Pitch black.

No, I am not gone, just busy with other projects. As I am getting used to speak of my darkest side and deepest thoughts everywhere, the bitter and long night watches are becoming less frequent. In the future I will probably save this place for musings (well, it was intended right for that), ramblings, wandering thoughts and ideas, everything that goes through my mind before I can finally put it into fine words... But I love it too much to leave it abandoned.

The other day I was reading Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5, and tears came to my eyes when I read the descriptions of what is like to be aboard a ship and travel long days and nights. Since I went to the Naval Museum of Madrid around two weeks ago, my past life as James has become very present. I have always said that my life in the Royal Navy is one that I would live over and over again. It had its downsides, but it makes me so proud to know how much I learned, how much I fought, how much I enjoyed each and every moment. No wonder I feel so nostalgic when I think about it. All our past personalities are part of who we are today, one way or the other, but probably James is the strongest one, even when it might not seem so. I want more memories, that is for sure, there are so many blanks to fill yet, pieces that I can’t seem to reach, both good and bad. I had a new one the other day and I treasure them like jewels. But, as we reincarnationists know, even the best of memories is just a brief glimpse of the past, blurred and distant, like echoes that whisper in the dark (this reminds me of another past life song I have to post one day).

I entitled this entry “Pitch Black” because I have always loved that English expression. These days it is hard to see a real “pitch black” something. Undoubtedly the only time I could see nothing, that is to say, NOTHING AT ALL, with my eyes opened, of course, was when I visited a cave and at the bottom of it we were told to turn our helmet lights off, only for five minutes. It was impressive. Disturbing. Scary. Even maddening, after a while. Or so they said, because I loved it all the same, and though in these cases people start to talk or make japes, I would have stayed there much longer. Maybe I would have started to see better than ever before, even meditating.

Other “pitch black” place I have known is the beach at night, if there is no moon and you are far enough off the town. But usually you have a light or two at the sea, maybe a ship passing, a beacon... It is also a bit scary, but you are near the land, quite safe, so it is not the same as sleeping in a boat or a ship.

When I was small and my family got up at 4:30 a.m. in the morning to drive to the coast, I would stare at the dark sky and felt so, so happy being a witness of such beauty, of such immensity up there... In moments like this I have always been so grateful of being alive. And now, knowing all I know of my past lives, I wonder if I felt just the same when I was James and breathed the salt air every night, as we were crossing the Atlantic Ocean, after a hard day’s work. I wonder what I thought then, what I feared, what I hoped, what I missed... Or maybe all my concerns disappeared and I would be enchanted beholding the pitch black sky above me or the stars shining, guiding me at night?

While I was reading that book, these words resonated to me as never before:

“On moonless nights the water was as black as maester's ink, from horizon to horizon. Dark and deep and forbidding, beautiful in a chilly sort of way, but he looked at it too long Tyrion found himself musing on how easy it would be to slip over the gunwale and drop down into that darkness”.

And even with all that darkness, they whispered to me: PEACE. Maybe it is because I knew that no one would attack in the middle of the night. Maybe it is because we would stop sailing and rest peacefully for a few hours. Maybe because those were the moments I yearned for when I was inland, attending boring sessions at the Parliament. Maybe because that was my dream come true, all that I had wished for before I became a sailor trained to kill the enemy.
Reading those lines I get clear images in my head, it is one of those instances when you can suspect it is not just your imagination creating a scene from the written words, but something else that comes from deep within you. Tears keep welling in my eyes when I think about it, it is as if my heart still longs for the sea, or maybe just for that long-forgotten peace, where a man like me could just sit and watch, be proud of his crew, and dwell in the illusion that the sea was all mine to sail... if only for a while.

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! 

Don't keep quiet.

Few things upset me more than seeing a mistreated woman denying the facts or rejecting the help of other people. (Curiously, I always like to remind people men can also be victims, not only women, but that's a different story). The other day I was watching this TV show where Spanish policemen are in action, and they attended a case of this type. There was a female social worker with them, trying to convince the victim to tell them what had happened. She had called the police and she had been beaten, but now she was saying her husband wasn't home and everything was fine. They knew she was lying, but they couldn't enter the house without her permission, and of course nothing can be done if she doesn't want to report the mistreatment.

I was sitting there in the sofa, getting emotional, wishing that the woman talked, knowing I would have given anything for having that kind of help back then. Thinking: "You don't know how damn lucky you are having those police officers at your door. Talk!" Just a word and you can be out of that nightmare... not like things were for me.

