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Writer's pictureVanessa Cook

Eden, In a Nutshell.

This is the last of my "creative forays" (for now) into other stories. With the next blog post I return to our journey through Egypt. Although my descriptions of my encounters with Lillith in monster form are real and true as I experienced them.




 

Ho’reb stepped forward and cleared his throat. He seemed calm and warm but those who knew him well, could see his clenched fists and wondered what was troubling him.

“We will take the time to reflect on the energy that is coming in on this great cycle. Many of us have observed the signs and we speculate on what is to come. What I know for certain is that we must hold fast to our essence, that we may embrace events without becoming entangled. We shall meet again soon. And in the meantime, let us join the people.”

   He gestured out towards the streets where the glow of fires flickered and the air hang sweetly with the smell of delicious food cooking.

“Before we do Ho’reb, there is the question of the visitors,” interjected a silver haired woman, Maia, a master weaver, of cloth and worlds.

   Ho’reb nodded. He turned to the dark corner of the room and gestured to the men to come into the circle. Everyone watched them with interest as they shuffled forwards led by Adom. He was taller than the others, his beard making him look older than his years.

   There were 13 of them. All men. Their faces and hands dirty. Their hair matted. They looked defeated. Beaten. There clothes were stained with soot and hung off them like death shrouds. Death. Yes, that is what it was. Death seemed to hang around them like a thin vapour.

    She searched for their eyes, to know their hearts. But all she saw back was emptiness. A hollow darkness. They had shed their rivers of tears and now had nothing left.

    Her heart ached for a great sorrow they carried, a great loss that hurt still. She could feel it rippling around them. But there was also something else there, something she couldn’t put her finger on. It was almost like a current of vitality, of anticipation, incongruent with the scene before her. And this troubled her.

“Welcome friend,” said Ho’reb warmly.

    Other members of the circle smiled and nodded greetings too. The people behind shuffled closer to get a better look. Everyone was curious to hear their story and discover what had brought them to Eden.

   Adom looked around at his men to make sure everyone was there and then raised his eyes to Ho’reb, smiling slightly.

“Thank you master, we are grateful for your hospitality in our time of need. And we are sorry to be arriving at such an auspicious time as it is, with the ill tidings that we bring.”

    His eyes flicked up to hers for a moment but didn’t linger. He needed to focus on getting his message across to the whole council. At his words the watching crowd shuffled and a little murmur went around the room. Ill news was most definitely not welcome on a day such as this.

 

 

In a nutshell, it’s a classic story. Perhaps THE classic story, the beginnings of them all. The others are renditions of this one. Echoes.

    This was the point the change was made, where we were forced to forget. Where time was broken and we were locked in our current pattern. This is where we lost our way. Where the earth’s heart was broken.

 

    Eden had long been a powerful land. Perhaps for millions of years, I do not know. Perhaps, by its very nature it was destined to be so. But like all things, nothing is constant. All expressions must come to pass. And then come full circle again into completion.

   Protected by mighty forces of nature who walked the land in various forms, Eden has been whispered about, talked about, sung about for generations as a place of spiritual purity. Amongst the springs and pools, rivers and forest, a highly spiritual community charged with safeguarding the energy has always been in place. And always will, in one form or another.

   The name is not important nor is the lore that has built up around the name. What is important is this point, where various lines meet, for that determines its function and form. Like DNA.

    Eden is one of several energy points on a line around the globe, each with a function and role within the workings of the planet and the cosmos. Each took on a unique shape and form resultant from the information embedded in the landscape. The remnants of which are mere fragments of what was once here.

    There had been times in its long history where the valley came under attack. Yes, even back then. Always within creation, regardless of the luminance of the light, or perhaps because of it, there will always rise those who seek to play the game of power. Whose illusions of grandeur defy even the law of Ma’at. Who will do whatever it takes to forge the vision they hold into reality.

    Such ones always arise, even back then. It was rare but it did happen. And they were easily squashed. No one could walk these sands and lush riverbanks with harm in their heart and not be taken out. The land itself would not let them reach their purpose. The desert would hide their way or a crocodile would eat them.

    There was little the people of Eden had to do to protect themselves, the land took care of them. They had always believed they were fully protected and had no reason to know any different. And herein perhaps lies part of the problem. They had become stagnant and the earth does not like stagnation.

   

No one knows how they got in. How could they have got all the way to the temple with the treachery in their hearts undetected? What bargain amongst the gods, the holders of larger information spectrums, had allowed for such sorcery to have occurred?

   You could say it was part of the natural order of things. Eden had perhaps swung too far into complacency, this being their wake-up call. If it was, it was a horribly miscalculated one, for no one could have anticipated the devastation that ensued.

 

Lillith was the oracle. A channel, selected or born into it because her frequencies aligned with source, allowing for her to access higher information and visions. When coupled with the power of the land and the water in this particular location, her visions became exceptionally pure. Likewise, so did her channel, as she also played a role to harmonise energies coming in and out of earth.

    It could have been anyone. Just as the skilled metallurgist could have been anyone, or a weaver. The passing down of codes and patterns through our DNA increases the possibility that skill and interest in certain fields will remain within certain families but people were by no mean restricted to that.

    Competitive hierarchy had no place in the mentality of the community. If discontent arose, the individual would discuss the situation with the Elders and determine what within them was asking for change or expression.

   

The story the men told the council that day before the feast was a dark one that would set off a series of catastrophic events. How they had learned to lie so well as to deceive her, deceive them all, was a blackened wound in her charred mind.

