Healing Hearts

The morning came bright and early for Sarafire. She awoke curled up in her warm and comfortable bedding on the hard floor to realize she was in Master Yoda’s room. It was very strange to be there. The room was quiet and there was a sense of alertness as the shine beamed through the window and shone its warm rays on to her well rested body. It only took moments for her mind to truly wake up and to stretch her arms before she was ready to get out of bed.

There was no one else in the room, which she found to be nice. There was no rush to get up, although she wanted. It was part of her morning habit to rush around in great panic trying to find clothes in her usually messy room, while yanking out knots in her hair. She would run out of her room only to come back again to grab a forgotten book. But today was different. There was no mess, no yawns, and very little tangled hair to tackle with a brush. There were also no classes to curse and moan about. Her homework could wait until she knew when she would go back to classes and all she had to do was be ready for whatever happened that day.

It was shortly after she washed her face that the door open and in came the small master. She gave a little bow of the head to show respect that she had been taught the time she was three.

“Hello. Feeling awake and ready?”

“Yeah, I do feel wake and uh…”

She was not sure how to say what she was thinking, wish not to come off rude, but to express her needs at the same time.

“Hungry?”

She cracked a tiny smile. He may or may not be able to really help her, but the Jedi in front of her was no stranger to the needs of a hungry preteen.

“Good. I have brought food up for you to eat while we talk.”

Her smile disappeared at the mention of talking. She was not looking forward to going over last night’s scene.

A droid came through the door with a tray of breakfast for her. There was a good size breakfast on the plate, far more than she normally would eat. She wondered what would happen if she didn’t eat it all. Still she sat down on the floor again after folding and putting her bedding out of the way to eat. She ate on the floor and only nibbled at the cereal and toast, entirely ignoring the fruit and eggs. She looked up every so often, trying to observer the master’s reaction. He had nothing to say and she could not read the look on his face. Finally, she pushed the plate back with half the cereal left and a slice of toast left untouched.

“How do you feel?”

That question was starting to get on her nerves, but she let it go this time.

“Full.”

“How else?”

She slightly frowned, realizing he meant business with her.

“Awake…good…ya know…”

“But calm or peaceful you are. Angry and unsettled.”

She did not like hearing that and thought hard about how she would turn that to something better.

“I’m just uncertain about surrounding. I’m not use to awaking up somewhere else other than my bed.”

“Very uncertain are you.”

Sarafire said nothing. There was nothing to say to such a statement. Perhaps it was true that there were many things she was uncertain about, but she couldn’t help it. Life seemed to be uncertain for her to do anything about it. It was better just to let life go the way it was and wait for the horror of life to end.

“Come me with.”

Master Yoda turned around and headed for the door again. It slid open. When Sarafire did not follow him he turned his head and looked at her, standing here confused.

“Where are we going?”

“To the garden.”

“Why?”

“See you will.”

He kept walking through the door and Sarafire signed and followed his footsteps. She could not see the point in digging in the garden again. She understood about weeds being real plants and the importance of tending them, but what more there was to learn was beyond her thoughts.

The master and student walked the short distance to the gardens in silence. Sarafire reflected that many students would have been greatly bothered by this strange silence, but she didn’t. She liked being alone and didn’t mind not hearing noise, as long as she knew she wasn’t going to be in trouble. They entered the same small around with its two benches and four triangular garden beds. She spotted the narrow strip of earth in the back to see her so called weeds doing slightly better than before. She could not see why. The sun was on them and the ground looked fine to her. She turned around and asked why they were still looking wilted.

“The earth is unfertile. The plants need good earth to grow in, if they are to do well. With food and water, the plant survives. With good, rich dirt, the plant will bloom and grow. Find you will, bags of dirt near the door.”

She understood what he was saying and went to the door to find heavy bags of dirt. She started to lift one up, but found it even heavier than she expected. She grunted and pushed, but she did not have the strength to carry the bag. She turned around with her face red and shiny, showing how much she was straining.

“I’m sorry, master, but I can’t-”

“No you can’t.”

She looked at him surprised. If he knew she couldn’t, then why tell her to do it?

“I’m sorry?”

“If you believe you can’t, you can’t.”

“But master, this is heavy and I really don’t have the strength to-”

She was cut off again with his lecture.

“Use not your arms, but your mind as well.”

She, like all other students, understood this very well. At this point many kids would try to use the Force to help them lift sometime, but in her class, few had the complete strength to be successful. Sometimes a student would dare to use the word “try” out loud and more lecturing came from this. It was better to use put your full effort into the task admit defeat later without too much shame.

“Be certain of yourself.”

She nodded again and took a deep breath. She would have to trust and use the Force. She gathered the warm light of energy around her and focused the energy into her arms so to give her strength she did not have before. She lifted the bag fully off the ground and was slowly walking with it to the weed like flowers. She studied the flowers, wondering if they would ever brighten up like the ones in the real beds. The flowers looked so unloved despite getting what she thought were their basic needs. The garden looked so nice and tended. But these flowers were clearly not, yet at first glance at the garden; they would have been ignored or assumed to be ok. She worried she couldn’t help them and they might die. Her thoughts were stopped when the bag slipped out of her arms and fell on her foot. She screamed in pain and forced her throbbing foot out from other the bag of dirt. She sat down and took her boot off to see nothing was broken, yet there was still pain. She got up again after putting on her boot and glared at the bag.

“Alright are you?”

She grumbled out a yes, still glaring at the bag.

“Uncertain you were and thus you lost your connect to the Force. Know what you want and the Force will help you.”

“But I don’t know what I want!”

“Exactly.”

The power of her own statement hit her harder than the bag did. She really didn’t know what she wanted. She thought she wanted to be a Jedi, but she could not bare the pain that seemed to come with it. She did not want to go to class, but she could not face another angry teacher. She wanted the flowers to do well, but she didn’t know really how to. She didn’t want to hurt herself, but she couldn’t do anything else.

She spent the next hour dragging the bag the rest of the way and then mixing the old dirt with the new dirt in around each flower. She could sense the flowers responding already and the time she watered them again, she swore she could see some improvement.

“They’re doing better!”

“You helped them.”

She couldn’t help but smile at herself. There was a sense of pride in her spirit that glowed as bright as the Force.

“Yeah I did. I wanted to help them.”

“Certain you were.”

She nearly laughed at herself. Her foot was fine and she felt no anger at the bag or even at herself. It was kind stupid for her to get mad at the bag and she didn’t feel like getting mad at herself over something so minor.

“Build on that self trust we will, but first lunch.”

She grinned even wider and nearly skipped to the meal room.