Well, last Sunday we had a similar "show", but this time live, at our next door. We heard our neighbors (who happen to be British) were having an argument. That's not unusual, but this time it was being stronger. There was a slam of the front door, her daughter was crying, the wife shouting he was an adult and he shouldn't be behaving like that. It looked like he had kicked them out. Some time later my boyfriend said the police was in our landing, talking to our neighbors. The woman must have called them, her husband didn't deny he had taken her by the throat and the hair, and we heard a police officer saying she had some bruisings and she had been hit in the head. An ambulance was called too. They finally arrested the man, who was trying to explain he is desperate, as he's an English teacher but he can't find a job here. He had to go with them in a car police (thankfully they didn't use handcuffs). Next morning I saw she took a taxi and left with a few suitcases.

All this has made me realize how common this kind of violence is still today, and how easily ignored. It has also reminded me of my own aunt, my dad's youngest sister, and it makes me wonder about how our memory works when we are kids. I was quite young then, maybe 7 or 8. She was the only family from my dad's side living in Madrid, and she had two main issues: being sterile and being married with an abuser husband. When she had problems with him, she could only resort to my dad (and of course my mum). I only have blurred memories, but somehow I know it was something that "resonated" with me, it's one of those instants in childhood when something catches your attention but you don't have a clue why. I remember I liked my aunt's husband. Uncle C was good-looking and always smelled nice. So, hearing my parents on the phone, or maybe discussing in the car while my brothers and I were in the rear sits, talking about what my aunt had said, how "he had dragged her along the hallway pulling her by the hair" sounded quite unreal. And it was scary. As far as I know, they didn't get separated, and she loved him... though the tears and the circles under her eyes told a different thing (and also her own words months later, though I always knew through my parents).

One day he died in a car crash. He was alone. I remember my aunt cried for him. I want to think deep inside she was as relieved as anyone else in the family (though of course you couldn't say that aloud). Luckily, she moved to the south with the rest of her siblings and she eventually found a new man, this time a good one.

It's sad I barely see her now. Anyway, I doubt she would want to talk about all that. But I wish so much I could sit with her and tell her: "You know, I understand you now, I perfectly know what you went through, I know how it feels, how alone and impotent you can feel".

The greatest thing of all is she's always been the merriest woman in all the family, before and after those events. And the most supportive for all of them. She always was my favorite aunt. She must be such a great soul.

Everything is fine.

When memories become too tough and I feel like I can’t bear it anymore, I often get a message from my guide telling me not to worry, everything is fine. Usually it comes with a sense of infinite love and peace in my heart that brings back all the serenity bad emotions threatened to break. It’s like a storm that finally comes to an end.

Earlier today, while I was reading an exceptional NDE account, I was reminded of this undisputable truth, though I can understand it’s not easy to believe for most people. We just don’t understand the purpose of so much suffering in this world. All the people dying, the lack of wisdom and harmony, the infinite cruelty of human beings, disgraces, natural disasters, children starving... everyone asking “If there is a God, where is He? How can He allow this to happen?”

But in the middle of the turmoil, in the middle of my tears, when I’m sobbing uncontrollably due to events from a distant past that still affect me, I always hear my guide’s voice: 

“It’s all right, hush! Enough crying. Everything’s fine!”

We are made to feel emotions, but we are not our emotions. There was something I read in that NDE account to which I can relate so much: when you are out of your body you feel a complete detachment. You can feel a bit sad, but surprisingly you don’t feel anything for your own body, you don’t care too much about the ones you are leaving behind. Somehow you know death is not the end and everything is fine. We are so much more than flesh and bones, we are so much more than someone physical bound to become dust again. Does it matter if you live more or less years in a mortal body, when your soul is immortal?

Well, I was wondering why Johann’s death affects me so much today, now that I know we’re immortal, now that I’ve come to the conclusion reincarnation is a fact and we all have lived many times and we’ll live a lot more. My guide replied to me: “That’s what YOU know, but Katrina didn’t. Katrina lost all she had. She didn’t deal with her feelings back then, and so you must deal with them now”.

