Christmas time.

This year the Christmas season is being strange. Well, maybe because all the year has been strange. This time I haven't been so depressed as I used to. All my family decided to scatter and celebrate on their own, as nearly no one was up to celebrate anything in a year with so many deaths and losses, so maybe that made things easier. For me Christmas Eve was like any other night I spend with my partner, with the only exception of a homemade apple tart as dessert which was absolutely delicious.

Then December 26th arrived, I was on my own again and decided to sit down for a short while in the garden, to receive some warm sunlight. Sometimes I do self-reiki, but this time I only closed my eyes and concentrated on the energy flowing through my whole being. Maybe that alone is reiki. I mention this because later in the day I started to feel past life emotions. I started to feel a bit of anxiety... then when I was replying to a question about how our past lives have affected current family relationships, tears came to my eyes just thinking about how depressed I have always been when Christmas arrived, as I always missed someone I had never known in this life. Especially in my teenage years, I just couldn't be happy during a season when everyone was supposed to be happy. This year, with so many abscences in the family, I think they all could understand how I used to feel back then, but now... maybe it's too late. Probably they have forgotten about my mood and my resistence to celebrate anything, not even knowing the reason why I did that. Perhaps they never wondered... Well, now I know the reason, but they won't ask me about my past lives. They don't seem interested and anyway I won't talk if I am not asked.

Then, when I went to sleep, spontaneous (old) memories started to surge, to play in my mind, as clear as any other memory from my current childhood, or the place I visited two days ago. It never ceases to surprise me. There are data missing, of course, data that is there somewhere in my subconscious and I can't seem to be able to bring to the surface. But there are a few images I just can't erase from my mind: a big Christmas tree and an ice rink in a square at night time, the snow in the window sill, the images of the house I lived, the thoughts of war, strange voices crackling in a radio talking of German occupation, an uncertain future... I was wondering, if I always get so depressed during Christmas, is it because I already missed him back then? Maybe we couldn't be together. But I have the feeling I feel like this because Christmas was just the period where the last happy memories of that life took place. I believe we made that trip to the mountains in that time. After that we had to travel to France. And there we would find real war, and death.

Death found us, but I went on living in a new body. As many reincarnationists know, death doesn't put an end to anything, with the exception of the physical body. And my feelings of missing someone I didn't know always became stronger in Christmas time, even when I didn't know who or what I was missing. Even as I write I can't shake off the sadness it still causes me, it is just stronger than me.

My heart sinks just contemplating current pictures of the Christmas market in Prague's Old Town. I know I was there. I remembered quite early those wooden stalls, I think I didn't live too far from there. It resembles so much my current hometown, but no, it is not exactly the same. People are different, the feelings are different, my clothes were different, much older and poorer. It is all here inside me, but somehow it is something I can't completely grasp. It is like an old echo you can hear in the distance, but can't recognize or bring it to your senses with all its strength and reality. It is a part of me that got lost.

Even when I know I can't recover or relive anything I left there, among other things because I am not the same anymore, sometimes I wish so much I could travel back in time.

Insanity.

This is one of the darkest aspects of reincarnation, and one that is quite hard to talk about. I have been thinking about it the last few days, trying to put into words something that most of the times is just a weird feeling during regression. Weird, hard to understand, mysterious... but also crystal clear.

I have observed that when you remember to have done "evil" things in a past life, the first thing you ask yourself is whether you were sane or not when you did it. I suspect being insane is a great excuse to do things you know are unjustifiable. It is also a natural tendency we all have: when we watch in the news a serial killer killed a dozen women in the last five years, we all want to think there was something in his mind that didn't work quite right. And if this is not the case, we just think he was "evil" or a monster. Believing someone can do that just because he likes to kill is almost inconceivable. However, I think this is so in the majority of cases. And the worst thing is we can't do anything about it. It is his choice, as is everything else we do in our human lives.

Then I read a book called The Projection of the Astral Body by Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington. It said that one of the reasons a person can stay in the astral after their death is precisely insanity: an alteration of the mind, so frequent in the last years of many people who suffer from dementia, for instance. I don't remember to have stayed in the astral for this reason, but it made me reflect on how deep an alteration of this kind can affect your behaviour. If it does after death, I guess it is equally (or more) powerful while alive, obviously. And though I don't think I have even been so insane as to not be able to act perfectly knowing what I was doing, and therefore, being totally responsible of my actions, I have felt in a few occasions, in more than one life, how certain events influence your mind, and pain can indeed make you lose your sanity. I can understand how someone might end up killing all their family, in a given moment, out of suffering, jealousy, despair, fear, or whatever emotion overcomes that person. I guess our minds are the tool we use to control our basic instincts. Sometimes feelings are too overwhelming and cause a lot of confusion. And, scary as it sounds, sometimes they win the battle against the mind, and then we lose it.

Well, when doing a regression, you can feel it. You can feel how your thought patterns have changed and they are not the same anymore. You also can feel how cultured you are, whether you were good writing or reading, or you hadn't learned these abilities, or how intelligent you were. Of course, this is obvious for people who regress regularly, but maybe it is not so obvious for people who haven't tried to remember past lives using this method. This is how we believe our minds are different in each incarnation. And feeling how it can be altered, unbalanced or destroyed through events happening to you, is surprising and so, so interesting. Frightening too, as it makes you realize none of us is immune to commit certain crimes, insane or not. You also realize you could have done even worse than you did, so at least you can be glad of this fact. When terrible things happen to you it is not easy at all to keep your balance and make the right choices. And I am sure all this has a lot to do with what living means, with that gut reaction we all have to certain events, the results of which will determine our future and the outcome of that particular life.

Revolutions.

I am still under the effect of some memories from my life as a royalist in France, at the end of 18th century. I already knew most of it (excepting some specific data that turned out to be very useful for validations), but I am still caught in the emotions and the several questions that arise from such bloody experiences. It feels somehow different from other lives. There is sadness, but there are... other things as well. Things I don’t know how to describe.

Historians talk about massacres, some even want it to be declared a genocide. In my first memories the words “carnage” and “butchery” were already in my mind. Yes, it was a massacre, no doubt about it. At least I was lucky enough to be shot by a group of French soldiers (along with women and children) and I wasn’t killed like other people were. I know I got at least three shots, one possibly in my left arm, another one in my chest, though none were lethal. The last one came when I was lying on the ground.

I wanted to remember the life between lives, why not, but as usual I didn’t see much. After my death I floated above the wild scene, still not wanting to believe what had happened. But as I was getting near the spiritual world my mood lifted a bit and I felt as if I was returning home after a soccer match that had gone the wrong way, when it was supposed to be fun. My mum would open the door and I would be there standing, soaked in mud, angry and full of bruises. When I was “up there” I was just complaining “Too much blood, too much blood... Why does it have to be always like this?” I guess the word is “dirty”. I was feeling dirty...

