The Journey to Eternity — Chapter One: The Encounter

This is the first chapter of my book, The Journey to Eternity, which I am sharing here chapter by chapter, as I write it — a journey that begins with a conversation I never expected, in an orchard I thought I knew.

Chapter One: The Encounter

The sun had already set when I noticed the bird.

She stood on a low branch of an orange tree, a few steps away from me, and looked at me.

I was on my way back home. I used to go out for a walk in the evening hours, mostly on days when I felt the need to distance myself a little from the house and from all the things that fill the hours of the day.

The orchard was quiet. The scent of oranges mingled with the scent of earth, and between the trees remained the last stripes of light.

I approached the bird.

I did not know her species. Her feathers were pale, almost silver, and her eyes dark and large in proportion to her head. She did not shrink from me, even when I stood directly beneath the branch.

"Aren't you afraid?" I asked.

"What should I fear?"

I froze in place.

I looked around me, convinced someone was standing among the trees.

"Anyone who can harm you," I answered at last, though I was not sure why I was answering a voice.

"And does everyone who can harm you indeed wish to do so?"

I raised my gaze again.

The bird did not move.

"You talk?"

"You hear."

I was silent.

I was not afraid, as might perhaps have been expected of me. I was surprised, of course, but more than anything I wanted to understand what was happening.

"I assume there is an explanation for this," I said.

"Everything has an explanation. The question is whether you are ready to accept an explanation you do not yet understand."

I gazed at her for a long while.

"Not knowing something does not mean it is impossible," I said. "But not everything I do not understand is necessarily true, either."

"Then how do you decide what to believe?"

I thought for a moment.

"I try not to believe too quickly. I prefer to ask, to check, sometimes even to be wrong."

"And have you never believed in something you could not see?"

The question surprised me.

"Of course I have. In love, for example. I cannot see it, but I can see what it does to people."

"And in God?"

I looked at her.

I had not expected that question.

"I believe there is far more in creation than we are able to understand."

"That is not an answer to my question."

"Perhaps because I do not yet have a complete answer."

The bird lowered her head slightly, as if examining my words.

"Do you think God created man so that he would understand creation?"

I looked at the row of trees growing darker.

"I don't know. Sometimes it seems to me that we are so busy surviving that we never stop to ask what life was given to us for in the first place."

"And what do you think?"

"That if we were given the ability to ask, it probably has meaning. Otherwise, why create a creature aware of itself, of the world around it, and even of the fact that one day it will cease to exist?"

The bird was silent.

I was silent too.

A light wind passed through the trees. A ripe orange fell to the ground not far from us.

"Do you know what has always occupied me?" I asked at last.

"Tell me."

"Why are we given life only to lose it? We are born knowing nothing, spend years learning, gather experience, understand a little more about ourselves and about the world, and just when we begin to see things clearly, the time left to us grows shorter."

The bird looked at me.

"And if death is not the loss of life?"

"Then what is it?"

"Perhaps it is only the end of the way in which you learned to live it."

I gazed at her.

"You mean that life continues without the body?"

"I am asking whether you believe the body is all that you are."

I looked at my hands.

For years this body had carried me from place to place. It had changed, aged, sometimes hurt, healed. I had learned to listen to it, to care for it and to understand its limits.

But my thoughts, my memories, the love I feel — are all of those only the body?

"I don't know," I admitted. "But if I lost my body, how would I know that I am still me?"

"That is a good question."

"And do you have an answer?"

"I have a way in which you can discover it."

For the first time since the conversation began, the bird spread her wings.

The last light touched her feathers, and they glinted for a moment in a shade I could not identify.

"To where?" I asked.

"To a place where you can learn what life is, before you decide what it means to live forever."

I looked at her, trying to understand whether I was truly standing in an orchard conversing with a bird, or whether something within me had changed without my noticing.

"And why are you telling me all this?"

"Because you asked."

"Many people ask such questions."

"True. But not everyone is ready to keep searching for the answer when it changes everything they knew before."

The bird rose from the branch and landed on a tree a little farther away.

"Come," she said.

I looked at the path that led back to my home.

I could see the first lights coming on in the windows of the houses beyond the orchard. Soon it would be completely dark. The world I knew went on as usual, as if an impossible conversation had not just taken place here.

"And if I decide to stay?" I asked.

"You may stay."

"And if I follow you?"

"You will see things you will not be able to forget."

I stood in place another moment.

For years I had asked myself questions about life, about creation, and about what awaits us beyond them. I never thought the answers might arrive at such an hour, in the middle of an ordinary walk in the orchard.

I began to walk behind the bird.

Not because I believed everything she said.

But because I wanted to know.

The bird moved through the trees, from branch to branch, and I walked behind her.