And the crying goes on. It will as long as there’s pain inside of me. And anger. And desires to shout. What happens when you block a torrent with a dam, when you cut a life short before the feelings were worked through? You die and get rid of your emotions when you shed your astral body. Death is like a soothing ointment. It relieves the pain, it brings oblivion, peace... for a while. Maybe death is like a drug. But as soon as you have a new body, the energy nets that weren’t totally repaired rekindle those past emotions, and life goes on... Is there a reason for this, or is it just how it works? My position is clear. It’s just a natural process.

And whatever happens, everything is fine. After all, we are love. We are. For eternity.

IN MEMORY OF THE MARTYRS

Life is like a tall ship

Drifting gently from the shore

Time is like a fair wind

With a lifetime to explore

The beauty that surrounds you

Was meant to be adored

The problems that surround you

Were meant to be ignored

We are love, we are, we are love

We are love, we are, we are love

I dreamt I held a baby

I dreamt I held a child

I dreamt I held a young man

A prisoner in my hand

My hand I could not open

The man grew up inside

A prisoner without reason

Just on the other side

We are love, we are, we are love

We are love, we are, we are love

The blood red rose of summer

Grows elegant and tall

In memory of the green grass

Beyond the guardian wall

The green grass grows forever

Beneath the bloody sky

In memory of the martyrs

She'll cover when they die

We are love, we are, we are love

We are love, we are, we are love

August again...

I wish I could do something to prevent this from happening. I wish I could control it somehow. But it seems I just can’t. I didn’t start this month feeling too well, but it wasn’t too bad either. WWII was far from my mind. I should already know that you can’t forget your past lives. When everything seems peaceful and is going smoothly, they strike again.

It was quite unexpected. I was dozing off on the sofa, tired after a weekend with lack of sleep and loud music until 3 a.m., four nights in a row, due to local celebrations. Suddenly, I noticed the heavy weight on my heart again, the desire to cry, the feelings of loss and emptiness, the fear and the anxiety. Then I got some blurred flashes of what looked like a bombing in a building with high ceilings, maybe a church, though I am not sure. There was dust in the air, making me cough. I crouched, frightened, among the rubble, the stones. I tried to move them but my fingers ached. I only wanted to go out.

A bit later I saw myself lighting up some candles with a stick, in a church. No idea if it could have been the same church.

I felt it was 1942, before Johann’s death, but not too long before. I think I was still hoping to see him again, hoping he would have the comfort I needed so much, to cope with the sad events that had happened to me of late. I had tried to tell him in my letters, but I didn’t want him to be concerned about me. He was fighting in the front, he didn’t need distractions. I didn’t know I would never see him alive again.

Since then, I feel like there’s a stone slab on my shoulders. No images, no memories, come to me through meditation, but I only need to think a bit about it and my eyes fill with tears. It’s like I am still losing him, losing it all: my hopes, my strength, my sanity, my will to live... my life. Once more, I feel like I am paralyzed in that beach, with so much rage inside of me, so much pain, but unable to utter a word.

Katrina keeps crying silently, through me. She doesn’t understand the world she’s living in. She doesn’t know what to do to stop so much suffering. She still breathes, but she died the day Johann died. 

Hopeless.

I have started this month of August feeling a bit weird. I have come to suspect that every time I feel trapped in my present, without hopes of doing what I really want to do in the job scenario, and slowly sinking in a depression I don’t want, I start to get in a past life mood from my Black Widow life. It wouldn’t be too bad if it was just me and myself, my thoughts, fantasies, emotions and dreams. I could spend a few days lost in my own world, barely talking and pretending I’m interested in some TV show or movie while I stare at the screen, lost in some old scenes coming from my mind and not from the TV set. Then I would decide it’s enough and I would be back in the real world, as if nothing had happened. But it’s not that easy when those past life emotions affect your relationship with your partner, who doesn’t understand why all of a sudden you don’t want to go out or don’t care about the plans for the weekend.

“What’s up with you?”

“Nothing, I’m just imagining myself in an old bathtub thinking how to slit my wrists, as I got married and this is not what I thought it would be”.

And if he demands some attention it’s even worse, as then he makes me feel as an enslaved wife whose only duty is to make him happy... and that triggers me even more. I go to bed thinking the slight discomfort in my right eye could be due to a reflection of my past life when I got it black. As I fall asleep I can only see the white gown I was wearing in my wedding night. I can still feel the fear of a maiden, the bitterness of a young girl who liked a different suitor, my heart pierced with his first threats. And it seems all this is because the prospect of being “just a wife” for the rest of my life brings me the same feeling of hopelessness, a dark sense of foreboding that tells me “This can’t go right. Don’t let it happen again. Just run!”

