“You are necessary to that end, and to me...you are all I have of the garden. You are the image of me and of the One. And if you have wronged, then I have surely repaid your wrong twice over.”

“I will protect you all the days of my life. You will be the mother of all who live and the giver of life to the seed spoken by the One -- the seed that will strike the offspring of the serpent. The One has said it, Isha...today I name you Havah, because you will live, and all who live will come from you, and you will give birth to hope.”

“The words, when they came to my heart, were so gentle, and familiar -- and so very sad: What is this you have done?”

“I have always contended that girls are the sturdier of the genders and wondered in secret if the One that Is might not best be identified with the creativity of the female heart.”

“I was beloved. I had been hoped for. Somehow, I was necessary.”

“I wanted to be alone with the One. The One who scaled then careened from the heights of the Mount. The One who raised up the man from the mud. The One who fashioned me from a part of the man and knew me more intimately than even the adam.”

“And I know that God made the heart the most fragile and resilient of all organs, that a lifetime of joy and pain might be encased in one mortal chamber.”