The image of the garden contains our oldest memories and legends, of a communal state of nature where humans were free of guilt and the fear of death. This garden, the place of natural kinship, remains the ideal state. In the Christian tradition of original sin and redemption, a future Heaven becomes the substitute for a past Eden. In a creation-based spirituality, by contrast, we do not ascend from Eden, but can return to the garden as part of our original blessing.

Tom Hayden, The Lost Gospel of the Earth