And I could probably say that is how I have been feeling lately. As always, death is not that important. It was cruel, it was nonsense... but it is not a disgrace. It is just a way to quit and return to the place where we belong. I don’t feel guilty, and I don’t blame anyone. I don’t question who was right or who was wrong, I don’t think that matters. I feel dirty because there were too many things that should have been done in a different way, and we all were part of it. What I wonder is: “How come we always end up this way? Why couldn’t it be stopped? Which is the spark that ignites such terrible fire?”

It seems it was clear for me back then: I was fighting for my rights, for my family. We just wanted to keep living a normal life, thanks to the money we earned from our humble occupations. Nothing else. Months ago, in one of my regressions, I even had the thought I preferred the death of my family than living in the conditions they were forcing us to live. Well, we fought... and we certainly died. I am not sure what happened to my wife and kids, but I doubt they survived. And one of the main conflicts from this life is precisely this: I was trading the lives of my loved ones for some shitty rights. My own wife had argued with me for my decisions. But, the same question comes back over and over again: what else were we supposed to do? It is not a matter of pride, it is not a matter of vengeance. It is our land, our work, our basic needs... you just can’t stand and watch while they are stealing all you have. Maybe the problem is... you can’t rise up in arms and kill either.

We lost it anyway. Everything we had. Was it worth? Over 200 years later, I don’t know. I like to think revolutions change the world, but the world hasn’t changed much since then. Maybe revolutions only change... people.

Denial.

It's always interesting to relive one of my "walks to death", especially when it's the first time for this past life... but wow, since then (a day ago more or less) I seem lost in memories and emotions. It wasn't fun. Not at all.

And though I'm trying to behave like a grown-up woman and accept what I did to reach such end, I can't resist to try and deny everything (like that old episode of The X Files).

No wonder denying is one of the stages of mourning, according to Dr. Kübler-Ross. No wonder that must have been my attitude in the last year of that life, while I stayed in prison claiming I was an innocent woman, hoping they would be as blind as they were the last time...

Among the lawyers, I remember a young man who believed in me. I also remember an older one who always had that look in his eyes, the one that said "You're an evil monster and you're going to burn in Hell". The first time I could talk about mistreatment, even when I wouldn't be believed. Husbands are always more reliable than hysterical women. But now that young woman was also dead, I would deny any relation with her, I went into hiding and anyway I managed to kill all the innocence that was left in her along the way. So my only excuse to behave like I did was also gone. It sounds a bit ironic while I write.

I can't stop wondering when exactly I became that monster... if I ever was, of course. I'll also deny that. I'll deny everything. I'll deny I ever killed someone just out of scorn, or only because someone told me he was like my first husband. I'm not sure about the reasons, anyway. But I'll deny all those reasons just because I'll always deny I ever killed someone. Let them prove it if they can. Surely the poison got there by accident.

I know I destroyed myself. But right now I don't want to say that. I prefer to say he destroyed me. My guide reminds me the truth, but I tell him "fuck off" (no worries, we get along overall). He's not the one who got unjustly hanged. For now I'll deny that was a fair trial. And I'll keep denying what I did was wrong.

Call me mad if you want to.

Soul-killing.

I described it like a hole in my soul. Someone else said it was soul-killing, and I liked that word. Certain past life experiences leave such deep wounds on your being that you almost feel a part of your soul is missing. And though you try to get it back with all your might, it seems impossible.

It feels great when you are given new pieces of the puzzle to keep building the picture of a past life. It feels like recovering something that was long lost, something that maybe you willingly left behind, ready to start a new chapter, but now you want it back, with all the emotions, all the people you loved, the good and bad things. However, in many cases, you realize there is something you can’t recover, it got destroyed along the way, because some experiences change you and you are no longer the same. It’s like wanting to recover the innocence of childhood.

Yesterday night I meditated. Painful prison scenes turned up. This morning, in a state between wake and sleep, I got plenty of emotions and scenes of one of my hangings, from the moment they took me out of the cell until the very end. Right now I’m still between the past and the present, those images still hanging around in the back of my mind. So much fear and rage, so much shame, so much injustice. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t deserve to die, at least no more than those men. But no one seems to care about what they did. They think I’m a monster. But certainly, I’m not the only monstrous thing to walk on Earth.

Suddenly I realized how different I was then, compared to the way I was only a few years before, when I could hold my baby girl for the first time and caress her tiny fingers with mine. That was after the nightmare of my first marriage, but still there was some love in me. I thought “He destroyed me”. I think I heard my guide whisper: “Not exactly”. I know, though it’s hard to admit. There’s a dark period of time still too blurred, when more awful things must have happened, when I completely lost it. I destroyed myself. It seems I do it quite often in my past lives. Maybe once you’ve got that hole in your soul it’s all a matter of going with the flow. They wronged you, now let’s wrong the world. You started the soul-killing, let’s finish off what you started. Who cares? It’s easier to find excuses and wallow in misery than fight. Maybe I should have taken my baby and run, run faraway, where no one would follow. Abandoning her (even in my sister’s arms) really broke my heart. Another hole in my soul that keeps bleeding, but this time self-inflicted.

And people were so blind.

They only saw a monster, where there was a mistreated woman, beaten and humiliated. A woman who almost killed herself in a bathtub. A mother without a father for her baby, a baby that grew up alone. A woman who had no place in the world anymore. But the time for me to speak was over, as I killed that young, innocent and dreamy lady as well. Now I was just a vengeful woman who knew of other women like her, and thought some crimes shouldn’t go unpunished.

But justice caught her. Caught me.

Light and darkness.

Sometimes strange things happen. Strange regressions too. I have been feeling the presence of my guide lately (same soul than Johann). How do I feel him? Well, the same way I feel someone who was very close to me in past lives and now dwells faraway is thinking about me or lost in her daily routine, with her mind focused in other matters. When my guide is around usually my past life regressions are harder, and also more meaningful, as if he gives me some clarity of ideas or tries to answer my questions through images, preventing my mind from wandering too much.

When I started to meditate yesterday night, the first thing I saw was a patch of dark wooden floor near a staircase, highly detailed. At first I didn’t know who or where I was... then I realized I was back in the house of Norway, the place where I died in my life as a sailor’s wife in the second half of 18th century. Then Jan turned up, as I was anticipating. Jan was also Johann. He was a Norwegian sailor I met in Cardiff (Wales), my home. I don’t know why, but his features as Jan have always been much, much clearer than Johann’s, at least it was so at the beginning, probably because the amount of time I spent with Jan was much longer. I immediately started to cry... these are tears of joy and it’s been so since I first saw him, I just can’t help it, I’ve missed him so much through my entire life that just seeing him so “solid” and “real” makes me emotional. But I tried to hold them back, as I know Jan always says “Don’t cry, enjoy”. I looked around the bedroom, the bed in the corner, near the window, I had the idea we had a place to keep a lot of firewood, as here winters are very long and dark. I asked if we were to sleep together in that narrow bed... he answered we’d do when we had our own house (that moment never arrived as I died before), but I remembered a rocking chair where he used to sit down and hold me in his arms, just as we did in Cardiff.

