the human stands before a dilemma: remain a child in the garden or step into the world as an adult, accepting bodily vulnerability and the complexity of reality.

The irony is that culture often transmits the opposite message: tired of responsibility? Return. Repent. If independence feels heavy, surrender your will. It echoes the parental voice: “It was warm and safe: why complicate things?” From here grows guilt for becoming an adult. Guilt for attempting to become the author of one’s own life!

This myth does not play out only in religion. It unfolds in relationships between men and women. Very often a couple lives inside a “mother and son” dynamic, for example. One plays the caring, controlling parent: “Don’t do that or mommy will be upset,” “Be good,” “Don’t be angry,” “Don’t take risks.” The other remains in the child position: afraid to disobey, afraid to move beyond what is approved, afraid of their own strength.

In such unions, neither is truly mature. They fail to see that they have already grown. They continue to reenact punishment and reward, fear of losing love, dependence on approval. Any movement toward autonomy feels like betrayal. Conflict feels like sin instead of a signal of growth.

In reality, these are not stories of human failure. They are stories of development. Of the painful transition from symbiosis to individuality. Of a man learning to be a man, and a woman learning to be a woman, not each other’s parent or child.

Here the figure of Lilith appears. Not as a demon, but as an archetype of radical autonomy. A woman who refuses subordination, who does not remain in the child’s position of seeking approval. It is no surprise that some women are compared to her! Such comparisons always carry both fear and fascination!

Lilith acts as a catalyst. She does not destroy a man. She shows him that he has long since grown up. That his body works. That his power is real. That his desire is life energy, not shame. She confronts him with a fact: you are no longer a boy, see your desire? You react to my body and I react to yours... You are capable of responsibility. Capable of choice. Capable of bearing consequences.

And yet, if we look even deeper, Lilith may not be separate from Eve at all. She may be another layer of the same archetype: the shadowed, unintegrated continuation of Eve’s first movement toward knowledge.

Eve is the one who reaches for the fruit. The one who dares to know. The first movement out of innocence. But tradition quickly contains her. She is labeled guilty, punished, framed within suffering. Her act of consciousness is wrapped in shame.

Lilith can be seen as the version of that same feminine force that refuses to return. If Eve is the step toward awareness, Lilith is the refusal to crawl back into dependence. Not “I tasted and I am sorry,” but “I exist and I choose.” Not an experiment in autonomy, but the embodiment of it.

In this sense, Lilith is the matured extension of Eve. The evolution of the same archetype. First comes knowledge. Then comes equality. First comes awakening. Then comes the refusal to shrink.

This is precisely why the figure is unsettling. Lilith does not become the man’s mother. She does not control him. She does not infantilize him. Nor does she submit as a daughter. She stands beside him. And equality demands maturity from both.

In relationships, the appearance of this archetype is not destruction but initiation. It exposes where the man still seeks comfort over growth. It exposes where the woman still negotiates her autonomy for approval. It forces the dynamic to evolve or collapse.

The myth may have split Eve and Lilith into separate figures so consciousness could metabolize this transition gradually. But archetypally, they belong to one continuum: the feminine movement from dependence to autonomy, from awareness to sovereignty. 

It is essential here to deepen the image of the Serpent. In many traditions, the Serpent is not a symbol of evil but of knowledge and healing. It appears in medical symbolism as a sign of ethical service to life. The staff entwined with a serpent is not destruction, but the ability to work with subtle forces, to understand cycles of life and death. Even though healing may need to cause pain at first like cause pain to close up the wound, or strengthen the broken limb... Healing, growth will be painful at first... Growth always carries a choice, which leads to destruction of the old form (and here is the pain) towards new forms (pain/fear of the unknown). 

The Serpent is also the image of kundalini: the dormant energy at the base of the spine which, when awakened, rises and transforms consciousness. It is the energy of awakening, expansion, intensification of awareness. It does not ruin a person, it makes them more conscious. More alive. More responsible.

The Serpent sheds its skin: a metaphor for renewal. It does not die, it mutates, changes. It does not freeze in one form, it moves through cycles of transformation, because the old form is tight and not alive anymore, you need to shed one thing and grown another one... and while it is growing - you may be vulnerable, almost tender, not super protected...  That is maturity: the willingness to leave behind the old skin of infantilism and accept a new shape.

Symbolically, the Serpent in Eden is the voice of inner awakening. The part of the psyche that knows it is time to grow. The impulse pushing toward knowledge, toward awareness, toward responsibility. It does not destroy paradise. It completes childhood. And yet, if we go even deeper, even the Serpent and its impulse can be understood as an illusion. An illusion of immediate maturity. An illusion of instant wisdom. The human tastes the fruit and feels enlightened, autonomous, almost equal to God. But this is only the beginning. Not maturity itself, but the doorway to it. Not wisdom, but the opportunity to earn it... earn it through your feet walking your own path, through your tears of dispear, through calluses on your hands, through trial and error - you gain this wisdom day by day, through choices... 

Through this illusion, humanity begins to take responsibility for its own steps. No longer hiding behind prohibition, the human now faces consequences. Action arises not from fear of punishment but from personal choice. Through mistakes, pain, and lived experience, real wisdom slowly emerges: not granted from above, but cultivated through life itself.

In this transition, the woman receives the capacity to give birth... and this capacity is not a curse but an initiation. To carry life through one’s body is to participate in the same creative principle attributed to God. It is the ability to generate existence from intention, from union, from embodied presence. Man and woman, having left childhood, learn not only to choose but to create! Their bodies become instruments of creation. Their will and intention becomes the source of new life. In this way, they approach the divine principle: not as obedient children, but as co-creators, continuing life through experience, embodiment, and responsibility.

Perhaps growing up was never sinful. Perhaps sin was the name given to leaving dependency. Perhaps the guilt we carry across generations is the echo of separation’s bitterness: the moment when the child realizes the parent is no longer the center of existence.

Viewed this way, Eden is not a tragedy of downfall but a myth of courage. Of a woman daring to know. Of a man confronted with his adulthood. Of consciousness learning to stand on its own feet. 

Growth, then, is not betrayal. It is the natural law of life... and it was part of the God's plan...