Last night I had a dream.
I have heard of a lost place, a garden called Eden,
And recently I’ve been obsessed with it.
Perhaps it may offer some refuge to my plight and to the world.
Last night I laid down my head and closed my eyes,
Soon I was drifting into sleep,
And what should I find on the other side,
But Eden itself!
There was a person there with wings and a fiery sword -
An angel, he called himself,
Though it seemed he was neither man nor woman.
In a hauntingly beautiful voice that reverberates still through my mind,
He spoke thus:
“I am the Guardian.
No one shall pass me.”
And I asked him:
“But what are you guarding, oh Guardian?
What could be so precious as to block others out?”
He replied:
“I stand watch over the Garden, of course,
The Garden of Eden.”
“And why,” I asked, “does it need protecting?
What is of such value that men and women cannot partake?”
“It is not the Garden I protect,
It is you.
For those who do not know themselves will be destroyed by the contents therein.”
This seemed absurd to me, so further I prodded:
“Make sense angel!
What could be of so much power in a simple garden that it would destroy someone?”
“The Tree,” he responded plainly.
“The tree? But I see many trees in the garden behind you.”
“The Tree of Life.
Long ago, before there was life,
God — the One — created the two:
Man and Woman, duality.
But they were not born complete.
They were born unaware, not knowing themselves or each other.
The One forbade the two from eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,
Knowing that they would, that woman would eat of the fruit.”
“And what became of them?” I asked.
“They were cast out into the world of awareness,
The world of suffering and toil.
And God laughed, but they could no longer hear him.”
“That’s terrible!” I exclaimed. “But what became of them then?”
“They had children, grew old, and died, as all people must do.”
“Well,” I said, “what a terrible thing woman has done!”
“No, not terrible,” he responded. “Beautiful, perhaps,
But inevitable.
No life can exist in stagnation,
And if the fruit was not eaten,
Humanity would have perished before it began,
Doomed to a pointless existence.
For if one is unaware of bliss, how can they be blissful?
Bliss, like life, has no opposite,
And it can only be real if one is born, if one suffers,
If one becomes aware of their true self.”
“Ah! Now I understand. You keep people out so they can be blissful.
But that makes no sense…”
“You are close, Manuel, closer than many in these dark times.
But you still do not know yourself.
I cannot reveal the answer, for I already have.
If you do not yet understand, I cannot let you pass.”
“A hint, perhaps?” I asked cautiously.
But he refused to speak.
So finally I asked:
“What does the fruit of Life do?”
“It makes you what you always have been -
One.”
“But I thought One was God.”
And then I awoke.
Cross-posted on Medium (https://medium.com/@gostudent7676/the-diary-of-manuel-st-pierre-3-the-dream-of-eden-59c794d75428)