The Journey to Eternity · A serialized book by Nurit Rozenblat
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Seven — The First Bite of Eternity · Chapter Nine — The Memory Before Birth →
Chapter Eight — What Else Do I Not Remember About Myself
The peel was thin, and the fruit was astonishingly juicy.
The taste was sweet at first, but right after that a slight sourness appeared in it, and after it a taste I did not know. I could not decide whether it resembled cold water, blossom, or the smell of earth after rain.
I swallowed.
I waited.
Nothing happened.
I looked at the fruit.
For a moment an almost ridiculous thought rose in me.
Perhaps I was supposed to eat all of it?
And then I heard a strong beat in my chest.
And another one.
I laid my hand on my heart.
The beats grew slow.
I felt them clearly, each one separate from the other.
And then came another beat.
Very weak.
And after it —
Silence.
I looked at my chest.
I laid two fingers on it, then my whole palm.
I felt no pulse.
I moved my fingers to my neck.
Nothing.
Fear rose at once.
I tried to draw in air.
But my body did not ask for it.
I felt no choking.
No pain.
No dizziness.
I simply did not need to breathe.
I stood there, holding a bitten fruit in one hand, and my other hand resting on my chest.
"What is happening to me?" I whispered.
I heard my voice, but something in it had changed.
It did not come only from my throat.
I felt the words as if they were created within me, and the air only carried them.
I looked at the palm of my hand.
The skin still looked as I had known it.
The lines, the nails, the shape of the fingers.
And then I noticed that I could see a faint light through my skin.
It did not shine from outside.
It passed through me.
The fruit slipped from my hand.
I stretched out a hand to catch it, but it had already fallen to the grass.
I bent down.
And suddenly I felt I was in two places.
I stood beside the tree, and at the same moment I saw myself standing beside it.
Not as in a mirror.
I saw my back, my hair, my outstretched hand.
I was startled and turned around.
The sight changed together with me.
I felt as if the space around me had opened.
I was still me, but I no longer knew where exactly I ended.
The sensation expanded.
I felt the roots of the tree beneath the ground.
I did not see them, but I knew where they passed.
I felt water flowing in the depths, far from the place where I stood.
I noticed a tiny movement inside the trunk of the tree, slow processes I had not been able to feel before.
And then the voices came.
Thousands of voices.
I did not hear them with my ears.
They appeared in my consciousness all at once.
A rustle of leaves. A movement of wings. Streams of water. Voices of beings I did not know.
I tried to concentrate on one of them, but every such attempt brought with it dozens more sensations.
I felt I was about to lose control.
"Enough!" I cried.
The voices did not stop.
I knelt on my knees, though I no longer felt the weight of my body as I had known it.
I closed my eyes.
It did not help.
I could feel even what I did not see.
The whole forest was present within me.
I did not know how to push it away.
And then I remembered something the Guardian of the Tree had told me.
Your body seeks security, and your consciousness seeks to know.
Until now the body was the place I returned to every time the world became too big.
I could close my eyes.
Breathe.
Feel the soles of my feet on the ground.
But now breathing was no longer necessary for me, and the boundaries of the body were loosening.
I understood I had to learn a new way to focus.
I tried to think of only one thing.
Of a drop of water.
Not of the whole river.
Only of one drop.
Gradually the voices receded.
The many sensations did not vanish, but they stopped flooding me.
I could choose what to concentrate on.
I opened my eyes.
The world looked different.
The colors were deeper, but not only because they had become brighter. I noticed shades I had not known, tiny differences between leaves that had previously looked identical to me.
The air was full of movement.
I saw how the light falls on the water, scatters, and returns to the skies.
I raised my gaze to the Tree of Eternity.
And now I saw what I could not see before.
The branches did not end at the canopy.
They continued further, through layers of light and spaces I did not know. Some crossed distant skies. Others passed through places where neither sun nor stars could be seen.
The tree was not only an enormous tree growing on an island.
It was connected to many places.
For a moment I noticed a dark space, and within it dense stars.
In another space I saw a wide sea, and on its surface moved transparent beings whose bodies gave off light.
I saw a forest where the trees grew downward out of purple skies.
I did not know if I was seeing real worlds or experiencing them in a way unlike seeing.
But I knew they exist beyond what I had known.
I felt an enormous excitement.
I wanted to draw closer.
To discover.
To see more.
And then I remembered myself.
I looked down.
Beside the roots of the tree sat a woman.
Her hair was familiar to me.
So was the garment she wore.
She sat on the grass, her head drooping slightly to the side, and her hand open beside the fallen fruit.
I approached.
My heart — if the place where I felt fear could still be called that — contracted.
That was me.
My body.
It looked whole.
There were no signs of pain or injury on it.
But it did not move.
