Chapter Thirteen – Stairway to Heaven

  There have been many tales told about Enoch and I, some said that he was in fact my father. Others said there were two Na’amahs’, one born to the Enoch of the line of Seth, her name signifying, “She was a righteous woman and pleasing in her deeds”; the other born to the line of Qeyin, was deemed so beautiful that she was responsible for the fallen angels descent, through their lust for women, they called her, “Mother of demons, Mother of Ashmedai, King of demons” they said she was a witch associated with Lilith, the very first witch. She was a weaver of spells, a skilled musician who would beat the darbuka in such a hypnotic frenzy that it would mesmerize the idol worshippers who were to pass their children through the fire, drowning out the sound of their infants’ screams. I was both and neither. The Grigori descended on to Mount Chermon long before I was born. Then, as now, gossip and slander is a tasty treat, an entertainment that poisons truth to become nothing but another salacious tale to titillate, or scare children into right behaviour. There was only the one Na’amah, though later the name did become popular, in both the old and the new world, and it was I, Na’amah of the line of Qeyin.

  Enoch, the great prophet and priest of the Living God did in fact adopt me; he was more of a father to me than my own father. Later I was to find out that he had vowed in a formal blood covenant with my mother that he would teach me their ways and arrange a marriage with a Sethite, to form an alliance, a bridge between the two lines of man, though again rumours circulated that Qeyin's line carried the seed of the Satans’, but we will get to that later. Anyway, Tsillah, my mother, no doubt thought I would bring access to, or knowledge of their “power” to the Qeyinites, but Enoch knew, nearly everything, that my future held. And my mother’s plans were to be thwarted.

  You have probably heard the tales of Enoch? That he walked so closely with Yahuah that he never experienced death but was taken up by God to one of the seven heavens? That may indeed be true, or it may be that in his purity he alone gained access to the Garden of Eden, removed from the tribulation that would unfold, so that he would not witness the collapse of his beloved Valley, or see how the priestly Sethite line would gradually, over generations, succumb to the corruption of the world and lose The Way. All would be corrupted, all except for one man, Noach who was yet to be born. But I, the only Na’amah, witnessed all these things Emzara, and came to realise that Enoch, Chuah, and the patriarchs, had carefully taught me all that I would need to help restart the world after the flood. When a woman is no longer able to bear children she finds her value in pursuing peace, covenantal knowledge and wisdom, wisdom found in the most High, and Enoch was regarded as both a wise priest of the living God and a king amongst men. He was my first teacher.

  The first time I travelled through the valley as a little girl with Enoch I was aware that I was travelling with a rare man of God and I was more than a little shy, but he quickly put me at ease, pointing out interesting landmarks, birds and animals. We were travelling with one of his daughters, Edna, who was also going to the Holy Valley to be instructed by Chuah, and was a little older than I. I loved that first adventure, camping outside, collecting kindling to make a fire, and helping prepare a meal. We often slept under the stars and Enoch would name them and tell us wonderful stories.

  He took us to the places in between each valley where farmers and traders met to barter and exchange goods. There was a steady flow of traffic with merchants from each valley bringing their goods, and sometimes at the various Festivals of Yahuah, whole communities would come to gather and celebrate the harvest or the early and latter rains. The matchmakers would confer with parents observing the various interactions of the young unmarried people, comparing their temperaments and natures. The process of arranging marriages intrigued me, but like Enoch (unbeknownst to me then), I had already decided that I was going to marry Feladi, his youngest son. Enoch’s wisdom was known the whole world over, and kings and princes came from far off lands, even from The Ten Kingdoms, even the ambassadors of Atlantis and Mu, to seek his advice. In my pride I thought that Feladi would be a fitting husband for me, and also - I was smitten.

  Our small party came to the third valley, Amek Hashpa, The Valley of Plenty. Where the second valley featured fields of grain, flowers and herbs, this valley was one of rolling hills and an abundance of orchards of every kind: the orderly lines of ancient olive trees planted by A’dam himself; huge carob trees that fanned out like tent canopies dripping with shiny dark seed pods, pomegranate groves with red flowers and precious red fruit, clusters of date palms and dense bushy figs, almond and pistachio trees, and vines of grapes, melons and cucumbers. The air thrummed with of bees, birds roosted and swooped among the trees and owls hooted at night.