     They told about how they had been captured by ferocious men in boats who came to their hunting camp and took them all as they slept. From where they came the men could not say but they were like demons from the deep.

    Further down river the captives were forced to watch from the boat as their captors brutally attacked and killed everyone in their village. Burning it to the ground before sailing away. Several times they were forced to watch horrific acts of violence as these monsters probed the coast, like a swarm of wasps swooping in for a sting.

    Finally, somewhere, days away across the sands, by the sea, they manage to escape. They ran into the desert. At least there they would die free.

   Yet fate would have other plans for them it would seem, because after some time, sands gave way to green and green to water. They followed the river south to Eden. When they heard the name of their salvation, they rushed to the council to warn them of the approaching army, for that was the name that had been repeatedly on their lips.

   The crown jewel of their conquests. What they hungered for. The power of Eden. They were coming with no mercy and, like a plague of ravenous locusts, nothing remained standing once they had swept through.

   Lillith and the council seemed unperturbed by the news, maddeningly so. They thanked Adom for the caution, empathised with their plight, bade them welcome in the valley for as long as they needed and then went to join the feast, as if there was much to celebrate and only distant things to ponder on.

    He tried again to speak to her to urge her to do something about what was coming. He presented plans for how he and his men could take over defences. But she refused, bemused by his insistence.

  

Naturally, the spark Lillith first felt for Adom piqued her curiosity about him and of course, what classic story doesn’t involve love.

   She tried to stay away, to push him from her mind but he was always there, popping up wherever she went, passing by unexpectedly. Always in her line of sight, always on her mind.

   Reluctant at first, she eventually was charmed by him and felt herself very much in love. From this vantage point he tried again to persuade her to make him in charge of her army. But now he could coax and use emotions to manipulate her. It was subtle at first and over trivial things but the pattern was set, right under her nose - so love struck she couldn’t see it.

    And then he took everything.

It had all been a ploy. They were the demons. They were the ones who lusted for the power of Eden. They had gone on ahead to scout the land while the rest of their army remained in the hills, unseen.

    From the inside, their plan was to infiltrate and disable defences so the rest could enter and plunder.

   When Lillith saw what was happening, forced to watch her people raped and slaughtered, she snapped and her heart burned with a fearsome rage, more terrifying than anyone had ever seen. In the moment her heart cracked, that was the moment the dark seed was planted, taking root and consuming her.

   Have you ever seen a mother crazed with grief and rage? She can rip apart bodies with her bare hands. Move mountains. Crush stone to dust.

 

When I first encountered Lillith a few years ago, before I even knew who she was, she appeared to me as a blackened monster, shrieking for blood like a banshee. She was horrific, terrifying. Heat rolled off her, fire consumed her from within and only blood could satiate her scorched throat.

    At first, not knowing who she was (even if it was a “she”) and why I was being visited by her, I would run away and hide or try to fight her off, blast her with light and cut the connection. But she kept coming. Unexpected. And the more I pushed away the harder it became and the harder it became physically for me.

     Until one day, exhausted from the fight. I stood my ground and looked at her as she made her charge. Fear lapped at my heels as she came thundering towards me, screeching triumphantly at my stand. But I held my ground and I forced myself to look in her eyes. To really look. To look through the hate to what was cowering behind.

   And funnily, her charge came to a stop a couple of metres from me. Our eyes locked.

 

“Who are you?” I asked, “and what happened to you?”

    

I looked at her and I just observed. Waiting. I let her speak to me.

   Suddenly I could see that she was the way she was because her heart had been broken to such a degree that darkness had entered her in a blaze, consuming her from within.

   I felt such deep sorrow and empathy for her. I didn’t know what she had suffered nor who she was but I knew the pain was so big it broke her open. I felt her pain.

With compassion I put my hand on her heart and I said, “I’m so sorry,” as tears began to spill over my eyes.

   And then, unexpectedly, a tear began to fall from one of her eyes and as it travelled down her scaly, blackened body it washed a clear track along it. More tears fell washing her body until suddenly all the scales began dissolving, washing off her like sooty paint, returning her to human form.

    She collapsed to the ground sobbing, exhausted, naked but after millennia, finally free. I sat with her and held her until she fell asleep and could rest.

 

At that point, I still didn’t know what her story was but she was close for a while. A presence always with me. It was only sometime later that I was shown what actually happened on that horrific day and piece by piece, who she was.

    The full story is quite extraordinary but I can’t possibly squeeze anymore into this post. But, in a nutshell, I saw her absorbing the trauma of what she was experiencing. I saw the moment the crack began and the seed of hatred was planted. I went to her before that moment and told her that there is nothing I can say or do to make things better. I don’t know what to say except offer you my strength and presence in your time of need. I extended out my hand to her and after a pause she took it and when she did, I poured my love and full attention on her and the moment.

   It was brutal. To experience such horror and not break. It took us to the very edge, I could feel it. But because there was the two of us, combining strength, we just managed to skirt the edge.

   Suddenly we were strong in the face of the horror’s attempts to break us. And equally, suddenly love began pouring out of us in massive waves. It arose from deep within and poured out like literal golden waves washing everything away. It was one of the most powerful healings I have ever experienced.

   Yet, I still didn’t know her full story. Only snippets here and there. Threads slowly coming together. But that’s the thing, stories are rarely lost. They might be buried but they emerge eventually.

 

In the moment when she broke, an energy pulse so large went around the world, like an electrical charge, shorting devices everywhere. It was catastrophic and the knock-on effects shifted everything. Shifted us into the darkness from which we are now waking up.

 

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