The orchard was well known to me. For years I had walked its paths, known its ancient trees and the places where the earth stays damp even on hot days. But as we advanced, I noticed the path was changing.

The trees grew denser, and the ground was covered with leaves I had not seen before. The scent of oranges also faded, and in its place came another scent, delicate and sweet, that I could not identify.

"How far are we going?" I asked.

"Far enough for you to see what was always close to you."

I was not sure I understood.

"You speak in riddles."

"Perhaps because some things are hard to explain before they are seen."

I kept walking.

After a few minutes I noticed the orchard was unusually quiet. I heard no cars from the nearby road, no voices of people, not even the crickets that usually accompanied me at these hours.

I stopped and listened.

"Where did all the sounds go?"

The bird landed on a low branch.

"They still exist."

"Then why don't I hear them?"

"Because you are listening to another place."

I looked around me.

"I am still here, in the orchard."

"Are you sure?"

I bent down and picked up a small stone from the ground. It was cool and rough. I rubbed it between my fingers.

"I feel the stone. I see the trees. I smell the earth. What more do I need to know where I am?"

"And what if your senses show you only a small part of what exists?"

I thought about that.

I knew there are sounds the human ear cannot hear, colors our eyes cannot see, and movements that take place around us without our noticing them.

"That is true," I said. "But the fact that I cannot sense something does not mean I am somewhere else."

"True," the bird replied. "And so I will not ask you to believe. I will ask you to observe."

She spread her wings and rose.

Before me a narrow path opened between two large trees. I did not remember ever seeing it, though I had walked this place many times.

I entered it.

A few steps later I reached a small clearing.

At its center stood a tree unlike the orchard trees. Its trunk was wide, its bark pale, and its branches spread to the sides in an almost symmetrical form.

It bore no fruit.

Only small leaves, silvered on their underside, moving in a light breeze.

The bird landed on one of its branches.

"Come closer."

I approached the tree.

Fine signs were carved into the trunk. Some resembled letters; others, geometric shapes I did not know.

I passed my hand over one of the signs.

The tree was warm.

I removed my hand and placed it again.

I had not been mistaken.

"How can a tree be so warm after sunset?"

"Have you ever thought about why you call one thing alive and another inanimate?" the bird asked.

"Because there is a difference between them. A tree grows, feeds, responds to its surroundings. A stone does none of those things."

"And if the stone changes over thousands of years, does it not take part in the life of the world?"

"It takes part in the processes of nature. That does not necessarily mean it is alive."

"Perhaps not," said the bird. "But is a thing that is not alive, as you define life, without meaning?"

I looked at the stone I still held in my palm.

"No. Certainly not."

"If so, perhaps the important question is not only who is alive, but what place each thing holds in creation."

I set the stone down beside the tree's roots.

I thought about how we assign importance to things by the use they bring us. A tree that gives fruit, an animal that accompanies us, earth that grows food. But creation holds countless creatures and materials whose role we have no idea of, and perhaps never will.

"Are you saying everything has a purpose?" I asked.

"I am saying everything has an effect. Whether effect and purpose are the same thing is another question."

I sat down on a wide root protruding from the earth.

"If so, what is the purpose of man?"

The bird looked at me.

"What do you think?"

I smiled faintly.

"I am beginning to understand that you prefer I find the answers myself."

"An answer received from another can widen knowledge. An answer reached through understanding can change a life."

I was silent.

For years I had thought the purpose of life was tied to love, to learning, to giving, to the ability to leave something good behind us. But every such answer raised more questions.

If a person lives a quiet life and no one remembers him after his death, were his days any less meaningful?

And if a small creature exists for only one day, is the value of its life measured by its length?

"I do not think the purpose of life can be the same for everyone," I said at last. "But perhaps there is something shared by us all. The very possibility of experiencing existence, of affecting it and being affected by it."

The bird did not answer at once.

"That is a good beginning," she said.

I looked at her.

"A beginning of what?"

"Of the understanding you are seeking."

A light wind passed through the branches.

The silver leaves began to rustle, and between them a faint light appeared. At first I thought it was a reflection of the moon, but when I raised my eyes I saw that the light came from within the tree itself.

It spread along the branches, descended to the trunk, and lit the signs carved in it.

I rose from my place.

The signs began to change.

Lines that had been separate joined, shapes opened and closed, and at last a circle formed on the trunk, and within it an outstretched wing.

I placed my hand on the symbol.

For a moment I felt a gentle pulse beneath my palm.

I removed it.

The pulse continued.

"What is this?" I whispered.

"An opening."

"To where?"

"To the place from which you can begin to see creation in a different way."

I looked around me. The clearing looked exactly as it had before, and yet I felt something was about to change.

"Is it another world?"

"Yes."

"And it exists alongside our world?"

"It is not as far as you think."

I gazed at the tree.

