Two hours later, I found myself back at the Glen of Past with Abraham, Michael, and Emmanuel, staring at the very gloomy sight of the diseased apple tree. Every time I stared at it, I could not help but feel saddened by its appearance, and more than ever, I found a connection between us both.
As I looked up at the tree and saw its listless branches and miserable figure, I could not stop myself from thinking that maybe, the first part of the mystery of this apple tree, and its relation with my own personal journey was that this tree was a representation of how my own soul looked like, and that scared me to no end. Was it possible that I was actually seeing the symbolic representation of my own being? Was that what I had become? A twisted and diseased being under whose influence nothing grew, or thrived?
However, before I could further ponder on such depressing thoughts, I became aware that Abraham had broken away from our group and then turned towards us all, as our leader.
"All right people, we are ready. Now, all we need to do is get some of the apples from this tree. Emily, would you please get some of them?"
Without another word, and without complaining, I nodded and moved towards the tree. However, as soon as I had crossed into the shade, something really weird happened to me, and I almost lost it. During that one second that it took for me to cross from the sunny side to the shade produced by the tree, I felt as if I had just come up in front of a mirror. And what I saw, the image that came reflected towards me, made terror, and unbearable sadness take a hold of me.
The figure before me was a hollow Emily who had been devoured by the black void inside her. This person in that mirror did look exactly like the sick apple tree; defeated, miserable and pathetic and I didn't know what to do, or how to overcome the terror that was suddenly eating at me.
Not wanting to continue seeing such a horrible sight, and wishing for a bit of a respite, I turned away from the drab reality presented to me by the darkness under that tree. But to my utter horror, when I turned towards the sunnier side of the glen, I became aware that everything, and I mean everything, had been swallowed by blackness. There was simply nothing, and no one else left in that place except for the tree, and me! I was faced once more by loneliness and that horrible sense of weightlessness, and I realized that I had become again that bodiless, meaningless shadow that had floated in the world of nowhere.
In my panic, I tried to search for that little spark of hope that had appeared inside me at the house in the morning, but that too had been obliterated by my growing sense of hollowness and hopelessness.
"Emmanuel? Abraham? MICHAEL? Please! Do not leave me alone! I don't want to be back in the dark! Please, please, have mercy on me!" I screamed into the void.
Right at that moment, I literally felt and heard a loud pulsing sound, as if my heart had become a huge drum, and then I saw as an expanding wave of the same powerful warmth and light that had encompassed me during breakfast, poured forth once more from within me. As this happened, the fear in me and the darkness around me, began to recede, as well as all the horrible feelings that had tortured me a few moments ago. However, in contrast to the event of this morning, where once my darkness had disappeared, so had the emission of that power. now, after the wave had dissipated, a part of it remained and it took the form of flames right over my left breast.
At first, I became frightened by the conflagration taking place against my body and stupidly tried to put it out. At that moment I did not understand the enormous importance of it or its meaning for my new beginning. But that changed when I heard Michael's soft, soothing voice calling out to me. I wasn't sure why, but hearing him allowed my soul to be calmed and once it did, my mind opened up to regain the balance.
"Do not fear your fire, use it and come back into the light."
Trusting fully in Michael and abandoning myself to the faith that he had spoken of during breakfast, I began to take steps in the direction of the voice. And as I began to believe, and open up to this new power, as I allowed it to flow through me, the whole scene around me changed. Not only was the darkness gone, replaced by light, but everything had taken on a completely different gleam.
Everything in that glen, the trees, the animals, the sun, even the wind seemed to me to be brighter, more beautiful than before and I realized that the reason was that from within me joy was emanating. Hope, a friend that had become foreign to me, became that small conflagration on top of my chest and the more I opened myself, the brighter it glowed until it finally led me to where I had wanted to be: back in the light with my new best friends, who were smiling at me as if they had just found the best treasure in the world.
Now empowered, I remembered that I still had a task to carry out and so, filled with certainty, I turned back towards the apple tree.
I became shocked by the way my eyes perceived the diseased plant this time around because as I looked up at it, I did not see a hopeless case anymore. Instead, I was now seeing its potential and a fervent desire flourished in me to seek every possible way to save this beautiful, but suffering, tree. Filled with that powerful wish, I moved decidedly back under the shadow of the tree to gather the needed fruits. Once I had found four of them, I carefully cradled them against me and then began to walk back towards the three men.
Abraham was the first of the three to reach me, and as soon as I came within arm's distance, he pulled me against him and hugged me. The sudden sensation of deep tenderness and infinite love towards me hit my heart directly and it moved the deepest and most intimate parts of my suffering soul. It was at this precise instant that I understood the connection between this apple tree and me. At first, I had cataloged the tree as a lost cause, instead of understanding that what was affecting it was suffering and hopelessness and that once these two were corrected, the tree could be saved. Likewise, I had forgotten that my suffering, and despair, had damaged me, but there was nothing that Love and care could not mend. Just as the tree could be saved given the proper care, so too could I find the healing that I needed to start reconstructing myself.
I did not feel shocked at the unexpected gesture from Abraham, nor did I ask for any explanations. Something inside me knew how to respond to this better than my mind ever could and understood what this meant. And so, giving control of my body to that part of myself, I sank into Abraham's embrace and burst into tears. All that had been pent up inside me, poisoning me: my fear, my doubt, my regrets, my bad memories, my bad decisions, and my actions, were suddenly released through those tears. And as they ran down my face, so did all the venom that had been harming me. Abraham did not say anything, nor did he try to stop me from what I was doing; he just hugged me tighter; like my father used to do when I was a little girl, and waited until the storm had passed.
