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.

In the zone.

Some people use this expression to describe that “state of mind” where you can easily access past life memories, like many children do when they are riding in a car, having a bath or getting ready to go to sleep. But adults can experience it too. It can happen when you are doing a task that requires a bit of mental concentration but not a lot of effort, like ironing for example, so that your mind can wander. Other times you just get triggered by something you saw or a slight emotion, and if it strikes hard, it can send you straight to past life mood. I would say this is a step further than being “in the zone”, as past life mood is also a deep emotional “state of mind” where past and present seem to merge into one. You feel as if you are living in two worlds (or more) at the same time, and you don’t know how long it will last. Sometimes it is really difficult to shake it off.

Last week the death of a Spanish soldier on duty bothered me a lot, but it stayed in the background as there were other things occupying my mind. But when last Friday I watched his funeral on the news, I found out his wife was pregnant and due to give birth, and while I saw her there, completely devastated, I felt like I was being stabbed in my heart. I felt the wound, the shift of energy in my whole body, like a bolt of lightning. I had just had lunch and I was getting ready to go out, but I couldn’t. Even before remembering past lives I always knew I was very sensitive to this kind of events. I knew it was strange as I had never had any relation with the military, but back then reincarnation was very far from my mind. Now, that I do know I was involved in the military, but in other lives, the intensity of the reaction still felt strange. “How many more?”, I thought. That is my question now, and that was my question then, when I was a British Navy officer, tired of fighting in wars and watching young men falling one after the other. I have stopped wondering if this means there are still past life emotions that need to be “healed”. I don’t think there is anything to be healed. The only thing that remains is the same soul that lived through war and the loss of so many fellow soldiers, the same disappointed captain who witnessed how powerful, well-dressed men, safe in their offices, gave orders and sent young, innocent people, to fight and die for them, never caring how many families would be broken or how many fatherless boys would have to grow up alone. Feeling sad and angry, I had to sit down on the floor of my bedroom for a while, with tears in my eyes, suddenly remembering my own death in a war ship, my last thoughts about my wife and child I was leaving behind. It is long since I suspect I haven’t remembered everything. From the historical data I have, I know I was quite aware my end could be a bitter end, my job was quite dangerous after all, and I had even written my will a few years before. But I am sure my death wasn’t as peaceful as it seems. It wasn’t just my family, there must have been a lot of bitterness towards my superiors and the way things went those last days of battle. My actions may have been labeled as heroic, but the truth is a lot of those men dying with me were my men. My dear men.

Wars keep happening, and stupid deaths too. I don’t know who is to blame, I don’t even know there has to be someone to blame. We are all human beings, and we are here to live as human beings. We are killed today. But tomorrow we will kill. And no, nothing guarantees we won’t. The thing is that funeral sparked a flame on me and I couldn’t shake off the past life mood in a few hours. I grabbed my bags (heavy with stuff for my new home) and while I was walking to catch the bus I was feeling like the young sailor filled with dreams I was over two centuries ago. I could almost see the wet, cobblestoned ground under my feet as I was heading for the harbor, to get aboard a ship, not knowing what kind of adventures were waiting for me or when I would be back home again. The lock of hair falling over my eye felt like my old blonde curls caressing my cheeks when I was a young English man longing to be at sea and feel the breeze on my skin. I almost could hear the sound of the wooden planks my shoes would make as soon as I walked up to the deck.

Then past life memories from my last life, during the Cold War in West Germany, came to my mind too, as I had been wondering about my strong feelings about the Wall and my family’s past for days. It is weird, overwhelming, but at the same time so incredible, and wonderful, to feel nothing is past, to feel you are still the same person, the same soul, but living in a different country and in different circumstances. Nothing is lost. Not me, nor the other souls you met. There is continuity in life, there is always hope. You write to people who live in the other side of the Atlantic, but you still feel them so close, so close in your heart. Even people you don’t know like that Spanish soldier who lost his life, his wife and baby in a foreign country, you also feel them in your heart, as they are all brothers and sisters.

Sometimes I wish I could be always “in the zone”. It makes me feel so alive, it makes me feel I am so much more than what I apparently am now, much more than the rest of people can see. And it reminds me: separateness is an illusion. If it is true I am doing kind of a course on attachment/detachment, that would be my conclusion in my final thesis.
         

Stuck emotions.

Last night was one of my most dreadful watches since I created this blog. I’m quite used to fall into past life mood when it’s totally unexpected, but yesterday it was so much more than that… Sometimes I’ve said past life mood is like having this cloud above your head full of past life memories that haunt you and stalk you wherever you go. Yesterday they were also strangling me, trying to kill me while I was trying to sleep.

The worst of it all is that I started to feel physical symptoms of anxiety before even thinking about my WWII past life. Even with all these sudden changes in my current life, the uncertainty, the lack of hope for the future, my economic situation, the helpless feeling of being unable to control it, I thought I was doing alright. But then again, anxiety and depression are mostly silent and you don’t even realize you’re being trapped by them, while you’re trying to fight against imaginary enemies (or so they say) and stay alive. I try not to worry too much and spend the days doing things I like, so I was a bit surprised when I felt my heart racing out of control.