"Then why don't we see it?"

"Because not every boundary is a distance."

The words stirred a thought in me.

Perhaps we are so used to measuring the world in distances and times that we cannot imagine a form of existence that does not depend on them.

"And if I cross over, what will happen to my body?" I asked.

"For now, nothing. You still need it."

"For now?"

"There are different ways to exist. You know only one of them."

I looked at my hands, at the fingers resting on the tree trunk.

My body was an inseparable part of me. Through it I had felt warmth and cold, embraced my children, tasted, walked, wept and laughed. It was hard for me to imagine myself without it.

"I am not sure I would want to give it up," I said.

"No one is asking you to do so now."

"But one day will I have to choose?"

"If you reach the place where that choice is possible."

I let go of the tree.

For the first time I felt the true weight of the invitation.

Until that moment I had treated the journey as a chance to discover new things. Now I understood it might demand of me far more than curiosity.

"I have a life," I said quietly. "People I love. Things I am responsible for. I cannot simply disappear."

"And you do not need to."

"Then I can return?"

"Yes. As long as you have not chosen otherwise."

"And what does choosing otherwise mean?"

"That you will understand in time."

I looked at the bird.

"I do not want to reach a place where I must choose without knowing what I am giving up."

"That is why the way is long."

The answer calmed me somewhat.

Not because I understood more, but because for the first time I felt the journey was not asking me to believe or to surrender. It allowed me to learn before I decided.

The light on the tree trunk grew stronger.

Within the circle, the stone — or what I had until then thought was bark — began to become transparent.

Through it I saw movement.

Water.

I stepped forward.

Beyond the trunk appeared a wide shore, a blue sea, and tall trees growing down to the waterline.

The wind blowing from the opening carried the scent of salt.

I stretched out my hand carefully. My fingers passed through the light, and on the other side I felt warm air.

I pulled them back.

"Is it real?"

"You can check for yourself."

I looked into the opening again.

Above the distant forest towered an immense tree. Its branches were so wide that the shade they cast covered a large part of the island.

I could not make out its details, but something in its sight drew my attention.

"What is that tree?" I asked.

"It is one of the reasons you came here."

"What is special about it?"

"It holds something human beings have sought ever since they began to understand that the time given to them is limited."

I looked at the bird.

"Eternal life?"

She did not answer at once.

"Before you ask how to live forever, you must understand what life is."

I looked at the shore again.

There was truth in her words. How could I choose a life without end, if I did not understand even the essence of the life I knew?

And yet a question rose in me that I could not ignore.

If God created us mortal, is the wish to live forever an attempt to resist His creation, or was that possibility part of it from the beginning?

I said nothing.

I wanted to keep the question to myself, at least until I understood better what stood before me.

The bird descended from the branch and landed near the opening.

"It is time."

"And you are coming with me?"

"I can accompany you until you know the way. After that you will have to learn to walk it yourself."

I looked back.

Between the trees I could still make out the path that led back to my home. I knew I could turn to it and return to my ordinary life.

For a moment I thought of everything I had left there, of the people who would wait for me and the small things that would go on existing even without me.

And then I looked at the opening again.

I did not know if I would find answers there. Perhaps I would discover that some of my questions had not been the right questions at all.

But the possibility of seeing something I had never seen, of understanding something I had not known could be understood, was stronger than the fear.

"I am ready," I said.

The bird spread her wings and passed through the light.

I approached the trunk.

Before I crossed, I placed my hand on the tree once more.

"Just one more thing," I said.

The bird turned toward me from the other side.

"If I find the answers I am looking for, will I be able to share them with others?"

"You will be able to share what you understand. But you will not be able to understand in their place."

I nodded.

I thought about how, in the life we know, too, we can give another person knowledge, but we cannot give them an experience they have not lived, or an insight they are not yet ready to see.

I passed through the opening.

For a moment I felt a warmth envelop my body, like entering water at a pleasant temperature. Then I heard the murmur of the waves.

My feet touched sand.

I stood at the edge of the sea.

Behind me came a soft rustle. I turned and saw the tree through which I had passed, but its trunk was whole. No opening remained in it, and no sign of the place I had come from.

The bird stood on a low branch and looked at me.

"Welcome," she said.

"Where have I arrived?"

She turned her head toward the immense tree towering over the forest.

"To the place where you will begin to discover how little you know about life."

I looked at the tree.

Among its branches I noticed large fruits of a golden color. The sunlight touched them, and for a moment they seemed to glow from within.

"And what is its name?" I asked.

"The Tree of Eternity."

I stayed, looking at it.

Until that evening I had thought of eternity as time without end.

But now, standing before the tree, the possibility rose in me for the first time that perhaps eternity has nothing to do with the length of time at all.

Perhaps it has to do with the way we exist within it.

End of Chapter One