Then I was downstairs with all his family, mainly sisters and their husbands, and some nieces. One of them was the same age than our daughter Eli would have been if she hadn't died back in Cardiff, and I’m always so sad she’s not with us. I had a sudden flash I’m sitting at this long wooden table, sewing a thick brown fabric, I think I’m helping the women with a quilt or maybe a tablecloth. They don’t speak my language and it’s a bit hard to communicate with them, so I’m always glad when Jan comes back home, he’s like a ray of sunshine coming through the window, I love him so much, he approaches and puts a hand on my shoulder, and I touch him. In the regression I almost can feel it.

One day he took me to sail. Not in a big ship, just a boat to have some fun. He has the oars and rows while I sit frightened and insecure in front of him, it seems in this life I didn’t like the sea too much... then he starts to move so that the boat starts to swing and I have to grasp the edges of the boat and finally he starts laughing out loud, and at the end he infects me too. This is one of his personality traits, he was always joking, he was always happy, he had this incredible energy that irradiated all around. I ask him why and he answers: “Why, I was with the woman I loved, I had a job I enjoyed... I had everything”. His eyes always remind me of this Marillion song that says:

Forgive me if I stare

But I can see the island behind your tired, troubled eyes

It’s pure love what is there in his eyes, in his soul. I tell him “You are always the light, and I’m always the darkness”. He says that isn’t true, he’s been darkness too, and he reminds me of the life where he was my father and killed me out of grief.

Suddenly the environment changed and I was outside, the sky was clear blue and there was a pale light in the air. I heard an explosion and the sound of airplanes flying above, and people shouting and running, stones falling, buildings destroyed, panic, chaos... I was Katrina now, and though I have doubts (I always have doubts), May came strongly to my mind. France, of course. I tried to find shelter, and then find my way to the headquarters. I don’t know how I made it, as suddenly another flash came to me: the distinct image of a porcelain dish with a golden edge, there’s some kind of stew in it, and it’s on a white clothed table. I feel I’m back in Prague, having lunch with my mother, my boss and his mum. Everything started to get blurred, I only know the feeling wasn’t good, they were arguing about something and I just stared down at my plate, feeling so out of place. A thought came to me: absence of love. But still, I didn’t understand why those images were being shown to me. What does all this mean, guide? Silence.

Well, I had been talking with someone else about love and hate, light and darkness, good and bad... the eternal opposites we all encounter through our mortal lives. I wondered if the love I was feeling in my heart these last couple of days had triggered me to one of the past lives where I had so much love coming from my soulmate, not always we have to be triggered to feel bad, similar present emotions always bring similar past emotions. But then I was caught in the contrast of my WWII life, where the absence of love was prominent since the day I was born (my first memories of this life are from the womb, somehow I knew my mum was very young and couldn’t take care of me, and she only gave birth because she had no other option). Maybe, as I was saying in that conversation, everything we live happens with a single purpose: to make us realize the power of love. As another Marillion song says, “You only miss it when it’s gone”. Only when you are blind you start to really appreciate the marvel of your eyes. Only in the deepest of darkness you yearn for light. Only when you’re imprisoned you know what freedom means.

Only when you live in a world without love you realize why we have to work for peace and love.

 FANTASTIC PLACE

(Islands are mountain tops)

It’s always a struggle

to let somebody go

It’s a natural desire

to own your lover, I know

And you can screw a man down

until he takes to drinking

He’ll give you all of his money

You still won’t know what he’s thinking

CHORUS

Take me to the fantastic place

Keep the rest of my life away

Take me to the fantastic place

Keep the rest of my life away

Take me to the island

I’ll watch the rain over your shoulder

The streetlights in the water

The moment outside of real life

I never could dream while I was sleeping

Put your arms around my soul

and take it dancing

CHORUS

Say you understand me

And I will leave myself completely

Forgive me if I stare

But I can see the island behind your tired,

troubled eyes

Take me to the island

I’ll tell you all I never told you

The boy I never showed you

More than I gave in my life

Take me by the hand

You’ll either kill me or you’ll save me

Take me to the island

Show me what might be real life

Triggered.

I hate to be triggered when I am with my partner. But sometimes it happens. And I don’t know the reason but I feel as if it’s getting easier and easier for me to be triggered or to have spontaneous flashes.

It’s hard to describe these past life memories. They come unexpectedly: I had spent all the afternoon in quite a light-hearted mood and I suddenly felt the weight of all those past life emotions in my heart. I also feel kind of an energy shift, my body feels different and when I think of myself I no longer think of the person I am now, but the person I was back then. No matter if my eyes are open or closed, the image I have in my mind is no longer the place I am now, but the room I was when something broke in my soul. Images are usually blurred, they feel like a scene in a TV screen that starts to flicker and you can’t see it with all the definition, though sometimes it’s impressive how they become so real and fixed, as if you could take a photograph of a moment in time. 

Emotions are a different thing altogether. Emotions are not blurred, they are not an echo, not a distant memory of childhood that makes you smile. They come from the past, but they are not past. They are fresh, raw, tough, and have no mercy, they tear you apart like a dozen stabs from the hand of an enemy who caught you unawares in the dark.

It’s not so much what he did, but how what he did made me feel. I highly suspect reincarnation is all about feelings, and how you react to them, how you control them and how you use them. When you are dead you don’t feel much. But our physical lives are made of feelings. We call them good or bad, positive or negative, but the truth is feelings are just feelings, and we all can choose to make something good or something bad out of them.

For me, WWII is mostly fear. Also, helplessness. Being alone. And mistaking weakness for strength. We all are so wrong.

When we hear the word “strong” we imagine a big man with tree trunk biceps lifting a stone of three hundred kilograms.

When we hear the word “weak” we imagine a little girl crying in a corner.

When we hear the word “brave” we imagine Rambo saving the world with a machine gun.

When we hear the word “coward” we imagine someone who didn't want to fight, pointing the gun to his head and pulling the trigger.

The truth is exactly the opposite. People like to think you are weak because that makes them feel they are stronger. They will kill you and they will think they are powerful. But they are only showing their weakness.

My soul may be broken and bleeding, but at least I know this time... the blood is mine. Only mine.

1942: Grief.

Today it’s morning when I write, but it feels like a dark and cold night anyway. I meditated last night and unexpected emotions began to surface. Well, I was perfectly aware November is a tough month, but it had been alright so far. However, as soon as I started to concentrate, I felt my heart sinking, I felt the sadness coming out of nowhere... nowhere in my present life. Soon I started to see the church I used to visit in France, an impressive church, could have been a cathedral. The environment is grey, gloomy, cold. I am standing in front of a white statue, I don’t see it clearly but it looks like a Virgin holding a baby Jesus in her arms. I know I’m not wearing my medal with the Virgin anymore, I’m looking at her wondering why she didn’t answer my prayers, wondering how many more candles I should have lighted up for her to listen to me, wondering why my grandmother taught me to put my faith in someone who wouldn’t do anything for me, for Johann.

