Past life songs (4): On the edge of despair.

The Nobel Prize of Literature 2016 has been awarded to Bob Dylan. I am laughing so hard at all these “serious writers” who are complaining about it, not because I am a fan of Bob Dylan, I have never been, but because there is so much pedantry among writers that they deserve just for once to be ignored. In my opinion, there are a lot of songwriters (and many of them are heavy rock musicians) who can transmit in a few words emotions that not even García Márquez in his A hundred years of boredom, as I use to call it, can do in hundreds of pages.

“On the edge of despair” is one of these songs. I have said before that this rock band, Arena, seems to be linked to my past lives. I have to confess that I have been always been attracted to Clive Nolan, the main “culprit” of those songs in my music collection that I would play over and over again, including in my funeral. And I swear it is not because of his blonde, long hair (despite that, I can’t say he is too attractive, though I think it would be quite interesting to talk to him about a few things). Before Arena, I knew him for being the keyboardist in Pendragon, and so I had seen him a few times live in concert. I also knew he was an amateur writer, and in one of those concerts I was about to approach him and tell him: “Hey, you’re really awesome, your music and lyrics are so inspiring, I am a writer too and your songs are always present in my stories”. I told him nothing in the end while he was signing my ticket, but to say “I was about to” is already a lot for me. Usually I don’t even talk to strangers or people I have just met.

I don’t know if Clive Nolan believes in reincarnation, though you could say so reading many of his lyrics, especially those that deal with death and the afterlife. Of course, I don’t think he is in any way connected to me or any of my past lives, but I just have to wonder when he describes certain scenes so similar to my actual memories. I don’t know if I ever mentioned here that right after I died as Katrina, I had a memory where the soldier who had killed me took me in his arms, just a tiny woman, a wretched thing that couldn’t bear more suffering. Well, “On the edge of despair” is only a small part of a short story written by Clive for the Arena album called “Contagion”. In this story, a man with certain psychic abilities comes down to Earth and in his struggle to save mankind from an evil he unleashed, encounters a little girl who bears the same tattoo in her hand. She seems fragile but she is an old soul, with a rare strength and inner knowledge. She is his hope for the future. She is about to die, and for some time, thinking he won’t be able to save her, he is on the edge of despair.

I can’t begin to say all the parallelisms I find in this song in relation to Katrina. The first time I listened to it, I wasn’t reading the lyrics, but I caught the words: Too young and unprepared for such distress, and tears welled instantly in my eyes. That was such an accurate description of my life in WWII. When I had the chance to read them all, the meaning in them went even deeper. The blood in the first verse, I can say it is metaphoric in my case, as I didn’t lie with blood on my face. But I can indeed say there was blood all over the place. It was a war after all, and I had seen pools of blood in the streets. It is also true no one seemed to care if I live or die. I was always quiet, a stranger among Germans who had been drafted in an occupied city. Johann had been my only friend, but he was dead. If something, Katrina was always so alone, so utterly alone. She fought all she could, with all her innocence and all her youth. She never did wrong, but evil men hurt her. The song seems to carry a message for my current self, when I’m sunk in depression: Don't let this life decay to misery and hate / Don't throw it away (again) -- don't leave it too late (but don’t die too old). I have always thought I should not kill myself again... but I don’t want to die of old age either.

When I imagine this man (this soldier) taking me in his arms, somehow it is comforting: thinking there is someone who did care, even though he wasn’t capable to do anything for me. I strongly suspect one of the soldiers who knew of those sad events reincarnated in one of my schoolmates in my current life. I still dream of him sometimes. I am sure he liked me but never dared to approach me, there was a guilty look in his eyes, mixed with certain sadness. I know he at least cared in my previous life but couldn’t defend me, or he would have put his position, even his life, in danger. I don’t think he was the same soldier that killed me, but still, it feels as if certain silent and regretful gazes can speak worlds and connect souls through time and space.

There is another verse that needs no explanation: it clearly refers to reincarnation (at least from my point of view):

There will be a time and place
You'll be sure to find me there
Praying that I won't be too late
To take you from the edge of despair

Sometimes it seems like it, but we are never alone. There is always someone watching over us.