Then there came the strong emotions, the strong grief. “If you need to cry, just cry, cry, CRY”, I reminded myself… and I did, forgetting whether I had reasons or not to do it, and not caring where those reasons were coming from. The past life memories caught me unawares though… I know it’s May and I know that’s a tough month for me, always has been, when I didn’t know why, and when I did. But this year I had not thought too much about my WWII life. It seems my higher self doesn’t care about my thoughts… so it presented me with some scenes I must not forget, or perhaps scenes I must witness again and again so that I can heal. The truth is I don’t know anymore… But their clarity, strength and harshness hit me like a slap on the face. “You were trying to run away. You thought you could block yourself. You thought it was enough with a short glimpse of it. Well, here is the news: you just can’t do that. You can't escape from your own ghosts”.

And so I saw myself in this beach I’ve seen so many times before… wearing a thin cardigan and my nurse uniform skirt, cloudy and grey sky above me, windy day. It looks like I’m alone, and though I don’t know the exact date, I feel Johann is already dead, and I must have got up soon after I recovered of my sedation, after seeing his corpse lying on the stretcher. I had left my medal and my faith behind. I’m not so sure about “the other” traumatic situation, but I feel my boyfriend’s death was the last straw. I had seen enough of life (and death), I didn’t want to live anymore in a world where mad men were killing each other, I couldn’t bear so much pain, so much emptiness, and the fear to be abused again (or even suffer worse things). I just wanted to shout and let my anger out, I just wanted to cry out loud, instead of hiding and retch in a dark corner of the camp where no one could see me. Only… I just couldn’t. I can’t be 100% sure, but I doubt I shed a single tear for anything I had gone through until that moment… when I gave up. The moment I lost my soul to war.

Following the advice of one of my fellow travellers, I asked Katrina what she wanted of me, what she needed to be healed and overcome so much hatred, so much pain, so much unspoken suffering gnawing at her (me) through the years… The only answer I got is she just wanted to be loved, she only needed someone to care, to show some interest in her. And the only one who cared… was taken away from her. I don’t think she said it all. She has to speak louder. So much louder. It doesn’t hurt enough. I don’t feel the fury. I don’t feel her pain, her frustration, there’s not enough blood on my feet. CRY CRY CRY CRY CRY CRY KATRINA CRY CRY CRY CRY CRY CRY...............................

PLEASE KATRINA CRY, CRY, CRY!!!

That’s all you need to do.
     

Hurting.

No… hurting is not the word. But I’m lost for words. I’m lost for everything, really. I don’t understand the world I’m living in anymore. I don’t understand myself. Friends that seemed good friends are suddenly gone or look strange… What seemed right in the past, now it’s wrong. All gone. All different. Wondering all along: what am I doing here?

I created this blog to talk about all the things I don’t feel comfortable talking about in other places. To force myself somehow to write about all those secrets hidden in the deepest places of my soul, as if I’m trusting the Moon and the Stars to listen and give me counsel, now that I feel no one listens anymore. The problem is… I don’t even know where to begin. Strong, bitter emotions, keep stuck inside. One day it seems it’s getting easier, but the next I’m back where I was. Someone told me emotional traumas (this life or past life-related) get crystallized inside of us, and no matter how much time has passed since the creation of that trauma, we have the impression we’re reliving it time and time again. We have to find the origin of that trauma and understand the illusion of the emotion behind it. Only then we can heal. Although I know she’s right, the problem I have here is that past and present have become the same. And just like I didn’t know how to deal with the hurting caused in the distant past, I don’t know how to deal with it in the now… the fight is not useful any longer, or so it seems. What worked when I was young, is not working now. However, things haven’t changed much… only, I’m a bit older now, and I’m a lot more tired and hopeless. I’ve done all I was supposed to do, and even finished projects I started in my youth… but they’re fruitless. It’s like I’m treading on a barren land, after years and years working in the fields and sowing good seeds. I’ve gained nothing… as if I had done… nothing.

Is the end getting closer? Not the real end, but a new beginning… If that’s true, I don’t see it. Like Legolas before the battle in Helm’s Deep, I’m falling into despair. I used to listen to a radio broadcast which started with a phrase: “Only when the tunnel is in absolute darkness, light can start to shine again”. Am I reaching the deepest darkness of my soul? Is this the biggest trial I’ll face in this life, how to get out of this mess? I have no idea.

There are people in worst situations, some would say, to cheer me up. This crisis is striking hard on all of us, and there's a few around me going through tough phases too… well, that’s alright, but it’s no comfort for me. And though this in no way can compare to a war or to be killed in a revolution, I just thought for a while that I deserved some happiness, some tiny little happiness, maybe just knowing that people value my effort and my experiences and want to listen and learn. I have lots of things to say, there are hundreds of books inside of me, mysteries to be told, insights I can give, just like an ancient wise man beside a bonfire, with starry-eyed children and adults crowding around him, eager to hear the next tale. But the world is not like that anymore, as I was saying at the beginning of this entry. It’s becoming a confusing and dark place, with a lot of chatter but so few worthy words in it. With tons of information, but so little real knowledge. With people who follow blindly other people, searching for answers, when the answers are deep inside us… and always have been. Where we know better than ever how human beings have committed (and are committing) despicable atrocities… but we keep doing harm and turning our heads to the other side, as if we’re not responsible of everything that happens in our planet. And putting our faith in hollow symbolisms, and getting confused by old superstitions, as if we’re still living in the caverns, but now we dress with suits and we only worship our mobile phones… surrounded by technology, and denying our own spirituality, the only thing that really makes us human.