I feel so empty. I got some glimpses of a funeral (new memories here). I’m getting ready for it, I’m putting on my brown nurse uniform, including a tie. I still have a plaster on my neck, where the IV for the sedation was, I don’t know if I remove it or if I leave it there, half-covered by my shirt collar. I know when I last saw his corpse, I asked for them to let me see him one last time after I woke up, and they did. Now I know there is only a poor coffin and it looks like I’m not up to show my grief anymore, or maybe it’s only I have no strength left, not even to cry. So I feel rigid, tense, serious as another statue. I’m not sure where the funeral takes place, but I wouldn’t say it’s in the church, it looks more like an improvised military ceremony somewhere in our headquarters.

I’ve always doubted what came first, the sexual abuse or Johann’s death. Now I think I know. First came the sexual abuse. My intention was to tell him. He was the only person I could trust after all. But when we talked on the phone my words always got stuck in my throat and I could only say I was doing fine. What else could I say? He was doing his duty, in the border, in the front or wherever, he had something to fight for (not like me), so how could I be the one to worry him? And of course I was also terrified I could be overheard. And I didn’t want to get him into trouble either. So I wrote some letters to him, hidden in a corner when there was no one around, not with the intention of sending them out (what if someone opens and reads them?), but to show them to him when we were together again. I was a bit afraid of what his reaction would be, and least of all I hoped he could do something about it, no more than holding me and comfort me. That would have been enough. Only, that moment never arrived.

So, I gathered up the little strength I had left and told the doctor, though it seems this was more an impulse to explain my problems at work than wanting to accuse a superior of anything. Whatever the case, it was a big, big mistake. I don’t blame him for not helping me. I blame myself for being so, so foolish, believing he could or would risk his life doing it. Then the officer found out, and he threatened me in a way I prefer not to describe.

At this point these words from a Marillion song always come to me: “You’d starve before you’d let him get his hands on you again”.

I think that was the main reason I decided to kill myself.

Justice.

I have noticed that I tend to be quite intolerant when it comes down to talk about things I have seen with my own eyes in previous lives. I mean... especially when my interlocutor is someone who doesn’t remember past lives and therefore they don’t know how past life memories feel, how real and present past life emotions are, how talking about them hurts more than anyone can say. You think they will understand better if you choose a real example of your own past life memories, and then you expose yourself, showing the world how evil you were in the past, or how much you went through. Long ago I learned it isn’t worth doing it... at least not if they don’t have memories of their own. They seem to think it’s all an invention, maybe they think you are mistaken or a liar, but the funniest thing is they will believe much easier someone who claims to have done a thousand regressions to his patients and he is sure karma is a universal law. Of course, it sounds more “spiritual” to say you have learned your lessons than saying you were a murderer and you don’t understand yet why you had to die for your crimes. And hey, my life is not perfect but it’s not bad, I’ve had a lot of fun!

So, you thought maybe it would do good to them, but at the end you gain nothing, so you come to the conclusion it’s better not to talk. Let them talk, let them chatter, let them be blind to the truth, let them tell everyone you’re a really close-minded person... Let them think reincarnation is just a game.

Well, the day after a second argument about karma, this time in Spanish and in my own forum (proving there’s not much of a difference really between continents, here we’re talking of human behavior), I had some new memories coming to me. I guess this is because karma deals with justice, and I know that justice is an important topic for me, though I don’t have a lot of details. I do know I once was an Arabian judge and I studied a lot about Laws, but I can’t say much more. The other life where I was closely related to justice was as a praetorian guard somewhere in the Roman Empire. It’s still quite dark too, but coincidence or not, I got clearer memories after that argument. Maybe is that the reason I’m so opposed to any “universal” system of punishment and reward? Because I do know it’s anything but just, and I also know good and evil are only human concepts, so the idea of a “Universe” stalking you to make you pay or bring you beautiful presents depending on how good or bad you are, is plainly absurd. But go on and tell people just that... I feel that most of them are not ready to hear anything like this, so I’d better keep quiet and only whisper in this discrete blog, or I might get hanged... again.

I was an executor of the Law. And probably this is also the reason why I loved so much Eddard Stark's attitude in the book Song of Ice and Fire. Men making laws should be also the ones executing the sentence. I was not so lucky to do both. In my case the rules were written on a parchment and my only duty was to make sure people got what they supposedly deserved, that is: to receive a number of whips, to lose their tongues, fingers, hands or any other part of their bodies the Law determined, according to the size of their crimes, to be sent to a work camp, to be publicly humiliated, or, in the best of cases —some would say it would be the worst, from my perspective it was the best— to die. I’ll spare you the different methods of execution.

I was taught to do it from a very young age. But due to my position at the time, in these memories I only had to make sure others did a good job. That didn’t mean I could choose not to be there and witness how these men and women (and children) were punished. A punishment I often considered disproportionate, but my position was not high enough to disobey orders or tell anyone the Law was unjust and should be changed. After all, I had my own house and family to provide for.

People love to trivialize about everything, and that includes justice. Somehow I’ve always known that being a judge is one of the most complicated professions in the world... well, maybe only if you want to be a good judge and be fair. A wrong decision can make you a murderer... alright, call it homicide if you prefer, but you are killing someone anyway for whatever reason, which too often is not too clear. I also know this because I’ve been unfairly judged (obviously this is a biased opinion) in at least a couple of occasions. Justice is like trying to stand on a tight rope, it is a delicate balance too easy to break, and when you do you irremediably fall into the abyss, becoming a criminal just like those you sent to the gallows time and time again, just because a paper said so. Only, people rarely see this. They assume a judge is honest and fair just because he is wearing a black robe and a white wig. People assume all kind of things, and they get angry if you say they’re blind.

So, yes. Tell me again someone who died in the Holocaust is because they did something wrong in the past and they deserve it or they need to learn a lesson. Tell me about how the Universe plans this kind of things so that we all get what we deserve. Tell me who decides what you deserve saying that. I was a judge and I don’t know, that’s for sure. Probably not a tongue being cut off. But surely you deserve something like this:

More rubble.