 

ON THE EDGE OF DESPAIR

Lying there - With spiders in your hair
No one seems to care if you survive
Blood on your face - All over the place
No one seems to care if you live or you die

We're the same you know
Putting up walls and dodging the stones
We're the same you know
Walking in the crowd, but living alone
Don't let this life decay to misery and hate
Don't throw it away -- don't leave it too late

Lying there - On the edge of despair
This is where I should have been
Black and blue - All battered and bruised
This is where I should have been

Lying there - With death in the air
Too young and unprepared for such distress
Hanging on - But not for too long
Too young and unprepared for such distress

We're the same you know
Putting up walls and dodging the stones
We're the same you know
Walking in the crowd, but living alone
Don't let this life decay to misery and hate
Don't throw it away -- don't leave it too late

There will be a time and place
You'll be sure to find me there
Praying that I won't be too late
To take you from the edge of despair

We're the same you know
Putting up walls and dodging the stones
We're the same you know
Walking in the crowd, but living alone
Don't let this life decay to misery and hate
Don't throw it away -- don't leave it too late  

The day I died.

It is 23:14 when I start writing this and tomorrow I have to get up early for a five hours drive. It is not the best moment to be doing this, but I don’t want these past life emotions to fade and get lost in my mind while I enjoy my second holiday season.

Every time Katrina calls for my attention, I want to think there is a reason. The same scenes often repeat themselves, sometimes exactly as they were, other times expanded. The hurting keeps being there, and I feel compelled to do something, but what?  

I ask her what she wants, and the answer is: “I want to find his grave, I want to have a place to mourn, I want to know he’s remembered, I just want to cry”. Some of these things I can do, like crying. But others, I just don’t seem to find my way. I have some specific data that came with my memories, but either they are wrong, or I am not looking in the right places, because they never match the records.
 

And in the meanwhile I keep reliving these memories as if they were reoccurring nightmares. The day my worst fear became real is one of them: losing Johann to the war. The day he died, I died with him. My soul died. My body kept living for a while, but I wasn’t there anymore. As I have said so many times before, I was paralyzed. I still can see everything: how I heard his name and dropped whatever I had in my hands, how I ran and fought to get to him, how I found him already dead on the stretcher, how I was grabbed and pulled away. I did shout then, and cried. So much that they had to restrain me and put me a catheter on my jugular vein to administer a sedative. Everything went black.

And when I woke up, I was dead. The first thing I did was taking my Virgin medal off and leaving it on the bedside table, forgotten. I had lost my faith. I realized I was wearing a clear blue gown and a teardrop fell and wet the cloth. Someone asked me if I wanted something to eat, I said no. When I regained some of my strength I went to see the doctor, to ask him if he’d let me see Johann one last time. He did, but I couldn’t move. Johann’s body was there wrapped in one of those hideous cases to keep corpses, but I barely could do something, with a nurse at my left and the doctor at my right, watching that I didn’t go mad again. And I couldn’t touch him, not even hold his hand, not even whisper some words in his ears.

I couldn’t accept it. It still feels like a dream today. Only, dreams are not so damn real.

Maybe I can’t find his grave (yet), but I was getting clear visual impressions of his face. So I used an online identikit program to try and draw him. The result was impressive. Not completely accurate, I’d say, but impressive nonetheless.

I died the day he died, with no time to mourn. Maybe this is the first step to do so. 

Past life songs (3): The calm before the storm.

I have noticed July is a weird month for me in regards to reincarnation. I have commented on this before, probably somewhere in this blog. Maybe this year the feeling is even stronger. Things are going great for me at the moment. Three months ago, right after my accident skating, I decided to start physical training six days a week, alternating yoga and fitness routines. My main objective was to fully recover my left knee and shoulder, but then I found I was absolutely loving it and I couldn’t stop. I have lost three kilograms in three months and I am feeling stronger. I also found some inspiring guys like Frank Medrano or Elena Malova who also follow a vegan diet and so I have started to focus even more in the positive things in life. In a way I feel like in my most recent past life during the Cold War, when I decided to leave drugs behind and work for the American Army (now I really hope I won’t die in some kind of crash). But at the same time... there is this uneasiness deep inside, a restlessness whose origin is not clear.

