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.