It is curious how apparently meaningless phrases can reach you so deep and make you understand past life experiences. I often say that my life as Katrina during WWII taught me a lot about strength... but when I say this there’s another part of me saying: “Come on, aren’t you being too benevolent? She couldn’t get over her boyfriend’s death, she couldn’t fight and stand war, she ended up cowardly committing suicide...” Yesterday, while I was watching the Spanish TV show “Big brother”, where a water-polo player who became a drug addict and almost destroyed all his family and his life, helps violent teenagers, he said: “You see, the one who carries a lot of pain inside but doesn’t use violence is the strongest”. Those words brought tears to my eyes. I’ve always said the weak only seem weak in the outside. I was a tiny woman, alone in the world, unable to make my own decisions due to life’s circumstances. I was caught in a war and recruited to fight for another country. A certain officer abused his power. My only friend died. I knew I could have killed them all, or at least try... I was up to defend myself if only he dared touch me again, no matter if I ended up killed or imprisoned. But I didn’t, though I know I had the chance. Of that, at least, I can be proud.

For some reason, I still must relive all the ordeal. It was the third time I regressed to the night I was raped, and each time there are more details, and more emotions coming out. I will bleed until my last drop of blood is shed. I know there is no other way to stop feeling anxiety, to stop feeling so depressed when this time of the year arrives, and I’m writing it all down because I’m a writer, though I wish I could also draw like a child who remembers past lives. I would draw a German officer with his head blown off, or maybe a handsome German soldier coming for my rescue. I would draw a doctor who didn’t want to help me being assaulted at gun point and being raped too. I would draw myself trying to jump from a window, but instead of jumping I would just scream and scream, and cry and cry... I still have so much pain (and rage) inside I wouldn’t even know where to begin... though it was going to be very bloody, that’s sure.

Yesterday I realized there’s so much about “broken” in this life too. Until now I thought the major issue was the sexual abuse. And that’s a hard one, of course, but there’s a lot more to it than that. It’s about loss and being alone, about broken dreams,  about the only hope I had in that life being shattered in less than a second. My future was just like that scene of the bombed city, all turned into ruins, all dark grey and destroyed, until I decided I preferred black... and I painted it black. Maybe it was my only real decision in that whole shitty life, and right or wrong, at least it was MINE.

Rubble.

I have known all my life autumn is a hard time for me in regards to depression. It is three years now since I started to remember past lives. It is not so long since I suspect the reason I get so depressed in this time of the year is my WWII life. I highly suspect it has to do with anniversaries: Johann’s death, sexual abuse before or after that (or even both), and the deep, dark abyss I fell into until my own death (suicide) three months later. I don’t know the exact dates, I only have hunches and possible real events happening in cities where I do know I lived, which could match my memories. But maybe validations are not too important now. The thing is this year is being different from previous years since I started to research reincarnation and remember past lives. I feel I’m more aware than ever before, at the same time I’m not finding time to meditate or self-regress properly, but sometimes emotions are just overwhelming... only, this time I manage to stand more like an observer, understanding what’s happening, knowing emotions are hard and don’t belong to this life, and welcoming them all the same as they need to be released and dealt with the best I can. Maybe they’re more intermittent than they used to be... I mean, years ago I used to get depressed not knowing why, and I would get deeper and deeper into that depression until I finally managed to go out one way or the other, always believing the reason was some real life problem, hormones, winter, grey and rainy days, whatever... Now I don’t suffer that kind of depression, as I’ve been dealing with my past lives for a while. But, still, there are unexpected moments when, out of the blue, I start to feel depressed again, and I only need to concentrate a bit to see myself as Katrina and receive all kind of dark impressions and feelings which somehow transcend space and time, as if I was suddenly transported to a life long gone. Everything is still there, somewhere. Hidden, frozen, a blurred image on a television which plays time and time again.   

It’s for a reason people say you can’t run away from your past lives. I was quite disconnected from reincarnation, it was ages since I last had remembered something new, when we started to paint the old flat I will soon be moving to. My usual routine was altered, I had to sleep in a bed that wasn’t mine, the workers had to cover everything with paper and plastic, we had to move furniture, and soon I had to spend all day long locked up in the bedroom, keeping an eye on them while I tried to go on with my writing or reading...

The walls were in such bad condition that some cracks and imperfections had to be made again, so soon we were caught in a "war environment" with dust and rubble everywhere. Day 5 arrived. I was exhausted from the anxiety and the lack of sleep, and the usual tension that had led to a small argument with my partner the day before. At around 7:30 am I was inside my car waiting for him, watching the blinkers reflecting in a street sign, still dark outside, when I had a flash of a city destroyed, all rubble around me, and for a moment I felt the same feelings of desolation I must have felt back then... I even had strong desires to cry. I thought, "Well, that could well have been Berlin after the war was over". Only, I know I was already dead by then, and I was in France when I died. "But then... the bombings must have been real. Maybe you really DID see a city bombed".

So, as I had no computer that day, when I arrived to the "battlefield" I sat down, took some paper and a pen, in the old-fashioned way, and wrote this:

"I've taken him to his job and while I was waiting for him a flash came to me: rubble after a bombing. It comes along with strong emotions of... sadness? No, this word is too weak. Deep desolation, terrible emptiness, feeling that this is the end of the world, that there is no way to escape so much destruction. I still don't know how close to death I was, I don't know how close the bombs had fallen... but it was close enough to claim Johann's life.

I think these memories are probably being triggered by the accumulation of similar emotions. I am sure I was also feeling physically exhausted back then, filled with fear, anxiety and preoccupation. Being in this house right now, all upside down, full of dust and rubble, surrounded by junk and old furniture, not knowing very well where I'm going to eat or sleep, with strangers around me... it must not be too different from being in a foreign country we have occupied, with military coworkers you barely know, eating on metal trays and with food scarcity, under constant stress, fearing that in any moment the French resistance will shoot us down or a bomb will fall in the middle of the building. Right now, just imagining there are airplanes flying over the area freaks me out. I'd start praying the Virgin for them to go past without attacking us. I feel constant desire to weep. I don't want to be here, though I also know I have nowhere to go, as I've never had a true home, I only want to be with Johann, and please God, don't let him come to any harm..."

I think I had never been triggered in such an intense way. It wasn’t the first time it happened to me, but it keeps feeling strange, when you feel those emotions coming from the inside, knowing there’s just nothing in my present life that could be provoking those emotions. Back then when I used to suffer from depression I had lots of worries in my head, lots of potential causes which could make me feel like that. Now those worries are not there anymore, and now I know something about my past lives... and now I just feel Katrina trying to scream, trying to find the way through all the years and the darkness so that her voice can be heard, trying to release all her pain and suffering that got stuck inside of her... in 1942.

TERRIFIED, SUNKEN-EYED, WITHERED AND DRAWN*.