My life as an active reincarnationist is not fulfilling at all, that is no secret. As I have repeatedly said in several places, remembering past lives is a lonely path. The forum and various blogs I administer are running non-stop, growing each day. They keep me quite busy and that is fine, but I miss the old times, especially the old times when I first arrived to Military Past Lives and found my people. People who had gone through similar experiences to mine, people who at last could understand, who knew how to listen, people who could teach me lots of things. It is quite funny to hear certain forum users (trolls) say I am an egotistic person, when I am always searching for people who can teach me new things. I am no leader. I was a warship captain in one of my past lives and I still don’t know how I could do the job. Even when I created my forum, my thought always was: “I don’t want this to be my forum, it is a forum for its members”. Circumstances, such as my insatiable curiosity or my thirst for knowledge, have made me an expert in my field. The Spanish-speaking countries are full of reincarnation beginners who want answers, and yes, I am there to help and answer those questions. But I am not a guru, I am just a reincarnationist who wants to find other reincarnationists to talk in deep about past lives. Not the theory, not the superficial talk that is all around the internet, but those things that really matter to people who remember past lives: how to deal with them. I always like to go beyond, and you just can’t do this with beginners.

So, here I stand, feeling restless, feeling this inner turmoil that was already there when I started to remember past lives, perhaps because we wouldn’t move if there were no inner turmoil inside, something to drive you on in search of answers. But years go by, and after all I have come to know, this inner turmoil is still here, only I don’t know where it is going to take me now. I keep feeling this strong need to express myself, to put into words all those past life emotions left abandoned in some corner of my soul. But when it is time to write, I am blocked. I can ramble for hours, but the important words will remain unsaid.

I am weary. Weary of hearing always the same doubts, of having the same discussions with scientists who don’t even bother to talk to us, of being added against my will to stupid Facebook groups about the afterlife where only inaccurate and frivolous articles are posted. Weary of finding (sometimes) great accounts, but being unable to shout it out loud, due to the witness’s completely understandable fear of being ridiculed. Weary of having to keep it all inside, as if remembering past lives were a dirty secret that might get you institutionalized. Weary of a world where money is all that matters. And to avoid more weariness, while I wait for more memories to arrive, I spend my days doing things that make me feel good, like exercise... or listening to music.

One of those precious gifts of life came to me unexpectedly the other day, when I listened to a special radio broadcast in which my elder brother participated. It was about the progressive rock band Arena. I know almost all their discography, but this jewel had gone unnoticed until now: it is called “Sirens”. And quite eerily (as always happens with Arena), it perfectly describes my actual mood in relation to past lives. I think it sums it all quite well: from the first whispers of your intuition, calling you to start the journey, to the last moments when you are about to get smashed into the rocks and you wonder why you paid any heed to those voices. Of course, the storm in the middle is when you are dealing with the past life memories themselves, engulfed in those strong emotions, fearing you will get drowned. It even mentions the one I miss the most, the one I can’t stop calling but only rarely comes: my spiritual guide and soulmate, the real culprit of all this inner turmoil... or is he my siren... or, better said, my merman? His song is so tantalizing, and at the same time, so deadly. Right now I am just drifting on the sea, wondering where the tide will take me.

I love those moments when you just have discovered a song and you just can’t stop hearing it, but you still don’t know the melody and all the verses by heart, so it keeps surprising you and taking you higher and higher. It is pure magic. 

SIRENS 

Silently calling 

I hear myself speak 

My breath is in my hands 

I cry out your name

Silently calling 

I feel so at peace 

And the time to surrender 

is the time you will take a hold of me 

What did you do when you woke today 

What did you feel, were you sad or afraid 

Searching your thoughts 

for reasons or meanings 

and the choices you made 

Silently calling 

in a field of dreams

where memories fade 

They keep passing through 

this soulless maze 

What did you do when you woke today

What did you feel, were you sad or afraid

Searching your thoughts for hope or relief

Looking for safety in the falling leaves

Splinters of virtue

from splintering hearts

The door is always closed

as it was from the start

Masters of freedom

Masters of light

Will you ever let me go

Take away this second sight

What did you do when you woke today

What did you feel, were you sad or afraid

Searching your thoughts

for warnings and traps

Nothing in your life will be the same!