Well, it looks like I can’t choose. No matter how much I try, for now my plans are always unattainable. I don’t know whether I dream too much or my wits are not enough to make those dreams come true. Maybe the Universe is punishing me for being evil with my past life husband. In this case I wonder how the Universe is punishing him for being a son of a bitch with me. No need to say I don’t believe in any of these possibilities. Or maybe I chose a crappy country and a crappy profession to ensure I would remain unemployed for half of my life, so that I learn to be imprisoned in my own home and feel happy for being a great cook. Is that something worth learning? No need to say I don’t believe that’s the point. Whatever it is though, the Universe can’t prevent me from wanting to escape through a window again.

It’s hard to come back to reality and remember things are different today: my partner is not a monster and I’m not a victim of female roles or a sexist society. It’s hard to remember I just find myself in certain circumstances and it’s my decision to deal with them one way or the other. Sometimes it feels right to have the wisdom of several past lives on my shoulders. But other times I just feel tempted to follow the same path of self-destruction. When I've become tired of what the world can offer me, does it matter if I decide to get off, even if it's just for a little while? 

Death by hanging.

I have a friend who thinks she died by hanging in a past life, though she has no specific memories. She described the feelings previous to this kind of death so perfectly, I have no doubts she has had the experience. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t by hanging, or maybe the circumstances surrounding that death are different from what she suspects. But I’m certain she’s been there, waiting to die, feeling how your whole world sinks, trying to accept the inevitable end, trying to control the fear, the anger, the loneliness... There are things you can only understand if you have lived through them.

I advised her to listen to a song by Arena called “Tantalus”. This song triggered me when I was just a beginner remembering past lives. Coincidentally I discovered this band by the same time, and somehow their music became my past life anthem, as they have so many lyrics to which I can relate so much. “Tantalus” is only one of them. There’s another one called “The hanging tree” that also stirs some feelings, especially if you have been hanged twice... as in my case.

I think I must have told somewhere how these two lives that ended in such a similar way, were completely different, as were the feelings associated to each of them. When I found out I had been hanged a second time, I just couldn’t believe it, for a while. But the reasons were not the same. In the second one I had hopes I would be spared, after all I was a woman, and I had managed to be declared “not guilty” before. Something went wrong this time, I didn’t understand what was happening, and of course I was convinced I didn’t deserve to die that way. In the first one, I knew I was condemning myself doing what I did. It wasn’t unexpected, but even so, the weight of the emotions during the last days is possibly stronger. As I was telling my friend, even today there are times I can’t shake off those feelings. There was guilt, but also a lot of grief and desperation. I had nothing to lose, and I was tired of fighting. I think I barely talked when they asked me to say something in my defense, as I knew it would be useless. They had already decided my condemnation, they had been after me for a long time. They only needed the final excuse. And I gave it to them. Even now, as I write these words, tears fill my eyes, still wondering what if I had made different decisions, what if I had chosen another path.

I often fantasize about how it feels to be hanged, how agonizing it must be to be deprived of the ability to breathe, until you just lose consciousness and it’s all over. I don’t have those memories. I do remember the liberation that comes after death. Sometimes it’s funny, to see how people who kill think they’re punishing you, when more often than not they are doing you a favour.

TANTALUS

Standing in water, but dying of thirst 

This is my thanks and this is my curse 

Try as I might, the fruit on the trees 

All remain beyond reach, beyond wishes 

or pleading for one last chance 

Waiting for time to pass me by 

Waiting for freedom, waiting to die

Where can I go, in a world without hope?

There is never a place 

for a soul that has broken so 

Trust in no one 

Trust in no one 

Linking the chains that weigh down your reason 

Nothing to blame, but the actions you choose 

Driven insane by the conscience of treason

Running in vein from a life of abuse 

The closer I get the further I am 

The journey I make is the course of the damned

The distance I go is no distance at all 

And I climb to the sky but find myself falling so 

Trust in no one 

Trust in no one 

Quench my thirst - Fill my heart 

Hold my hand - stay close by 

Talk to me - Don’t leave me crying here 

Standing in water, yet dying of thirst 

This is my thanks and this is my curse 

Empty forgiveness for old indiscretions 

And such condemnation for just one transgression 

Find me now - Set me free 

Find me now - Set me free 

Waiting for time to pass me by 

Waiting for freedom, waiting to die 

Why do you smile at my timeless ordeal here 

And why do you laugh at my hopeless appeal for your mercy? 