The painting work was done and everything went back to normal... though I started to feel a bit of anxiety. My theory is that Johann died in August. His death was the last nail in the coffin for me, but it was a process until I killed myself, possibly in November, as it gets darker and darker and then December is a bit easier, as if a heavy burden has been lifted. Obviously, you don’t decide to kill yourself one night and the following morning you steal a gun and do it. It’s quite harder than that. I don’t have a lot of memories from those last months, but I feel I must have tried to carry on for a little while... a short while. And only thinking about it brings tears to my eyes, even when I can only imagine what those final weeks must have been like for Katrina. Yesterday night I was trying to sleep, hearing the noise of the bar below our flat, feeling my heart racing when it had no reason for that. I tried to relax, as I learned long ago, as I’ve grown used to do when I feel anxiety... and suddenly I was there again, sleeping in a poor, low bed in a corner, in the field hospital, feeling so empty, utterly alone, fighting in a war I had not chosen, fearing the touch or the proximity of the officer, feeling so, so devastated by Johann’s death, and so enraged by everything that was happening and I couldn’t control. A thought came to me, it was Katrina saying: “You said I didn’t cry, but I did, sure I did, on the floor, hiding in that deserted library, or in the toilettes... though maybe not enough... not enough”. I was completely terrified. How can you not feel anxious when you are so scared? When you are just terrified of bombings, of being abused again, of being unable to function, of being killed by your own people... as they are not really your people, they just used you instead of killing you in the spot when your city was occupied. What future did I have? Johann was my only future... and they had taken all my hope away.

The memory of watching myself in a mirror, withered and drawn, pale and thin, with grey shadows beneath my eyes, is an old one. I just couldn’t stand it any longer. And I think no one could blame me for what I did. It just breaks my heart to think I must have been no older than 20 or 22 when I decided to quit.  

* Words from the song “Berlin” by Marillion (it's about the Cold War, not WWII, but it comes handy here anyway).

Experience.

Because... how can you explain someone you barely know you were judged and hanged, and then you had a brief memory of the life between lives where no one scolded you for what you did and never threatened you with a quick return to Earth to atone for your sins or pay your karmic debts? Well, just telling it, the way I did.

The conversation I was referring to in my previous entry ended up quite abruptly when this guy claimed he could not care less about others’ “experiences”. I just couldn’t believe my eyes, as I truly feel we only can base our knowledge —in the present day and considering where we are now— on experience. That’s all we need, that’s where the answers lie: we need data, to find out what we can believe and not, which theories are closer to the truth.

For me, experience is all that matters. I was bold enough to tell him I had been judged and executed, but after his attitude, who is going to bother and tell him more about it, my reasons for not believing in karma? This morning I was reading Song of Ice and Fire (fourth volume), and, as always, the word “hanged” sent me shivers all through my body. That made me reflect about how important it is to live it. Everything. No matter how hard or painful it is, that is the only way to understand. We just need it, I guess it’s human nature. And the more I think, the surer I am that is the only “secret” of reincarnation: to experience things. Because the words of other people are not enough to make us see why we must or must not behave in one way or the other. Punishments or rewards are not effective to make us better persons, at most it can make us fearful for a while and we will think twice before being evil, but it won’t teach us why we can’t inflict pain in others as long as we ourselves don’t feel that same pain.

There are other things that send shivers through my body: lynch mobs and people shouting at presumed criminals, claiming for justice (vengeance), calling someone “murderer”, when they haven’t even been condemned yet. This already used to happen to me when I had no memories. Of course, when I remembered, I understood why I used to feel like that. You might be a criminal, but no one deserves a painful death... or just... death. This is a question I’ve asked myself all my life: do we have the right to decide when someone must die? Recently I saw the faces of this group of Hindu men who were going to be hanged for rapists... and I only felt sadness and compassion for them. I don’t think they deserve that. And I’m saying this knowing perfectly what it is to be raped. Even if they had killed the girl (I don’t remember if they did), I don’t think they would deserve death. They don’t even deserve any kind of suffering. I don’t know what they need, but I’m sure an eye for an eye is not getting us anywhere. But it seems that notion is still ruling the world... and I don’t think that is going to change soon.

Not in vain, this quote by Gandalf was one of the first to catch my attention when I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time.

The thing is that people don’t seem to realize this kind of things. They think they’re right, and they will search for answers outside of them which will reaffirm what they believe. So, they say they believe in justice, and they want to believe the Universe has to be governed by a Law called Karma which will ensure that justice, forgetting the only Law that rules the Universe, if any, is Unconditional Love. And that implies Forgiveness. And if there are people like me who have remembered there is no punishment in the other side, just Forgiveness and Understanding, they will refuse to listen and will look other way, clinging to their desire of justice (vengeance) and the way they think is “right”.

H.A.N.G.E.D.

The chapter I was reading this morning finished with a woman who was going to be hanged. That sent me to a moment of strong past life mood for a few minutes, as each time I read the word “hanged” (quite frequent in Martin’s saga) reminds me of the two times I died that way. I wouldn’t know which is clearer. The circumstances, the feelings, the images... are quite different. I feel I wanted to die in the first occasion, I didn’t care too much the end was near. I think the second one was harder, as I didn’t expect things would turn that wrong... I’m not sure but I feel I had hopes until the very last minute a miracle would spare my life. I have no memories of the hanging itself, save some strange physical sensations in the second hanging, but darkness prevails in both cases. Emotions surrounding the execution linger though... contempt, sadness, rage, shame, fear, a bit of arrogance and disbelief in the second. A deep, deep sadness. Something is common in both: I was completely aware the result had been the consequence of my decisions. I could put the blame on anything I wanted, but the plain truth is it was all my doing. Some like to say this is karma. I don’t care what they call it, but I’m certain it’s not a law. And death is not the end, that is true, but when a life is over, it is over. Emotions linger, that is true, but if my end had been different, I wouldn’t have reached the other side carrying a note saying I have a karmic debt to pay. Because the only thing we encounter on the other side is Unconditional Forgiveness. And like one of Michael Newton’s patients said when he was asked whether he was going to be punished for committing suicide: “Punishment? Of course not, that is human”.

According to this, what is the point of choosing a life in a slum in India? Experiencing a cruel and slow death, as some like to suggest? This is nonsense for some people, in my opinion because they can’t get beyond their human eyes and the eternal suffering we all have to go through on Earth. What did I gain being hanged... twice? It’s not the execution itself, it’s all that surrounded those events. Dying is nothing unnatural, not even a cruel death. We all die. We all suffer through our lives, more or less. It’s the circumstances, the events leading to that death, the feelings before and after... that’s what matters, that’s what makes us understand poverty has to be eradicated from Earth, only if we live it we can truly understand. And becoming more compassionate, more sensitive to the needs of these people, is reason enough to incarnate in one of these places, so that in our next life we will want to work for a better world where people don’t have to live in these conditions. I think this makes a lot more sense than karma.

Of course, you may not believe my experiences, but please, don’t believe in unproven theories either. Just look inside you and see for yourself.

On karma, prisons and other stories.

It’s sad to say, but in the reincarnation world most times it’s better to shut up and let people talk nonsense, or you may end up in trouble, tired of talking to a wall and sometimes even accused of wanting to force your beliefs on someone. I just wonder, how can you force a non-belief on someone?