When my tears finally stopped flowing, I removed myself from Abraham and looked at him. And as he gently cleared away the moisture, the contact communicated to me something that I had been looking for for a very long time: acceptance and inner peace. My tears had become the healing step that I needed to truly be able to continue this journey of rebuilding.
"Are you ready to start?" Abraham asked as he looked deep into my eyes.
I did not know why, but Abraham's stare at that moment became like the door to a piece of knowledge, and a mystery that was so great, so deep and so attractive, that I could do nothing more than to follow. And as my eyes remained on him, as my heart and soul opened up to this unknown mystery, a shiver went down my body. I knew then that my true journey had now begun, at this very moment, as I stared into this mystery. For it was because of IT, and my desire to push it away from me as an adult, that had brought me to the end. Now, it would be IT's return that would help me to rise back into the light.
But I understood something else from the stare Abraham was giving me, and it was that comprehension that finally pushed me ahead. His embrace of me, the love he had communicated through that gesture, had not just been for the Emily that was now surging from the ashes; it had also been for the Emily that had sunk under despair. Because to him, both were one, and it was both who had to work together to rise into what we were always meant to be.
I nodded and smiled when I finally broke away from Abraham's eyes. "Yeah, I am. Let's do this."
So we all began our trek back towards the house with one little difference; I had, at least for now, become ready to fully accept the mysteries and everything that was set in store for me on this journey. And I wasn't afraid anymore; on the contrary, I wanted to move on.
As we were almost nearing our destiny, Emmanuel, who had now taken Abraham's place to walk on the path with me, commented, "That is one pretty fire you have there."
I looked down at the bright and warm flames on my chest with pride and smiled back at Emmanuel, only to discover another shocking sight: Emmanuel's chest too had bright flames and although his looked much brighter and bigger, they were in essence similar to mine. I stared up at him with a question in my eyes, especially when I realized that my little hope, reacted when it came nearer to his light.
But once again I learned that I needed to be patient and wait for all these mysteries to unravel, when Emmanuel just smiled back and said, "Remember, all will be clearer as we move further along this journey. What I can tell you for now though is that this fire between us is a link that will always connect us. So, if ever you need me, all you need to do is think about your little fire and call for me."
We had continued our trip towards the magical and beautiful farmhouse and crossed it to reach the backyard when I suddenly became aware of something that filled me with awe and startled me at the same time. The four sick apples I had collected at the Glen of Past had changed, and instead of looking pitifully rotten, they had now become almost healthy-looking. At least, their color had changed from dark purple, blue-green, and black to an almost normal color. And although you could tell that there was still some way to go, they had definitely improved during our adventure at the Glen and then during our walk back. The question that arose in me was, what had caused this change?
Emmanuel, who had remained next to me almost throughout the whole trip back, looked at me the moment he saw me stopping before we reached the little island in the back garden. And when I stared up at him with my silent inquiry, I knew he understood immediately what had me awed. Without a word, he reached for my hands which were holding the apples in them, and to my shock, I saw as power, very similar to Michael's began to move from his heart down his extended arms towards the apples. When the wave finally reached the fruits they started to glow like a lightbulb and once the glow had dissipated, I noticed two things: first, it seemed as if my heart had recognized in his its brother and when this recognition happened, the two of us became connected as if we were real siblings. The second was that the apples had transformed and become ready to be placed next to the tree, to become a part of it.
I stared flummoxed at Emmanuel, silently asking him to help me understand what I had just witnessed. I also felt this ardent desire in me to know who he truly was.
"Love, Faith, and Hope have a power that can transform anything, even the most hopeless of cases, but it takes an open heart, and the willingness to accept such power to reach true healing. By you allowing me to connect with you, and opening yourself to become a roadway to what I had to give, you became the means by which these fruits were finally purified. However, if you had not desired to help, if your heart had not been filled with hope and joy, then you would have become a hindrance to my final plan, which was to heal these poor fruits. Also, the intense desire to help you had combined with the power you received at the Glen of Past, became the first stepping stone in this healing process," Emmanuel said in response to my non-verbalized question.
He then looked at me intensely, just as Abraham had done at the Glen, and I felt as if his spirit were seeking to connect with mine, just like his heart had. Without hesitation I allowed the link to form and as it did, something inside me immediately clicked together. While I was sure that I had never seen Michael or Abraham before, I knew for a fact that Emmanuel was familiar to me; I just still wasn't sure exactly how.
"Emily, I know what you just felt and I know you are almost on your way to understanding who I am and through me, who Abraham and Michael are. But please trust me when I say this; you are not yet ready. Just keep all this stored inside your heart and I promise you, you will understand it all."
I understood and accepted with an open heart what Emmanuel was gently telling me, but I had to recognize that an inner fire had begun within me now that my soul had been linked to Michael's, and Emmanuel's. And a very deep thirst to continue on this wonderful adventure of discovery and rebuilding, and especially of connecting the dots, began to brew inside me. I could only hope for the next wonders these men had in store and I now wished to reach a spiritual connection with Abraham as well, as I had this feeling that he was the central key.
____
Hello guys, I am sorry about all this. I have been tweaking things a little bit and improving the story. I hope you guys like the changes.