Tear away the chains - Free me now

No one else to blame - Let me go

Tear away the chains - Free me now

Driving me insane - Let me go

Tear away the chains - Free me now

No one else to blame - Let me go

Tear away the chains - Free me now

Driving me insane - Let me go  

                                                 

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.

Pride.

We often talk about bad memories associated to our past lives. Traumas are frequent, also feelings of nostalgia and all kind of unresolved issues we must deal with sooner or later. Does this mean there are no good memories? No, not really, but it seems it happens like in real life: for some reason human beings like to focus in the negative part of everything, and we easily forget the good moments we have lived with friends or relatives.

Lately a curious thing has occurred to me in two different occasions. The situation was almost identical. The emotion attached to the particular situation was more intense the second time. I wouldn’t say it is a real trigger, as I don’t get clear memories. If I wasn’t so aware of my past lives, I would probably let it go or just say I am especially dreamy that given day. In both occasions I was leaving my home to go somewhere else. Flocks of hair partially covered my eyes, and though I am a woman this time around, I had the feeling I was a young man with long, light brown hair. I take a handbag I recently bought, with a strap over the shoulder and of a greenish color. I don’t know why but every time I take it I feel like a soldier who goes to war, not a normal soldier, but one that has to embark in a wooden ship docked in the harbor. I am a sailor and I don’t know when I will return.

I leave. The weather is cloudy, as if it is about to rain. As I walk I see my feet striding fast, but in my mind I don’t see my usual shoes, but black boots. I like to adopt a martial rhythm, as if I am marching along. The ground is wet, and if I am stepping on a cobbled street, the flashback gets even clearer. It brings a feeling of pride and I can’t get enough of it. I am happy of being where I am, of being who I am. I am young and feel strong, and above all, I feel that what I am doing is honorable and worthy. I carry just what I need to survive in my bags, and I am fine with it. I also get a glimpse of a huge ship looming over me as I get closer to the decks, and I am so proud I am part of the crew and I know how to sail. Crossing the ocean doesn’t sound dangerous, and though I will miss my home I am not bothered to be abroad for so long, doing what I most love.

The memory is gone in a few seconds. Past and present seem to become one, but you only need a word or something catching your attention to be back in your current body, in your tedious current life. The emotion lingers a bit longer though. Tears were in my eyes as I typed the above lines, just evoking the scene and feeling it so close, as if it had happened yesterday. I started to remember my Royal Navy life because I felt as disappointed with my job as I felt in 18th century, but that doesn’t mean there is no other kind of feelings. Maybe I am recovering the same enthusiasm I had when I was young and eager to travel the world, and that’s fantastic.

Age and time become so weird when you remember past lives...  

Connections.

I was going to keep on reading Children’s Past Lives by Carol Bowman last night, but I was a bit tired. So I looked around the nearby bookshelves in one of my new flat’s rooms, and a WWII encyclopedia caught my eye. It was a two volume book with a lot of pictures, so I decided to flick through. I instantly knew why it is something I avoided my entire childhood. Though I haven’t been especially “past life moody” in the last couple of weeks, I felt a strong emotion just seeing the complete outfit of a Wehrmacht soldier, just like the one my boyfriend wore in the 30’s. But the worst came when I saw a collection of military medals used to decorate soldiers and I felt pure rage. I am always surprised how past life emotions are always there, hidden, but ready to come out again if you only let them. Another thing that surprises me is I have always seemed to be more affected by Johann’s death than my own. Maybe this is because that is what killed me, not the bullets. 

Rage. No medals were awarded to him, but he died anyway, just one more of the many victims in a senseless war, like all wars. I still wonder where he is buried, whether his family knew or not, I wonder whether he is remembered by someone else than me. I always tell myself it doesn’t matter anymore. He died as Johann, but he is still alive. I died as Katrina, and she is still living inside of me. Death means nothing. And though this is good, perhaps it is the real problem: she still lives, so her pain is real. Maybe he is mourning too, somewhere. If he is incarnated, maybe he remembers too.  