I’m not going to explain here (at least for the moment) why I don’t believe in karma, as it’s a subject that, honestly, only has made me waste my time since I started to hang around in reincarnation forums. But I’ll say... and it’s one of those things that need to be repeated again and again: one thing is speculating about reincarnation, and a different thing is experiencing reincarnation, that is, remembering past lives. Karma is one of those beliefs usually linked to reincarnation, and many people think that if you believe in reincarnation, you irremediably have to believe in karma as well. It seems there are also certain people who want to make a religion out of reincarnation, and they think they have the right to tell you what you must believe, claiming there are “Laws” in the Universe to which everyone is subject to. They are dazzled by all kind of gurus who write some words in a book and they accept what they have read without giving it a second thought. It is curious how human mind works...

Well, that’s what recently has happened to me. I love to be challenged, I love talking to people who make me think, I love to feel like they’re telling me something new that hadn’t occurred to me before... this is rarer and rarer these days, but still, once in a while, I give it a try. After all, if someone posts such wise words and is so convinced of the existence of karma, they must have good reasons, and if I’m wrong, I want to know. But when you inquire, you just find these people usually are only talking of beliefs... and I need facts. Or at least, beliefs based on facts, not in faith. The first mistake in these “wise” words was to claim there are a Law of Reincarnation and a Law of Karma, and the two have to go together. What, who says this? Who says it’s illogical to believe in reincarnation and not believe in karma at the same time? Who says all reincarnationists have to be identical copies? The most curious thing is this is what says someone who suspects to have a past life as a certain person because someone told him... no verifications, no meditation, self-regression or any other method to remember past lives (dreams, flashes...), no internal knowledge, no nothing. But of course he’s a firm believer in Buddhists and their teachings about karma.

I’ve learned to let it pass and ignore their accusations of wanting to force my beliefs, when it’s them who are trying to force me to believe in something I have neither proof nor circumstantial evidence nor any example they could give me... and yes, I asked for one. Just one valid example which could point to the existence of karma and the way it works. But all I got were silly responses, vague spiritual notions like the definition of karma as something governed by “the Universe”, the universal purpose of all creatures of finding happiness and achieve perfection, or the nonsense that karma is like Newton’s Law of Action and Reaction, a natural law which, as such, works in all the universe. And it doesn’t matter if you tell them that doesn’t match the experiences of people all over the world, not only remembering past lives, but also through NDE’s, OBE’s and other paranormal phenomena, they will keep trying to tell me karma is true, and even hinting I’m not intelligent enough to grasp the concept, and that maybe I’ll do in a few lifetimes. Seeing is believing... 

Well, maybe it was synchronicity, but the same night I was enjoying such discussion, someone in my own reincarnation forum posted something that helped me understand the attitude of this kind of persons. I thought they would appreciate it, as it’s a quote written by a spiritual leader called Jiddu Khrisnamurti and they seem to be fond of ancient/spiritual teachings, but the truth is they soon decided to quit, maybe because they couldn't find right arguments to convince me karma exists... or maybe because they are afraid what I say could make their beliefs totter, being this latter an attitude I’ve witnessed a lot of times in and out of the internet.

This is what the quote said:

"From the moment you are born and begin to receive impressions, your parents are telling you constantly what you must do and you must not do, what you must believe and what you must not believe; they tell you there is a God, or there is no God but a State and certain dictator is its prophet. Since childhood they pour these things inside of you, which means your minds —which are very young, impressible, inquisitive, with curiosity to know, desire to discover— become gradually boxed, conditioned, shaped so that you adjust to a particular society and not become revolutionaries. As thinking following a pattern has been already established on you, when some time you become "repulsed" you do it inside a pattern. Like the prisoners who rebel to get better food, more material comforts —but always inside the prison. When you seek God, or try to find out which government is the proper one, you always do it inside the society's pattern, which says: "This is true and this is false, this is good and that is bad, this is the just leader and these are the saints". Therefore, your rebellion —like the so called "revolution" carried out by very ambitious or very clever persons— is always limited by the past. That is not a rebellion, that is not a revolution; it is merely a more intense activity, a braver fight inside the pattern. The real rebellion, the real revolution, consists of breaking the pattern and investigate out of it. [...]

Society influences all of us, it shapes constantly our thinking, and this pressure society makes from the outside, gradually becomes our inner side, as long as we don't get through that conditioning. You have to know what you think, and if you are thinking as Hindus, muslims or Christians, that is, if you think on the terms of the religion you belong to, you must be conscious of what you believe or not. All this is the society's pattern, and unless you break up with it, you keep being prisoners even when you may think you are free".   

Reincarnation or not, I think this is the attitude which prevents us human beings to find our true spirituality and advance in our self-knowledge and development as a species. We’ve been controlled by religions for millennia, but we are to blame for keeping searching for a religion to answer our questions. We recite like parrots words we have heard somewhere, such as “Karma is like a boomerang, if you did right, you will receive good things; if you do evil, you will receive bad things", and at the same time we are not aware we are only creating new beliefs that make us comfortable, new walls that will imprison us just like old religions did, thinking we have found freedom, when the only thing we’ve done is changing our prison. We have to think by ourselves and find our own Truth, but never forgetting we as human beings will never be able to attain the complete Truth, and of course keeping in mind that we no longer need old dogmas and doctrines telling us how we have to behave. I think it’s time to base our knowledge on real facts and an interpretation of those facts as objective and rational as possible. When we die, we’ll reach that transcendence and we’ll know where we were wrong. Until then, let’s not speculate without direct experience, as that only leads to more confusion, fruitless conversations, and so called “new beliefs” which are just a mixture of ancient teachings and empty “new agey” stuff. In brief, just words, words, words.

Anyway, it’s hard to be clear in this type of situations, not in all places I feel the same confidence to talk about my past lives, that’s why sometimes I need to go on with my own musings and bitter watches here. Because... how can you explain someone you barely know you were judged and hanged, and then you had a brief memory of the life between lives where no one scolded you for what you did and never threatened you with a quick return to Earth to atone for your sins or pay your karmic debts? Well, just telling it, the way I did. But words like these never describe the whole situation, much more complicated. People tend to think it’s all black and white, but it never is, and in this particular life I’m talking about, I killed but I also suffered a great deal. So, who is the one keeping count of all your right and evil doings, do we have to expect a reward for all the right things we did and a punishment for all the evil things? The idea is just childish and senseless, but it’s amazing how many people really believe in this.

Sometimes I feel so frustrated I can’t change the world... but I know, patience might be another one of the “lessons” —if those exist at all— I’ve yet to learn.

The last dawn.

That dawn was not like any other dawn. The Sun barely could be seen far away in the horizon as an orange-coloured ball partially covered by the clouds, some sponge clouds of a grey cotton which didn’t let the blue of the sky be seen. The wind was blowing as never before in the mist of times, and pushed the clouds until they disappeared in the distance, being replaced for others as grey as them. The sea waves, boisterous like they had not been from years ago, brutally charged against the rocks.

