July finally came to pass, as well as a last minute change of heart on heading out to the big apple in the midst of the pandemic. I had a weird feeling the epidemic wouldn’t cool down until the remainder of the year, and probably scorch 2021 after all the damage the coronavirus has caused. With that in mind, I sent an email back to my NYCDA admissions counselor looking for a refund on my deposit. Hoping that next year may be more fortunate and overall safe to travel to New York City, at the time it seemed that this state got hit the worst with the infection. But, instead of throwing away my tuition and dream of being in Manhattan for roughly four weeks to train with the best, I figured I’d upgrade the stakes and register for their +2 year professional program, so that I can be enlisted in their roster for 2021. Which meant I would be able to temporarily live in New York for professional training, apply to local gigs, and also make my face a little more memorable to my agency called Model Management Group while out there for jobs!

Reflection Recreating Redemption / Redemption Recreating Reflection

In the beginning, the weekends were a time to relax and decompress, but now I realize they’re full of potential because they’ve been becoming the most traditional transformative days for me. Today on the 18th of July, my Saturday would be spent at my uncle and aunt’s house for the last time before COVID struck their home. Not anticipating today would be the last time I would even see my first cousin, I remember we played games, swam around in his pool, and dominated the court together outside. But before all that fun began, my uncle took my grandpa and I to his backyard where his pepper garden was to pick these mini purple spicy peppers off to eat. One nibble from these small eggplant lookalikes and the walls of my nostrils flared with a sting from the inside. At this moment, I heard a familiar call in the distance that seemed so unmistakable, then out of the side of my eye came three silhouettes of birds flying over a hill and landed in a tree nearby.

My aunt wanted to show my mother and grandmother the new baby ducks in an incubator located in the garage, since her previous baby chickens were swooped up by a circling hawk. Grandma and I exit out the side as my mom wished to continue cuddling a little duckling in the palm of her hand, again I gasped after what I’ve just seen in their backyard.

A bluebird was in an apple tree ruffling the small green apples and leaves around it. I said to my grandma frantically “Did you see that? I need to get a closer look!”, she’s never seen my face so caught up in excitement from a simple glimpse of something she barely saw.

I approached the tree cautiously in the hopes to not spook any of the inhibitors feeding. Then I was rewarded with a sight for sore eyes, there was an elegant female Blue Jay eating the sour apples above me. The bird chose to reveal itself to me where it felt as if I was guided to her. This presence we shared together reminded me of Adam and Eve in Genesis.

As the sun’s rays gleamed on my face through the tree’s leaves, nature mellowed out the ambiance around us two. She looked down towards me fearlessly like she telepathically sent me a message to remember what to do next. A symbolic decision that was already made for mankind before all of us were born, unsympathetic towards the outcome of today’s world.

Eat from the Tree of Life or persist digesting the knowledge of good and evil.

The cardinal in me reached with my hand as the Blue Jay mirrored the other, and then I plucked a golden apple that was illuminated from covering The Son. Here I took a bite of this bitter sweet apple, wondering if this was the taste of knowledge that is sour yet sweet, wiping the juices off my lips and I came to notice the Blue Jay was no longer present in this tree. Did I make the right choice? Or would have you done differently?

While debating my decision, I experienced the fabric of time and the breath of Spirit coexisting alongside the past, present, and future all in the NOW. Receiving a revelation on how one’s decision can alter the course of more than your own reality, after experiencing first hand the feeling of life’s resonance passing through me as did my biblical ancestors. So I ask you again to empathize, was Adam and Eve’s first sin the wrong or the right one?

Fathering the pick I’ve chosen from here on out, I came around the tree to my grandmother showing her a calmer face. With the apple in hand, I bent down on one knee as if I was proposing to her an apple. “Take a bite.” I urged. Hesitant of the instant browning overcoming the fruit, she then nibbled on an unbitten end. “Yuck” she yelped. She quickly returned the apple back to my hand, soon waiting to reveal to me one more place in the backyard of my immense aunt and uncle’s acreage.

Returning to the correct tree adjacent from another apple tree, I placed the forbidden fruit back atop the palm of the wood. My grandmother retrieved my uncle so that we could venture down to their airplane hangar, built by the former owner, but it was immediately abandoned after an accident involving a telephone line and that hill I stated earlier.

Amazed by the inside that contained compartments for wings that once housed an aircraft, now it is being used as extra storage. Until something then shuffled in the bushes nearby. Us three darted our heads to yet a separate male Blue Jay rising from the shrub and flew to an unreachable branch! We couldn’t believe what happened before our eyes, my grandma began to cheer because she knew how much these birds meant to me, let alone my brand. I felt content within realizing the truth, one of the three silhouettes with a familiar call I’ve seen represented me in that Trinity.

Since that day I claimed a rejuvenated meaning to what it means to be a BlueJay, only this time I got to share this experience with my family unlike my first encounter that can be found in my origins. Today a new Jay has been born.