Hanging to the sail

Caught behind the storm

Wait for the waves to come

Know the fear

Hide behind your smile

Crying for mercy

Hanging to the mast

Caught behind the storm

Wait for the sea to foam

Climb... Climb... Climb up to me

Hanging to the sail

Far beyond the storm

Lightning across the sky

Catch the rope

Cling to hope

Watch as our lives flash by 

Hanging to the mast

Beyond the storm

Saltwater burning

Shield your face from whiplash sprays

Hold your breath and

Neptune will make his next move

Hanging to the rail

Caught within the storm

Watch for the jagged land

Follow a line

From another time

Washed up on stone and sand

Grab the mast

Caught within the storm

Reach for a helping hand

We could share this calm experience now

In shadows I can see light

I whisper your name

But it’s lost in the night

Watching reflections of my own solitude

Heartfelt indifference

towards actions and truths

in shadows I can see light

I whisper your name

in the night

Spare me from those sirens’ lies 

Spare me from this grand illusion 

Spare me from those weeping eyes 

and promises of absolution 

Shall I stand without defence

Now that death is all around me

Did you hope for my surrender

leaving me to die on the

bloodstained ground

It’s only a lifetime

where heroes need heroic deeds

It’s only a lifetime

where children dream of breaking free

Follow the cause

Follow the signs

Drawn by a song to our own demise

It’s only a lifetime

dragged across the rocks

by the sirens’ whisper! 

Holidays and shadows.

A few days ago I returned home after my usual holiday season (the first of this year) at the beach. I have been quite hectic: exercise in the morning, preparing part of the lunch in advance, a couple of hours lying in the sun, walking along the shore or swimming in the water, a short break, and then more time out, relaxing both mind and body. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Lately I have been enjoying these holiday seasons more than ever before. When I was young I used to feel melancholic when I was near the beach, too many past life memories in the back of my mind, struggling to go out: my long-gone days as a British Navy officer, my days waiting for my Norwegian sailor almost in despair, the feelings of being already dead in a very different beach... No wonder holidays always depressed me.

Now those memories are not hidden, they are clear and very present, and they don’t depress me so much. Now I still love the sound of the wooden planks beneath my feet as I step on them, when I walk down the sea wall. It feels as if I am aboard a ship... a real ship manned by real men. I love to wear hats that resemble cowboy hats, because that makes me think of Colorado and the sun hurting my eyes. I also wear a beach dress with Native American people drawn on it, in memory of my family who was massacred by white men, and if I have a chance, I will gladly buy a pair of earrings with the shape of dreamcatchers for the same reason. I pretend to watch a ghostly Norwegian merchant ship on the horizon, getting near, bringing my love home again. I do all this hoping I will get more memories, something new I don’t know, or maybe some happy scene I had forgotten.

But, who knows why, this year it was the turn of the widow, so she turned up unexpectedly in the middle of my holidays, maybe reminding me I can’t escape, not yet. I have a slight idea of what could have triggered these new memories. Nothing I saw, heard, wore or watched... but just a weird feeling related to a decision: should I stay or should I go? The feeling of knowing you have to go, but not being sure what is best for you. The feeling of having no past, no option to come back to what is familiar to you, because you screwed it up and no one wants to have you near, ashamed of what they say you did, no matter if it is true or not, no matter you were declared not guilty by a judge. Being so scared of the future ahead of you, wondering if it can get any worse, as it eventually did.