  Here Enoch showed us the subterranean chambers and cave systems cooled by underground streams where food was stored, either in double layered clay pots called zeer: a pot within a pot with a layer of sand and water in-between each pot; or preserved in honey or sea salt; root cellars where vegetables were kept in dark pits, and fruit that had been dried in the sun was sealed in urns and gourds. He also took me to the seed library where seeds from all over the plane of the earth were collected and stored, rolled in pouches of vellum and linen and sealed in clay pots. Right from the very start he was preparing me for what was to come. Yes, he too was already thinking that I would be married to his son Feladi, the boy I had met earlier. He had not yet had the revelation about Noach or left the communities of Seth to devote himself to Yahuah. Tragedy would reveal that.

  It’s hard to believe that that way of life in the Valleys would disintegrate, that the people would be drawn to allure of the cities and the wonders of the Nephiliym; and that by the time I came to be married to Noach every single family line would have been corrupted. But that’s not for several hundred years. I am getting ahead of myself again. So many memories collide as I try to put them in order. Was it that time? That journey? Was it that particular year that I had that realisation; or was it later with hindsight and age that I put it together? Sometimes when I travelled with Noach in the new world I would recognise a landmark: a mountain, a riverbed or a forest and think – was that part of the Valley? Did some of it shift, settle and survive the rebirth after the flood?

  It was on that first journey through the valleys with Enoch, which I was to make countless times in my life, I began to realise that each valley was higher that the previous one, and we were climbing towards a massive peak hidden in a dense cloud of mist that sometimes crackled with lightening and rumbled with thunder. There were impenetrable, thickly forested mountain ranges in the distance to either side of us, but we were also climbing higher and higher, as though each valley was a series of steps or terraces that led towards the Most Holy Mountain where Chuah, Mother of All Living had returned to live at the death of A’dam, and where many of the patriarchs could be found instructing those who sought out the Ancient of Days, Yahuah. I began to surmise that The Garden of Eden was at the summit of the mountain, and that all the stories that I had been told about the garden of creation were in fact, wrong. I was going to meet the very first woman crafted by Yahuah Himself, the motherless first mother. My excitement and anticipation began to increase but I became aware with gratitude and a growing humility that I was very honoured indeed. I did not have the words to express my feelings to either Enoch or his daughter Edna; I just soaked up every new vista and stored away all the new learning with diligence and my full attention. Sometimes words are not necessary, Enoch would look at my glowing face, my awestruck expression and smile at me gently.

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  The nights became cooler as we ascended, and sometimes winds whistled and moaned through the dense trees and rocky outcrops, but I never felt afraid. What I did begin to realise was that with my privilege came a great responsibility, that I had some divine purpose. I would fluctuate between feeling overwhelmed, inadequate, excited, haughty, and proud. I have always had a vivid imagination and as we rode to our destination I would often get lost in my daydreams of glory. It is fortunate we cannot see into the future, and nor should we try to; those moments of high feeling where impulsive actions can take us off track and leave us with deep regrets; even those fallow times of routine ordinariness where we might feel that Yahuah has forgotten all about us, and that perhaps our destiny is not as we foolishly imagined. I could not possibly have guessed what my future held, and no city soothsayer could have divined it, because even though the first demons, the spirits of the nephilyim, were already at large in the world, they did not know what the Living God had in store for us. Not until Noach.

  The fourth valley, Amek Hachayot, the Valley of Beasts, opened out with sweeping grassy plains where cloven hoofed animals roamed, herds of cattle and sheep, goats and deer in the higher places, wild horses, bison; there were also large cats and shy creatures that lived under the ground in holes and tunnels. Our mules rode through well-trodden tracks in the wild grasses, rising still higher onto steep mountain paths where we dismounted and led them through shady canyons. The great river Phrath etched a winding path through the canyons that got narrower and narrower, sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, and as we climbed higher and higher we saw the river spilling over from numerous waterfalls and crystal-clear rock-pools. Eagles and great majestic birds circled in the crisp mountain air and the sound of rushing water became stronger and stronger.