When the letters were beginning to get blurred I went to bed. I don’t take this as a real memory, as I was half asleep, half awake, but dark images of my flat in Cologne, during the 60’s, appeared in my mind. I wondered about my thoughts about Nazi soldiers back then, when I was a young man in Germany and I also felt so angry about things happening in my country: the denial of our past, the attempts to make us forget about Nazism and the war we had lost. My grandfather getting old and being forgotten even with all the medals he did win (not sure if this was during WWI or WWII). He deserved so much better for being a war veteran. A word stood out so clearly in my head: shame. We were so ashamed of our past, but how could we be? I was smoking in the dark, as always. I saw the drugs again. I saw a paper in my hands. But what made me so anxious? I thought maybe I got to read news about the last Nazis who escaped and made it to other countries, I wondered what I used to think of them... I don’t know. But I do know there was already so much anger brewing inside of me, probably a consequence of my German soldier’s death (whom I might have felt as a coworker then, if I had remembered) and my suicide. What would have happened if we had survived the war? Johann would have ended up dead anyway, possibly in France too. And I don’t think my fate would have been much better, maybe I would have died in a bombing, or even raped, or sent as a prisoner for collaborating with Nazi soldiers. Instead, there I was, now one of them (the German people), but in an invaded city, where I had to be faithful to Americans, my pride trodden down over and over again, and an infinite darkness still in my heart.

And so we are connected in the great Circle of Life.

Then I was back in the present and the words “Life’s a circle, I recall” were in my mind. They are from one of my all time favourite rock bands, called Barclay James Harvest. A beautiful song that now seems to be clearly related to reincarnation. Or, at least, to the way things are: no matter the events, no matter how you feel, but you always have to carry on. And so, I find myself here, watching pictures in books and thinking “Life is so strange: I know all these people are reincarnated now and with some of them I have had so close connections... It seems I already had them in my latest life, who knows if I stared at their pictures the same way I stared at their avatars on the Internet a couple of years ago, feeling an unexplained attraction, still half aware of what it all really meant. The world keeps spinning on and on, and we have changed bodies, but nothing else changed”.

Awareness makes things a bit easier, but sometimes distance still feels insurmountable.

THE WORLD GOES ON

See the gambler make a stand

Holds a lifetime in his hand

Win the game or lose control

But the world goes on forever 

Life's a circle, I recall

Shadows played upon the wall

You pay the piper to call the tune

And the song goes on forever 

And when all the words have gone

There's the thought to carry on

Just like a bird that sings

Leave it all behind and spread your wings

You can leave it all behind - spread your wings 

Lay me down

Saw the road move on before me

Times when I was tired and lost my way

Looking at life and strangely for the first time

Thinking that I could stay here

But the world moves on forever

And when all the words have gone

There's the thought to carry on

Just like a bird that sings

Leave it all behind and spread your wings

You can leave it all behind - spread your wings 

At peace (2).

It is strange, once you have been remembering past lives for a few years, to observe how you deal with memories in a different way. Then you realize how wise your subconscious mind is, letting you see only snippets of those past lives until you are ready to see more. I wonder how I would have dealt with the details that were revealed to me in my latest regressions at the beginning, when there were already a deep longing and a deep depression caused by the death of people I loved. It is clear it is no good for your own mental health to be flooded with so many emotions. It took me a few months to understand my Norwegian sailor hadn't abandoned me, had never hurt me, he didn't even die before me. I missed him so much during that life, and it hurt so much to leave him behind. Now, losing all my Indian tribe was terribly painful. I have seen so much death in my regressions, I have remembered so many things, sometimes you think there can't be more waiting. But there always is. I was quite surprised when I remembered I had seen dead people in other lives: old relatives, compatriots fighting in a revolution, my German soldier, right before my eyes... I just can't begin to imagine how a little girl must have felt seeing all those corpses, the bloody remains of the slaughter, the pregnant woman killed in the teepee where the white men broke into, the body of her close friend. Well, that isn't true: I can. Enough pain has reached me, more than two hundred years later, for me to imagine. But probably not all. Even so, I felt the weight in my heart for two days, only when I regressed, not during daytime. In the second regression, where I remembered a bit more what happened to me the years following the massacre, I felt a lot of relief. I felt a lot lighter. I felt like I have finally reached the end of my journey, the final pieces of the puzzle fitting together, as I even realized this life is probably the reason why I have always felt like a stranger and never could fit in a group. Coincidence doesn't exist, I always say.

