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.  

Drugs.

I’ve been avoiding this matter for days. After a hectic short period in my life, where I couldn’t do much past life work, apart from the book on children who remember I was writing, I have plenty of leisure time to spare again. I guess one day I’ll tell what happened with my great “premonition dream” and the “wonderful” job I got and quit, but right now I need to talk about serious stuff... really serious stuff.

I’ve talked about drugs before in this blog, but when past life scenes repeat again and again, it usually means there’s something that still needs to be processed. And this is the only place I can do it safely. Drugs are a very delicate matter, and also have a morbid component that causes attraction and revulsion at the same time. But most of all... it brings me to the darkest side of human nature, to the darkest side of... myself. Talking about it is always hard. But keeping silent doesn’t help.

June has always been a strange month for me. It’s not as tough as May, but it often makes me feel uneasy, not completely down, but unbalanced... as if I’m walking on a tight rope knowing I’m going to fall into the abyss. These words have reminded me of this Supertramp album cover that reflects so well what I mean:

Coincidence or not, the other day I was feeling weird like that. I meditated, and the images I got were very similar to what I described in that other entry I’ve mentioned above. I was in my old and dark flat in Köln, in the 60’s. Car lights shine through the window and reflect on the walls. I see the coffee table in the living room, the threadbare sofa where I sleep, rather than in the bed (actually, I think I don’t remember any bed, save the hotel beds where I took the women). I see the cigarettes and matchbox on the table. Though I don’t have a clear image, I know there are other drugs too (the flash of a spoon). I feel the anxiety, the inner rage, the hole in my heart. But I can’t understand why.

I don’t remember much of my college years, though I have the inkling my friends were some kind of extremists who loved to protest against our Government, and I even suspect we considered to take some kind of violent action at some point. I don’t know if I ever got involved in that. I only know I was very angry. And though I had a few personal problems, they were not enough to create so much anger inside me. And my only wish was to forget all that darkness, to escape the emptiness of my soul.

It wasn’t the first time I saw how I did it, but it was the first time I saw myself in front of the bathroom mirror, bare-chested, syringe in hand, ready to inject the heroin. “It’s easy”, were the words coming to my mind. Looking at yourself in the mirror is like doing it to another person, so the first times it was easier that way. There was less pain, more distance. It was easier to control the trembling of the hands. And the relief was immediate. Dreamless sleep and sweet oblivion... that was all I needed. Death was all I wanted.

I felt like shit afterwards, of course. Not because the effect of the drug (or not only because of that), but disappointed with myself, perfectly knowing I might not wake up again one of those nights... and not caring at all.

Now, looking in retrospect, I can understand. I see Katrina inside the man I was in the 60’s. I see the same desires of killing myself, of ending so much suffering. It was as if I had been in Hell before, and that Hell still attracted me strongly, like a giant magnet stealing me the will to live. Coincidence or not, my age then was very close to the age Katrina was when she died. It’s the same age I was when depression reached its maximum peak in this life. The same old patterns were repeating again.

The positive part of all this is somehow I decided “No more” and left all that darkness behind, to make something good of my days and become a real man who fought for freedom and justice. I still wonder how I made it, but I guess this proves light and darkness always go hand in hand.

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