I knelt beside it.
I tried to touch its face.
My hand passed through the skin, as if I had tried to touch a reflection on the surface of water.
I recoiled.
"No…"
I looked at the body that had been mine all my life.
At the face I knew from the mirror.
At the hands with which I had held my children.
At the legs that had carried me to the orchard that evening.
I felt a sadness I had not expected.
I knew the body would complete its role.
I had been told that.
But the knowing had not prepared me for this sight.
To see myself from outside, and to know I could not go back and be exactly as I had been.
I sat beside the body for a long time.
I did not know if minutes had passed or hours.
For the first time I understood that death, as I had known it, is not only the stopping of the body's function.
For those who remain, it is also the absence of a person from the places where they used to find them.
I thought of my family.
If they saw my body like this, what would they think?
Would they know I still exist?
Was there a way to tell them?
I tried to call one of my children.
The words were created in my consciousness, but I did not know where they reached.
I heard no answer.
I tried again.
Nothing.
I felt the pain growing stronger.
I now had senses I could not have imagined before, but I could not do the simple thing I wanted most at that moment.
To hear a familiar voice answer me.
I remained beside the body.
And then I noticed something.
Its face looked peaceful.
There was no fear in it.
I remembered the moment I bit the fruit.
I had not been helpless.
I chose.
That knowledge did not cancel the sadness, but it allowed me to bear it.
I stood up.
I looked for the last time at my body.
"Thank you," I whispered.
I did not know to whom I was saying it.
To the body.
To the life I had lived.
Perhaps to the creation that had allowed me to experience the world in this way all these years.
And then I felt a movement behind me.
I turned around.
The silver bird stood on one of the roots.
For a moment I almost laughed with relief.
"Where were you?" I asked.
It tilted its head.
But this time I heard no voice.
Instead, I felt its presence in my consciousness.
It was familiar to me, like a voice I had heard many times.
Can you hear me?
"Yes," I answered.
And you no longer need words.
I looked at it.
"Did it really happen?"
It spread its wings.
You bit the fruit.
I looked at the body sitting beside the tree.
"Am I dead?"
The bird was silent for a moment.
Your body has ceased to live. But you still ask, remember, feel, and choose. You will have to learn what that means now.
I looked at it.
"And what will happen to it?"
It will return to the materials from which it was built. As happens to the bodies of living beings.
I felt sadness, but also something else.
A certain relief.
Not because I did not care about it, but because I did not need to pretend it was still me in full.
The bird drew closer.
Are you ready to see?
"To see what?"
It raised its head to the canopy.
I followed its gaze.
Between the far branches, points of light began to appear.
At first they were few.
Then hundreds.
Then thousands.
They moved around one another, drawing closer and moving apart, and within them I noticed shapes of beings.
Some resembled human beings.
Others resembled nothing I had known.
I saw consciousnesses moving within bodies of light, and others that had no clear form.
They were not all alike.
They did not think in the same way.
They did not move at the same pace.
And yet, I felt a connection between them.
Like the melody I had heard in the cave, in which every voice was different, but all existed together.
"Who are they?" I asked.
Those who chose to continue.
I looked at them in amazement.
"Did all of them eat from the fruit?"
Not all of them arrived here by the same way. Creation is wider than you can yet understand.
One of the lights approached.
Within it I saw a tall figure, with a face whose age I could not determine.
It stopped a short distance from me.
I felt its attention turned toward me.
It had no eyes as I knew them, but I knew it was looking at me.
And then a thought appeared in my consciousness.
Welcome.
I did not know how to answer.
The figure drew a little closer.
Do not be afraid. We all remember the first moment.
I looked at it.
"Did you feel this way too?"
Not exactly. Every consciousness meets the transition in its own way. But many of us struggled at first to understand how it is possible to go on existing without the body we knew.
I wanted to ask more.
Where it had come from.
How long it had existed.
What it had seen.
But before I could, it turned to the silver bird.
I felt an exchange of thoughts between them that I could not understand.
And then the figure looked at me again.
There is something you must know before you join us.
I felt alertness.
"What?"
It hesitated.
This was the first time since I arrived on the island that I saw a being of this world hesitate before answering.
The fruit freed you from dependence on the body. It did not grant you full knowledge, and it did not teach you how to exist in the new world.
"That I have already understood."
There is something more.
It approached.
Now you will be able to reach places that were closed to you. But some of them are not meant for one who does not yet know how to distinguish between what she experiences and what she understands.
I remembered the cave.
The voices.
The doors of possibilities.
"What is in those places?"
The figure looked toward the far branches.
Ancient consciousnesses. Memories of worlds. Forms of existence unlike yours. And there are also places where the boundary between one consciousness and another is not as clear as you are used to.
I felt curiosity.