Feeling lighter doesn't mean I don't feel pain anymore. As I write and see in my mind the fresh memories, tears well in my eyes again. I don't believe in complete "healing", if that means you turn cold towards your own past and forget everything about it. That hasn't happened to me yet, in any of my past lives, and no, I don't think it is because I am still stuck in my past or I need a hypnotherapist doing something with my brain. I think human beings are emotional beings, and memories are always linked to emotions, you just can't get rid of them completely. I feel the Indian girl I was had a good life after all, though a bit short. The pain I carried in my inside throughout all that lifetime is just indescribable, but I accepted my fate. I would have preferred to part and go with my kin to those green lands, but maybe the gods decided I had to live, and I obeyed. People would stare curiously and sometimes mockingly at me, but I didn't care. White men have always been very ridiculous, and I still think so nowadays. Whatever happened, it is amazing how it is all part of me today, the good and the bad. And though I know the journey doesn't end here, I feel like a new sun is rising and I have hopes for the future.

I have always said being here is a real gift. I love being alive, as much as I probably love being dead. I have left so many questions, doubts, and so much suffering behind, I only can be so grateful of being here, of being the way I am, and of having met so many wonderful fellow travellers on the path.

Mourning (2).

It turns out I talk a lot about mourning in this blog, but I am not sure about the reason. It is true I was in a difficult situation in my current relationship when I started to write here, and it is also true I had a lot of mourning to do in regards to my Black Widow life. Both lives were merging into one, as I knew a great part of my behavior had an origin in the XIX century, when my husband cruelly mistreated me.

But now it is a different mourning, the real mourning that takes place after you lose a loved one. I was born missing someone, and recalling past lives and finding out death is not the end helped me understand space is an illusion. Distance is an illusion. No one goes “to the other side”, though the illusion is so strong you really feel a profound emptiness that breaks your heart. Now that I have finally overcome all those feelings and I can’t say I don’t miss anyone anymore... all right, only occasionally, it seems the Universe sends me the final test to see if I can graduate. The majority of my past life memories include loss in one way or the other. I don’t think this is uncommon, but in my case it is a repetitive pattern I don’t know how to interpret: 

• In XIX century I died and I left my sailor behind. In this life he was the main person to blame of this past life journey.
• In XX century my German soldier died (same soul than before) and I killed myself.
• Long before that, he was my father and he was caught and killed by invaders. My mother and I were enslaved. I suspect I killed myself or died violently.
• Not sure when, all my Native American family was slaughtered by white men and I was the only one left.

Mourning for a loved one and accepting their loss, is already hard. Mourning for an entire family, including old people and children, a whole tribe, the only people you knew and grew up with, is awaking new emotions I had never felt through my past life journey, and I can say it hasn’t been an easy journey.

I wonder why I am remembering this now. Is there a point? Do I need something else to heal? I thought it was over, I wasn’t even interested on finding out more about that little Native American girl I once saw in one of my flashes, ages ago, when I was a newbie and tried my first regressions. If I were a believer in karma, I would have to say I spent the rest of my lives killing and breaking up families to deserve so many separations from my loved ones. Or... maybe I could think I keep doing something wrong and I don’t learn, so the same events keep repeating again and again. What is there to learn from the loss of a loved one? Is there really a way to make it “right”? No, I don’t believe that. Last time I asked my spirit guide he said I already knew. And my theory, as I said in my last entry, is I am doing kind of a master course on losing people you love and mourning, with the only purpose of understanding and be able to help when I am ready. There are a number of reactions to that event. As in any other event, some of those reactions can be disastrous and lead you to your own death. I guess losing people and things is one of the main causes for pain in this world. Pain is on the root of many other feelings that can destroy your soul. It takes great courage and wisdom to live a life carrying the burden of that loss on your shoulders. Usually people don’t understand the toughness of these trials. I think we have still so much to learn from death and beyond. I am beginning to wonder if part of my fascination about death comes from the fact it is always an invaluable opportunity to grow stronger. It is a tough lesson, of course. Maybe that is the reason we must live through it so many times.

I haven’t seen yet the end of my Native American life. But while I was recalling the beginning of my mourning phase yesterday, after the initial shock, I was feeling like a seventy-year-old more than like a little kid. Another thing that surprises me is the absence of any kind of desire to avenge their deaths, as opposed to other past lives of mine. Maybe I was too innocent to feel like that, maybe I was so devastated there was only room for darkness in my heart, the darkness of my own sorrow. I wasn’t looking for answers, there were no whys. It happened, that is all. The sun goes up, the sun goes down. People live, people die. I believed they were somewhere faraway, but still alive. I was sad they had gone to a place where I couldn’t follow, just like Sam when he thinks he has lost Frodo (scene that always made me so emotional). Only, my kin were really dead, and they were not coming back.

