Presumably, Adam and Eve were bellybuttonless clones—Adam made in god’s image, and Eve grafted from Adam’s rib. There would be no scar upon their stomachs remembering an umbilical link to their ancestors. Thinking in these terms, the apple is theoretically Eve’s entrance to life, to the Mother.
Greek mythology depicts Zeus sending two eagles flying off in different directions to meet at the “navel” of the earth, the Omphalos of Delphi. In Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus imagines calling Eden using an umbilical cord phone line, “Put me on to Edenville.” Humans are just beginning to preserve umbilical cord blood for potential future stem cell use, but people throughout time have always kept the umbilical cord for its connection to the past—the symbolic gateway to one’s metaphysical descent.
What of seedless watermelons, or the Navel orange? What about umbilical necrosis? Will our Mother also become obsolete?
Is the belly button erogenous for some simply because of its numerous nerve endings or is this divine passageway to the foremother a psychological turn-on?
Is that why women were prohibited from showing the navel (not unlike the nipple predicament of today) on American television until 1964? Why is society afraid of the Mother?
The Soul Hole is a collection of pieces that ponder the bellybutton and all holes, not for their void, but for the knowledge they provide. Whether they are the key to deciphering what remains, the visual access to what lies beneath, or the link to the ancestor—holes are the soul of the work.
The Soul Hole suggests that absence and negative space in fact have a radical presence.