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