  The entrance to the fifth valley seemed impassable with a giant curtain of waterfalls that seemed to cover the whole of the mountainside, but without faltering Enoch led us to the entrance of a cave that was behind the watery veil of one of the falls. He tied each of the animals together and lit a rushlight torch, a torch made of dried rushes and resinous wood splinters dipped in olive oil. The light from the torch was faint and for the first time I felt anxious. The dark cavernous path continued it’s winding upward, to the constant sound of dripping water, the muffled roar of the waterfalls and a damp, mossy odour. The animals seemed unperturbed so I eventually relaxed and nearly fell asleep to the rhythm of the animals’ movement, their soft breathing and the flickering light of Enoch’s torch leading the way. I jerked awake as we came out into the light again, squinting in the bright noon sunshine.

  The cave system opened out onto a valley much smaller than all those before, as though it nestled, held in the palms of the mountain itself, with most of the valley taken up by a deep, circular lake into which the River Phrath flowed: Amek Hatehara, the Valley of Purification. Despite the generous flow of water from another waterfall that rumbled in the distance on the far side, from another even higher peak, there were times when the lake seemed as still and clear as a polished sapphire. At its edges you could see right to the bottom where the water was various pristine shades of turquoise, cerulean and cobalt-green, but as you got to the other side of the lake it merged into a deep ultramarine with huge bronze coloured boulders visible in the depths. At other times winds whipped up choppy waves that rippled blue and gold in the sunlight, making abstract patterns that local weavers tried to recreate in their best garments. To get to the entrance of the next valley you had to cross to the far side of the lake by boat, but on this side there was a small devotional community of priests, men and women who lived in simple cave homes that were built into the walls of the mountain. They had also built a beautiful meetinghouse of cedar wood that had a deck and jetty protruding out over the water where several boats of various sizes were moored, from small canoes to flat-bottomed houseboats that ferried goods and chattels across the lake. The Lake was known as The Blue Laver, Hakiyur Hakchul, and Sethites came there at various times to make significant mikveh, before marriage, or in consecration to service and positions of authority. I came here so many times over the years and for a period it was my home, but that first time was when I was introduced to the mikveh.

  We were welcomed by the community elders and taken to a guest lodge near the jetty. The animals were stabled in the ground floor of the cave and we washed our feet in a large clay bowl before climbing stone steps cut into the rock to the next level, a larger whitewashed cave with man-sized cedar shutters that were flung wide open to take in the view of the lake. The first floor had a fireplace and bench cut into the rock wall for food preparation and cooking, and the floor was covered in rugs, cushions and a low table also fashioned from the rock itself. Another flight of stairs took you up into sleeping quarters, a loft floor made of timber that also had shutters that could be opened wide but were usually closed at night as the temperatures dropped in the mountains, and the heat rising from both the animals and the kitchen fire kept the space cosy and warm.

  At dusk, after we had eaten a simple meal and rested, some women came to take Edna and I to make mikveh in the lake, to prepare us before we went to the next Valley where we would meet Chuah. Here we were taught the prayers that I passed on to the wives of my sons in the ark, the same prayers that Dinyah and I taught you Emzara. We were so excited, Edna and I that we thought we would not sleep that night, but we did eventually drifted off, to the gentle lapping of the waves, the snuffling of our faithful mules and the distant rumbles and flashes of the holy cloud that shrouded the final peak of the mountain.

  Tomorrow we would meet Chuah, tomorrow we would come to the place that would be our home for the next seven years, the final Valley before the most Holy Place, the Mercy Seat, the temple of the Garden of Eden that was no longer open to receive the footsteps or the eyes of man. Some of us would have the spiritual eyes to see the terrifying cherubim with flaming swords, the guards that kept out both man and fallen angelic beings. But we would see its boundaries of light, hear the echoes of its glory, and smell its indescribable, heavenly fragrance.