And also fear.
"Can I lose myself?"
You do not have to lose yourself in order to change. But you must learn to preserve the ability to distinguish between your will and what reaches you from others.
I looked at the bird.
It stood quietly.
I felt it knew far more than it had told me so far.
"So what do we do now?" I asked.
The figure turned toward a distant space between the branches.
There I noticed a great light, which seemed to be moving slowly around an invisible center.
Now you will learn to move.
It moved a little away.
Not by means of legs, wings, or the power of muscles. By means of your intention.
I looked down.
I was not sure if I still stood on the ground.
I felt its presence, but not my weight on it.
I tried to rise.
Nothing happened.
The figure waited.
I tried again, this time with all my might.
For a moment I felt as if I were struggling with a body that was no longer there.
You do not need to make an effort, its thought arrived. You must stop looking for the movement in the place where you knew it.
I closed my eyes.
I thought of the light between the branches.
Not of the way to it.
Only of it.
Suddenly I felt movement.
I opened my eyes.
The ground receded.
I did not fall.
I did not hover as I had seen the birds in the cave.
I simply moved.
Without effort.
Without resistance of air.
The tree remained below me, but I could also sense its roots, the lake, and the forest around it.
Laughter burst out of me.
I could not stop it.
I moved higher.
And then I stopped.
I looked down.
For the first time in my life I was not limited to a place the body could reach.
I thought of all the times I had watched birds and wanted to know how flight feels.
Now I understood that this movement is different even from flight.
I did not need wings.
I did not need to push myself forward.
Distance itself was experienced differently.
I turned to the figure.
"I want to see the worlds."
It smiled, or at least that is how I interpreted the change in the light around it.
You will see.
"And I want to understand how it all began."
You will learn.
"And I want to know if I can meet again those I have lost."
The figure did not answer at once.
That question too you will be able to keep exploring. But do not expect every answer to be as you hoped.
I nodded.
I was ready to hear that.
And then, out of all the lights moving between the branches, I felt one different presence.
It was very far away.
I saw no figure.
I heard no voice.
But something in it was familiar.
Familiar in a way I could not explain.
I turned my attention to it.
The moment I did so, all the other lights receded from my sensation.
Only that presence remained.
It did not approach.
And yet I felt it noticed me.
And then one thought arrived.
Clear.
Familiar.
It took you a long time to arrive.
I froze.
The sentence was not spoken in a voice.
But the way in which it reached me awakened a deep memory in me.
A memory I could not yet identify.
"Who is there?" I asked.
There was no answer.
I tried to approach.
The figure beside me sent me a sharp thought.
Wait.
I stopped.
"Why?"
Because you do not know who is addressing you.
I looked again into the distance.
The presence was still there.
And then I heard within me something else.
Not words.
A melody.
The same melody I had heard in the cave.
But this time there was one different sound in it.
A sound that reminded me of something from the life I had left behind.
I felt a deep longing, almost painful.
The silver bird drew closer to me.
Do not hurry to follow everything that is familiar to you.
I looked at it.
"But I feel I know whoever is there."
Perhaps.
"Then why shouldn't I approach?"
The bird looked toward the distant light.
Because now you can sense things you never sensed. But you still do not always know how to distinguish between memory, longing, and the presence of another consciousness.
I felt the meaning of its words.
All my life I had relied on my senses to know the world.
Now new senses had opened before me, but I had not yet learned how to interpret them.
I looked at the distant light.
It did not vanish.
Something in me wanted to reach it more than anything else.
But for the first time since I bit the fruit, I chose to wait.
The figure beside me began to move toward one of the far branches.
The silver bird joined it.
I looked once more at the Tree of Eternity.
Far below, beside its roots, I could still make out the body I had left behind.
It looked very small from here.
I felt toward it sadness, gratitude, and love.
And then I turned my gaze forward.
The space before me was vast.
Full of worlds, consciousnesses, and secrets I did not know.
I did not know how much time it would take me to understand even a small part of it.
But for the first time that question did not arouse worry in me.
I had time.
I did not yet know what it means to live forever, but I was beginning to understand how little of existence I had known when I depended on the body.
I advanced, following the figure and the bird.
And behind me, at a distance I could not measure, that same thought was heard again.
It took you a long time to arrive.
This time I managed to notice something I had not felt before.
There was no joy in the words.
In them there was a long waiting.
Longer by far than a human life.
And a moment before I moved away, another thought arrived:
"Do you think this is your first time here?"
I stopped.
The whole space around me continued to move, but I remained in my place.
Because if this was not my first time here, I had to understand one thing before I continued.
What else do I not remember about myself?
End of Chapter Eight
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Seven — The First Bite of Eternity · Chapter Nine — The Memory Before Birth →