Beliefs and facts.

I have been having a small disagreement (not even serious discussion) with someone on the internet about astral projection. I was trying to make her see astral projection must not be mistaken for mental projection (also known as remote viewing) or other type of psychic phenomena, which for her all belonged to the same bag, little more than “deep altered states of consciousness” such as meditation. She was intended to claim our disagreement was just due to semantics, and I insisted it is more than that. There is a difference, because I KNOW it, I have experienced it, and I have been doing it, along with lots of research, for two years now. You are welcome to believe in anything you want, you can doubt until you have your own experience, but please, keep an open mind and don’t throw my experiences to the bin just because I use the word “astral”, because you prefer to believe in scientists who suddenly had eye-opener experiences rather than in an “average” person like me (who funnily enough happens to be a scientist too), or because you just can’t understand those experiences and can’t bring yourself to believe in such “lunatic claims”. Reality is much wider than your beliefs or what your eyes can see. Eventually it looks like we were only having a misunderstanding and she didn’t want any help, which is fine with me, but in the meanwhile some feelings turned up.

I often feel so frustrated. It’s like talking to kids. It’s like witnessing those stares of disbelief when you are explaining a dog’s owner that their beloved pet has some “little bugs” (also known as mites) inside his ears, and that’s what’s making him shaking his head or making a bloody mess of his skin with his paws. That stare of disbelief becomes one of bewilderment when you take them to the microscope and invite them to take a look to the sample you took with a cotton swab. I think I have rarely felt such a pleasure in my clinical practice.

With astral projection is just the same. Only when you have experienced it you can begin to KNOW there is something real about it. You can doubt about it and have thousands of interpretations about what kind of phenomenon is. You can choose whatever names you want and try to classify your experiences in a thousand phases like Robert Monroe did. But you just can’t doubt it is REAL. Astral projection is not a fantasy, or “a very real dream”, or the delusion of someone who wants to believe in them. Astral projection is literally that: an OUT OF THE BODY EXPERIENCE. You are in a different body moving in a different dimension. A non-physical reality? Another plane? Those are all different names to explain the same reality. And that reality is a fact. But it seems certain people just don’t want to listen when a fact contradicts their beliefs, and they seem to think you just “believe” in them and you are trying to convince them of something, when you are just trying to explain to them a reality as real as the sun being a star or a disease being transmitted by water due to other type of “little bugs” living in it. It is just one step more from ignorance to actual knowledge. But some just want to go on blind. Others experience it spontaneously or learn to control it thanks to my advice... and then I feel the same pleasure when I see they have finally discovered another small part of the Truth.

Well, yesterday night I meditated a while before going to sleep and concentrating for another of my “delusional journeys” in the astral realm. I got asleep. But before that I started to get flashes from a past life. Flashes that are not new but were very important in that almost forgotten past life. My mother was being raped on a wooden table by a wild and strong man, while I was cowering in a corner gripping a knife in my hand, unable to move to save her. I was only a kid of maybe six, seven years old. I was hearing the screams of my mother, and I was willing to stab that damned knife in his back or his foot to stop him. I am not sure whether I eventually did it. If I did, it is likely I was pushed back or slapped and then I crouched, and I stayed there paralyzed, until he left and my mother and I could hold each other again, both trembling and weeping. That moment marked the rest of my life. Even my family knew it, but they always said I was too young and small to do anything to protect her. That wasn’t comforting to me, and I kept blaming myself for not being able to prevent that from happening. That feeling of frustration was always with me and determined a lot of the things I did afterwards. I grew up to be a really strong man, but I never was strong enough to protect my family. Sometimes you just can’t change things. And that same feeling of frustration is the one that haunts me when I feel there is nothing I can do or say to change the course of nature. I guess human beings are also part of that “nature”. I just can't change people's mindset, I just can't make stupidity disappear from the Earth, that same stupidity that makes people kill others just because they believe in different gods.

And that kills me.

You can give crutches to the lame, but you forget maybe they don’t want to walk faster. You can try to take the blindfold off their eyes, but you forget maybe they are happy in the darkness. You want to make this world a better place to live, but you forget this world doesn’t need to be changed, maybe. It is a place for fools, it is a place to kill and burn, it is a place for confusion and suffering. You only can sit down and watch the madness reign.