So, I am suddenly in this filthy inn where a charitable couple agreed to give me a job and a bed, making clear to me that “This is no brothel”. But the meager pay they give me for serving the tables and cleaning the living room is not enough for my goals (just having a home and money to raise the daughter I had to leave behind, for God’s sake!) and I have to ignore their warning. Of course clients whisper and the charitable couple found out in the end. This is when they came to visit me in my room and told me I must go. My crying wasn’t enough to convince them otherwise, though at least it served me to buy me a week or two, so that I can think what to do next and look for another place. The worst part is I seemed to decide I’d better look for another man to give me the money and house I would never be able to have as a poor widowed woman who could barely read. Did I really think I would find a decent man in such a filthy inn, soldier and all? And would I be able to feign love for him? Well, why not, when I had been forced to fake that same love for my late husband in public for so long?

He is dead but I still hate him so much. He is the one to blame for my current situation. He is the one who turned my life into a living hell. It could have been fine: such a beautiful house, those gardens and the mare, those beautiful dresses and social meetings. But then came the slapping, the harsh words, locking me up in a bedroom, the black eye, the bathtub and the hairpin, the broken rib, the silence, the white powder. “I should be happy and this is where I am”, are my last thoughts.

When my current self had a thought about how many lies I was forced to tell, the widow almost shouted inside of me, saying that I shouldn’t judge. She won’t show me anymore if I judge, as that is what everyone does. And I know. And I do want her to bring me deep into that hell, as I feel there is so much rage and sadness and suffering down there, beyond the coldness and the falseness. Unlike Katrina, the widow is made up of so many layers, it is hard to get to the bottom. Still today it is so hard to know where the victim ends and where the murderess begins.

Coincidence or not, right after these bitter memories, I read one of the best chapters of Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3. Jamie was telling Brienne everyone is quick to judge him for slaying the mad king without even knowing what really happened. I think I must have felt like that for so long in my past life.  

Past life songs (2): Ascension.

Death and reincarnationists. It is not the first time I write about this, as death is always in my mind. Lately, it has become more present. Maybe the reason is I am getting old, and those I love even older. In this life I have been fortunate enough to lose only a young kitty, event that was quite painful to me and showed me what I was capable of doing for “just an animal”, but the mourning was short. When my grandparents died I was too small to know what all the fuss was about. And now, at 40, I have known closed deaths of relatives, but not close enough to make me cry. Or maybe all those defenses I built are being helpful now? “Don’t love anyone too much, because one day they will be gone, and you will die with them”. At least, that is what happened to me in WWII, though before that I had already lived other losses that broke my heart in a way I only can imagine today. But time keeps passing, inexorable. And death is getting closer.

One thing I have come to realize through remembering past lives. You become used to talk about death, you lose some of the fear of it, as you are certain death is not the end. But anyway death keeps being an annoyance. Like I said in an conversation not long ago, death is like a visit to the dentist: necessary, but always fearful because you don’t know what to expect, what it will be like this time, if you will be able to accept it and carry on with no unresolved issues. You can be more or less brave when facing your own or others’ death, but you eventually have to yield. There is no other way. And yielding is never easy. Our survival instincts make us fight, make us afraid of the end, of the dissolution of our ego, of forgetfulness. Whether we want it or not, death always brings some kind of suffering to ourselves or the ones we love. It makes us angry, sad, weak, we feel helpless and naked in front of death. The worst of it all is most of us are not prepared to face it. This is one of the reasons I am most thankful for being a reincarnationist: I know how I died in a few past lives, I know it is not that bad... at least when it is finally over.

And this is why I love so much this song by Arena called “Ascension”. I want it to sound (LOUDLY) in my cremation. There are so many past life feelings behind this song. However, it is not related to specific past life events, as it depicts the moment right after death. My memories of that kind are in no way similar to what the song says. I have never seen myself “ascending”. But I have felt the liberation, the end of the suffering, the departure. One chapter is over, let’s write the next. For a while, no more fear, no more judgment, no more rage, no more sadness. It is hard to leave behind your body, your being, your life, but once it’s done, it’s done (unless you want to become a ghost). And though I have felt that same detachment in some of my OBE’s, when you’re back in your body you seem to forget this physical life is what it is: not even a chapter, just a short line in the nearly eternal book of your spiritual life, the real one. But you forget and then death looks terrible again. I guess that's part of being human, and no one said being human is easy.

Rising up: you thought it was the end, and it is just a new beginning. 