I’m lost. I’m a lost soul in an ocean of stupidity and my days are numbered. I can only drown.

I’ve just remembered a song that fits here, and it could be a good ending for this entry. It’s not the same time I feel like this. Feeling strange and isolated is not new in my life, of course. It’s only that it’s getting harder and harder to bear…  here in this space capsule I’ve built, while I’m watching the world and sometimes shouting… knowing no one can hear me… and there’s nothing I can do.

MISSION (A WORLD RECORD)

For many days we travelled from a distant place and time,
To reach a place they call the planet Earth,
There was to be a celebration,

On the mission of the sacred heart.

The planet Earth from way up there is beautiful and blue

And floating softly through a rainbow,

But when you touch down things look different here,

At the mission of the sacred heart.

Watching all the days roll by

Who are you and who am I?

On a dirty worn-out sidewalk, sits a mother with a baby,

In her vale of tears she sees no rainbow

And someone's singing from a window

In the mission of the sacred heart.

Watching all the days roll by

Who are you and who am I?

There's a building on a corner, in a city, in a land,

On a place they call the planet Earth,
My orders are to sit here and watch the world go by,

From the mission of the sacred heart.

There and back again.

I was going to use this title for the blog itself. For me it sounded like “reincarnation”. “There” being the planet Earth (or the physical world you choose to reincarnate, in my case it’s been always planet Earth, as far as I remember), and “Back” the spiritual world. Due to technical reasons I finally couldn’t do it, and I’m glad now, first because I identify much more with Eowyn and her bitter watches, and second, because today I’ve realized… there is no going back. Just like Frodo says at the end of The Return of the King.

And this can be applied to many aspects of reincarnation.

One of them is reincarnation itself. We say we are a soul having a human experience, and when we die we return home, where we’re eternal and we have nothing to fear. Well, this is true, but our soul is not exactly what it was. Human experiences change us, possibly at a slower pace than most people think, but when we’re back home, we’re never the same. We can’t be. Maybe that’s the fundamental reason why we incarnate, to be changed… to learn, some say. And they call it “spiritual evolution”. I don’t like the word “evolution”, because most people understand it has to be always a change for the better. However, I’ve just searched for the meaning of “evolution” in the internet, and this is what I’ve found:

1. A gradual change in the characteristics of a population of animals or plants over successive generations: accounts for the origin of existing species from ancestors unlike them.

2. A gradual development, esp. to a more complex form: the evolution of modern art.

3. The act of throwing off, as heat, gas, vapour, etc.

4. A pattern formed by a series of movements or something similar.

5. An algebraic operation in which the root of a number, expression, etc, is extracted.

6. An exercise carried out in accordance with a set procedure or plan.

http://www.wordreference.com/definition/evolution

It says nowhere it has to be for the better… unless people have thought all this time human beings are the best form of evolution and then they have extrapolated this thought to our spiritual condition too. Of course, I disagree. We evolve, that’s certain, but that means we change gradually through our human experiences, sometimes for the better, sometimes we just… change.

Frodo made me think of all this, because some of his wounds from his quest and his journey to Mordor never heal. Like he says, there are hurts that go too deep. And I’ve found this is what happens with us, those who remember past lives. Or at least it takes time, a whole lot of time, and no, it’s not enough visiting past life healers or spiritual counselors… it just takes time. I can be the best doctor in my field, but I can’t rush the process, nature is nature and it has its laws. I can help, I can clean, I can foresee complications and fight against them, but to heal completely… it will heal just when it has to.

So, we return home, and we go back to Earth, but the burden is not the same. The burden is ever heavier and heavier, we may have chosen to leave behind a part of that burden, but we can’t turn our backs on the things we have lived, even if it’s in an unconscious way.

Another aspect of reincarnation where we can apply the saying “There is no going back” is the process of discovering your past lives. Not long ago I used to say that once you have found knowledge, you can’t go back to ignorance. In other words, you can’t “unlearn” what you have learnt. Yes, you can pretend nothing changed, or even ignore the fact that the dreams you had were not normal dreams, but past life memories… you can go on with your life and not give reincarnation a second thought. But lying to yourself is not very responsible, is it? And repressing feelings is not even healthy. So there’s no use in hiding or avoiding what you have found: that you have lived before, that sometimes you’ve made mistakes, that for some reason you’re back here in this difficult task, not very sure of the meaning, if it’s any at all. Almost without realizing it, you’ve changed. And when you die and go back home, you won’t be the same anymore.

Remembering past lives changes you so much that people who used to know you may say you are like a stranger to them. And that’s a curious thing to happen, as now you know yourself much better than before…