There were no seagulls soaring through the air in search of food. Nor swam fish in the rough sea waters, nor there were crabs buried in the sand. There was not a living being to be seen anywhere. That morning the beach sand had appeared totally clean and pure. No shells, no seaweeds... only sand.

The scream of the waves crashing against the rocks was the only sound in that silence, and the wind was now the master of Nature, making the sea angry and dragging the clouds after him. Only the Earth was left.

But then in the immensity of the beach a point that moved getting close to the seashore turned up. Who or what could still be alive? It soon reached the water, and went on walking along the shore. She barely could stand. Her body, almost naked, was covered by the tatters of what had been a simple but beautiful dress. Her long and dark hair was battered by that horrible wind which was becoming more and more violent with each passing minute. She had her shoes hanging from her shoulder, tied up to walk comfortably on the sand. Her legs failed her with each step, and she fell to the sand, nearly fainting, fearing she wouldn’t be able to get up ever again. But the last thing she would lose would be her hope.

Her green eyes gazed at infinity, and now and then they let a tear, half courage, half sadness, run down. She wouldn’t stop until her last drop of strength fell down and broke in a thousand pieces. She had to reach that place... only a few metres were left. She had waited for that encounter since she was a child, and finally the day they would meet had arrived.

A spark shone in her eyes, and her rosy lips let out a sad smile. Then she stopped, and stared at the line where sky and sea joined together.

Suddenly the clouds calmed down and disappeared abandoning their grey color in the sky. The sea became still and the waves transformed themselves in a layer of smooth and uniform water. Silence filled everything. Her heart beat slower. The Sun disappeared, and with it the light. From afar a thunder boomed and from the depth of the sea a muffled murmur started to surge, like a cascade falling into the space.

She fainted due to the fear, the joy and the exhaustion. The murmur grew... grew even more, and then the sea waters were pierced by a huge blinding moon that illuminated a hundred times more than the Sun. That light filled everything: the beach, the sky, the sun... She disappeared first. Then the light swept everything else. And afterwards the void carried the light away. Silence and darkness reigned for evermore.  

  

I wrote this when I was 13 or 14, according to my notes, though I wasn’t sure then and I’m not sure now. I’ve translated it for this blog and I’m amazed at how past life memories get unconsciously reflected on all we do... More than thirty years have passed for me to realize where this short story was coming from. Now I’m trying to work through the emotions and to remember in detail the events that led me to that day in the beach where darkness threatened to take away my life... and eventually did. When I started to write this blog I said I wanted to go inside, there where it really hurts... well, this hurts more than I can say, but if I force it I feel it slips through my fingers and I can’t do anything. I mean, emotions don’t come out when I want them to come out. I wish I could sit down, do some self-reiki like the other day, and let all the stuck emotions flood and get me like a tsunami, but it looks like it doesn’t work that way. They come just when they want: when I’m listening to a certain song with certain lyrics, when I’m with my boyfriend and something triggers something, when I’m typing on my laptop and suddenly I can see the same images in my mind, playing over and over again, making me feel sad and wretched.

Yesterday I listened to some binaural recordings again but it didn’t feel as right as before, I could gather some fragments together because I wanted to relive it all again, to the very second of what happened, but I wonder... do the details matter so much? When do emotional wounds exactly occur? What makes the deepest wound? The fear, the helplessness, the realization you just can’t fight and you have to let the man do with you whatever he wants, the nausea, the weakness, is it all at the same time? Is it the stab in itself, or the bleeding through days and weeks, piercing your soul like a sword through your heart that stays there making a zombie out of you? The only thing I’m sure of is that I killed myself while I was still paralyzed, I chose death to get rid of all that suffering, never knowing the pain follows you to the next lives, until you learn to deal with it, until you learn to get over it.... if you ever do.

For some minutes rage wanted to go out as well, but then it subdued and went into hiding again. I was going to write some words about it and then I just couldn’t, but I know it keeps being there somewhere in the inside... Sometimes I am told I have a lot of accumulated anger, but they don’t know to which extent... My theory is that anger comes from pain that goes beyond words, but once again, what can you do with that anger? I could have killed whoever was around me back then, they surely believed me nuts anyway, and I wouldn’t have been the first one to go mad during a war, but once I had the gun in my hand I only killed myself... And now the only way to get that anger out is through music, tears and... once more, writing. But honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll ever get somewhere...

1942: Rage.

The scene where I’m standing on an empty beach, a cloudy and windy day, though not too cold, comes back over and over again. I’m quite sure it was the day I woke up from the sedation and went out to take some fresh air. Johann was dead. And I was paralyzed. I just couldn’t talk, couldn’t cry, couldn’t shout. We had dreams. We often talked about our future, “when the war is over”. I was utterly alone, hopeless, scared to death. Didn’t want to live in a world where I could get killed any moment, and not only by the enemies, but also by the hand of people who had invaded my dear Prague. I was nothing to them. They had forced me to join the Army. But I didn’t want to be there, shouldn’t be there, in a strange country where they looked at me the same way I had looked at the Germans in their tanks, with their rifles and their threats.  

I was just a shadow, a ghost. I was already dead, long before I was shot in the belly.

I feel I’m back in 1942. August, to be more exact. Anniversary of Johann’s death, as I mentioned in my last entry. When I had no specific memories, the only thing I could say was “I am depressed and I don’t know why. Probably it’s only the end of the summer”. Well, no, the end of the summer is not reason enough to be depressed. Today, I not only know the cause of this depression, I also have constant flashbacks in my mind of fragmented scenes of things that should never have happened. They come and go, they almost disappear while I’m reading something on the Internet or someone takes me out for a bit of exercise... but those memories keep being there. It’s like these plastic small televisions we had when we were kids: you look through the hole and you find the slides there, pushing a button, one after the other, pieces of a life that once were. Now it’s gone, all the people are gone, but the emotions linger and hurt, just like the first day.

Sadness. A hole in my soul. But deep inside there’s a lot of rage as well, very similar to the widow’s rage, only Katrina lacked the will to take it out. Rage is pain. A reaction to pain. But it’s no good to use violence to express your pain, violence doesn’t free you of pain, maybe it soothes pain for a while, but it has no any healing effect. I wish I knew how you get rid of pain and rage though, the secret of emotions’ alchemy. It’s a process, they say, like those stages of mourning. But it looks like it’s a damn long process, to keep affecting me eighty years later. I am still standing in that beach, staring at the sea, paralyzed, watching the darkness grow in my heart, stealing away my will to live. I let the darkness win, I didn’t fight the pain and I ignored the rage, and they never went away. And now I only have words to get it all out... words and tears that more oft than not pile in my throat just like Katrina did back then. How can I get over it? Like I once said, I’m afraid the only way to do it is to let the wounds bleed... bleed until the last drop of my blood is shed, until there’s no more pus inside... there is no other way.