(Jan. 31, 2024 ● Oslin Pierrette)
“Therefore, the Lord God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and placed a flaming sword to protect the tree of life.
– Genesis 3:24”
I was frustrated at first. Because by accident, before I tried to understand what this movie was fully about. I saw someone’s paragraph that explain it. And I was like aww man, I wanted that for myself, I didn’t mean to see this…then I was like, oh wait, that was this movie(Not their piece to clarify, I was able to find my own beautiful nuanced understanding of this film, but I’m talking about revealing the answer too early, and spoiling the journey of life for yourself…that paragraph barely got into anything, so I was still able to get satisfaction from getting my own answer). You start off with Adam and Eve being banished from the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword being placed to protect the tree of life, the tree of knowledge. And maybe it was for our own human good. Maybe prematurely seeing and coming in contact with this tree of life and knowledge, and understanding it all, defeats the purpose of life. It’s not something to spoil, but something to experience. Like I don’t like to read the answers to put in my memory bank, for an anticlimactic experience. I want to go on the journey of discovery, develop myself, to work and seek to truly discover the answer. Where instead of it just going into my memory bank. I get to truly discover and understand the deeply detailed intricacies of truth. The discovered truth is embedded and ingrained inside me, within my cognitive framework and intuitive soul. I feel the truth, I see the truth, I am the truth. That’s why you must be protected from this tree of life, to be protected from spoiling it.
Also there’s the aspect of Izzi coming to terms with life and death. It’s coming to an end of this final chapter of this book, and it’s coming to a beautiful closing. That is because she has come to terms with it. She has accepted this reality, this grand truth. That death comes with life, a truth that all humans know, but many fail to come to terms with. So instead of this deep fear that would anchor her to this world in such a senile decrepit fashion of spiteful resentments, which would be creating your own hell. She’s ok with what’s ahead. And it’s this beautiful experience she is having. When you have this grand understanding that life on earth is over, your mindset changes, and maybe then you can truly live and perceive life. Death is something to embrace, not to fear, it’s a part of our nature, maybe our beautiful nature. “Death is the road to awe”. Death may be more of a holistic experience. Don’t deny it. Izzi is almost done with her book.
Tom, on the other hand, needs Izzi here. He can’t accept her truth, The truth. She’s moving on, and he wants so badly to try and find out how to stunt that process, as if death is this disease to be cured. He’s testing unconventionally on monkeys, because he doesn’t have time for the natural process of science to find this cure. He needs a miracle to save her life in his eyes. He just can’t come to terms with the inevitable. But a breakthrough has happened. He has found this solution that has been curing this monkey and restoring it back to health from the deep cancerous stage it was in, when it was about to die. He truly believes he can stop death and experience more human time with Izzi. Izzi isn’t scared though, she wants what’s next for her. She wants the foundational truth of life, that she knows is beautiful. When it’s time to write the final chapter, she hands the book to Tom to finish the book himself, and she dies.
Tom just can’t accept this truth and reality. He doesn’t believe in beyond. And he rather meddle with the beauty of nature to alter the experience to his comfort. To live humanly forever. Stopping death may actually cause lifelessness. That deep balance must exist for a reason. A reason beyond human comprehension, at least currently.
“Our bodies, are prisons for our souls…our skin and blood, they’re iron bars of confinement. But fear not, all flesh decays. Death turns all to ash, and thus, death frees every soul”
“You, the condemned, you have confessed. You admit to protecting a queen, who twists the word of God…Your queen seeks immortality on Earth, false paradise. This is Heresy. She leads you towards vanity, away from the spirit. But this foolishness, for death, exists. The Day of Judgment is irrefutable. All life must be judged.”
Many can run into these golden calf like figures, who preach vanity, and fools gold dreams of everlasting life on earth. These people preach instantly gratifying comforts. They preach comforting sedation reality, basically a delusional dream, where you don’t have to come to terms with reality, while avoiding fear. You seek things to stunt truth, and embrace comfort.
When you abandon the inevitable truth, you embrace the delusionally absurd, you embrace insanity. You stop death, and ironically, you may stop life. You may stop its reason and its purpose. You may stop its nature and its beauty. And you may miss the biggest revelation and truth of all. You will miss the true apocalypse. You will miss the lifting of the veil, revealing the true beautiful light of life. Death is the road to awe. And you must embrace truth, accept it, not avoid it. Accept truth, come to terms, and embrace the awe. This is why Izzi couldn’t finish the last chapter, it was for Tom to truly discover life for himself, not be prematurely exposed to the tree of life.