ASCENSION

I feel vindicated

looking back on what I’ve done

Not so complicated 

when moments meet as one

Are you ready to part the veil?

And write a new beginning to this tale

Rising up

I see creation from the sky

I’m learning to fly 

Rising up

I see creation from the sky

This freedom is mine

Standing on the mountain

The olive leaf in hand

Drinking at that fountain

so that I might understand

Are you ready to start once more?

With no idea of what’s in store

Are you ready to part the veil?

And write a new beginning to this tale?

Rising up 

I see creation from the sky

I’m learning to fly

Rising up

I see creation from the sky

This freedom is mine 

Rising up

I see creation from the stars

We’ve travelled so far

Rising up

I see creation from the stars

We’ve travelled so far

Rising up

Time and space.

One of the prefabricated notions I’ve had to hear over and over again since I started my reincarnation journey is:

Time is an illusion.

During that journey I’ve come to the conclusion this isn’t true. Time will always exist wherever we are, because there will always be a present and a future, even when time might elapse differently in the spiritual world. When I was developing my Ultimate Theory I realized that time is not the real problem, it’s space.

Space is the illusion.

I know this is much harder to grasp, as time is intangible per se. It’s more a philosophical concept than an objective reality, no matter how many clocks we have invented to measure something that changes depending on our situation and the speed at which we are moving. On the contrary, “space” is something solid. We can touch the ground, the walls, we’re sitting on a chair and thanks to it we don’t fall into the abyss. We have to walk, run or ride a vehicle to move from point A to point B. It’s hard to imagine space is an illusion too, and we tend to believe only what we can see. However, at the same time, we keep going to more subtle “spaces” when we go to sleep. Yes, I mean physically, not in our minds or in our dreams. This is a reality, but surprisingly 99% of the world population lives completely ignorant to it.

Well, I was watching a Spanish TV series called El Ministerio del Tiempo, where public servants from all eras work to prevent history from changing. They move from one era to another through secret time doors. If something changes in the past, the future will also change, sometimes in quite a drastic way.

Obviously, a reincarnationist like me feels very identified with the characters’ feelings. The longing for your era, the things you miss when you’re in the future, the ideals for which you fought that are no longer there... At the same time I was thinking of a distant friend with whom I once shared a few past lives. This time we share the time period but we are too faraway. I thought of all those things I miss due to this situation. Space keeps us separated, but when I can perceive certain things that then turn out to be true, I wonder once again if space is just an illusion. Both of us are reincarnationists and know pretty well what remembering past lives means. We think so much about time... we can feel the past so present, so close at hand. We can feel so strongly that we are just the same we were all those years ago... You might not recognize them physically but you recognize the energy, the emotions, the tough memories, the beloved vision of a father, the love. It’s all there as if you can peek through a window and watch the past scene... as if you go through one of those time doors and you’re back with them. It doesn’t seem so, but it happens the same with space. I’m beginning to realize we underestimate so much the connections we have with others. I’m also find it harder to bear than a longing for the past, but there’s not much of a difference between time and space. It’s just the distance. It’s not so much time or space, it’s believing we are far apart from what you were, what you had, or your loved ones (old and new), when in reality we are joined forever. And the link is love. Pure love.  

Separateness is the illusion.

But hardest of all is knowing. Knowing that separateness is an illusion, and also knowing that while you know, everyone will keep being victims of the illusion. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Reincarnationists often complain about how lonely we feel, about how so few people remember past lives. We think it’s natural. Time makes us forget. But I guess space is even worse. It’s solid so it’s impossible to go through it. We tend to think it’s no use to worry for the ones that are in distant places. They can’t see us, they can’t hear our thoughts, they can’t feel what we feel. But what if all those barriers were only in our minds?

I can’t forget about my past. It’s here because time is nothing. That, I know now. But there’s more to it than that, it would seem. Space is nothing as well. Here and there are the same, my physical senses keep deceiving me, but I know now, so I can only act accordingly.

And like one of those characters in El Ministerio del Tiempo, I only have a possible course of action:      

“It is a point of honor. I am a soldier, and I never, ever, leave a brother in arms behind.”

Only, the battle is life. And death. And everything that is in-between.