Integration: France.

We have been talking a lot about this in my favourite place online, while in real life I was hectic attending family reunions, trying to write something serious in any of my books, assembling bathroom furniture and sometimes… feeling connected to my last days in France.

It is hard to say you have completely integrated a past life, especially when you have been a short time dealing with past life memories. Three years is not too much, and I have the peculiarity I remember many more lives than the average in reincarnation forums. I don’t know if that is good or bad, I wouldn’t change it for anything, but sometimes I do wonder how I manage not to get crazy with so many past life memories interfering with my current life.

France (royalist life, 18th century) is not a new life, but it is not as old as others. Only a few weeks ago I started to publicly share detailed memories of this life, though I was shy with part of them, and I have the feeling there is still a lot that need to be integrated. I have been too distracted with real life to meditate, now maybe it is three weeks since the last time, but I can feel some emotions brewing in my inside. One clear sign of this is going to watch The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, and feeling so identified with Bard, among other things for being called “the town defender”, and wanting to avoid a war. I also felt jealous to see him encouraging his son to fight, and of course, I got emotional thinking my end was quite worse than theirs. Then, only this morning I heard of the shootings in France, and though I try not to put too much attention to the news, finally my partner made me see how the killers finished a man off when he was dying on the floor… which obviously brought me some similar memories.

And though undoubtedly death doesn’t mean the same to reincarnationists than to other people, that doesn’t make us insensitive to this kind of events… quite the contrary, at least in my case. And every time I turn on my laptop and contemplate the painting of one of those massacres in La Vendeé (the same I posted in this entry), it feels quite familiar and I wonder how I could have ended up involved in that. I wonder how it felt to be shot to death, watching women and children falling, dying around me, and the military men showing no mercy for all of us who gathered and tried to defend our rights. I know… of course I know. Through remembering I have been able to make those memories conscious, but only partially. I have some emotions stored in my brain, but I feel there are more still hidden. They have tried to come out, but I was too busy or maybe I unconsciously put a barrier between them and me, as I can’t deny my eyes fill with tears if I think too much about those final terrible minutes.

My son is also a sensitive part, he has always been, since the first short story I wrote inspired by Chris de Burgh and this past life of mine. I hardly remember a son or daughter I could raise until adulthood in all my past lives, and I am even wondering if there is a reason for that. I don’t think so, but it makes me sad anyway. It hurts not knowing about his fate, whether he made it or not, what he would think of his father’s decisions, what would have happened if only we had resolved to act a different way. I have also been wondering a lot lately about priorities: all human beings have to make choices according to what is important for them, and we all have our own scale. Is it your own family more important than anything else? Or must we fight for the collective well-being? I said I consider myself an individualist, and I am quite sure about that. But, on the other hand, analyzing my past lives as a whole, I see I am always up to die for a cause that at least theoretically it is good for the group of people I belong and I am loyal to, and I don’t mind to stay in the shadow. Maybe it is not I am an individualist, but rather an idealist who always ends up as a loner because I am the last one to give up. A fool, in a word. A fool who always want to get to the end of things, no matter what is lost on the way.

It is like one of the favourite quotes of one of my dearest friends (from the movie Big Fish):

“There's a time when a man needs to fight, and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny is lost... the ship has sailed and only a fool would continue. Truth is... I've always been a fool”.

If I was a fool, there were a few of us in that square, dreaming we could change the world and make it a better place to live. Yes, I think I keep being a fool. Death changed nothing after all.

EASTERN WIND

Well my furrows are filled with corn,
I have my woman to keep me warm,
But there's one thing that I do fear,
That eastern wind is getting near;

There's a shotgun beside my bed,
This is my country, where I was born and bred,
But I am sure, as the willow will grow,
That eastern wind is going to blow,

Blowing a hole in my life, eastern wind,
Running away with my life, eastern wind;

There's a woman who reads the stars,
She sees warlords on the planet Mars,
And she said, "Boy, you'd better beware,
That restless wind is getting near,

Blowing a hole in your life, eastern wind,
Running away with your life, eastern wind..."

They are coming, they are coming, they are coming, look out!

In my dream, I saw a crowd,
They were burning the palace down,
I saw a mad old man, and I ran to the door,
And then that wind began to roar,

And when they come, they'll find me here,
I will not run, they will not see my fear,
And I will fight to the very end,
Before that wind I will never bend,

If they're blowing a hole in my life, eastern wind,
Oh running away with my life, eastern wind,
Taking the plough from my hands, eastern wind,
Taking every bit of my land, eastern wind...

Revolutions.

I am still under the effect of some memories from my life as a royalist in France, at the end of 18th century. I already knew most of it (excepting some specific data that turned out to be very useful for validations), but I am still caught in the emotions and the several questions that arise from such bloody experiences. It feels somehow different from other lives. There is sadness, but there are... other things as well. Things I don’t know how to describe.

Historians talk about massacres, some even want it to be declared a genocide. In my first memories the words “carnage” and “butchery” were already in my mind. Yes, it was a massacre, no doubt about it. At least I was lucky enough to be shot by a group of French soldiers (along with women and children) and I wasn’t killed like other people were. I know I got at least three shots, one possibly in my left arm, another one in my chest, though none were lethal. The last one came when I was lying on the ground.

I wanted to remember the life between lives, why not, but as usual I didn’t see much. After my death I floated above the wild scene, still not wanting to believe what had happened. But as I was getting near the spiritual world my mood lifted a bit and I felt as if I was returning home after a soccer match that had gone the wrong way, when it was supposed to be fun. My mum would open the door and I would be there standing, soaked in mud, angry and full of bruises. When I was “up there” I was just complaining “Too much blood, too much blood... Why does it have to be always like this?” I guess the word is “dirty”. I was feeling dirty...

And I could probably say that is how I have been feeling lately. As always, death is not that important. It was cruel, it was nonsense... but it is not a disgrace. It is just a way to quit and return to the place where we belong. I don’t feel guilty, and I don’t blame anyone. I don’t question who was right or who was wrong, I don’t think that matters. I feel dirty because there were too many things that should have been done in a different way, and we all were part of it. What I wonder is: “How come we always end up this way? Why couldn’t it be stopped? Which is the spark that ignites such terrible fire?”

It seems it was clear for me back then: I was fighting for my rights, for my family. We just wanted to keep living a normal life, thanks to the money we earned from our humble occupations. Nothing else. Months ago, in one of my regressions, I even had the thought I preferred the death of my family than living in the conditions they were forcing us to live. Well, we fought... and we certainly died. I am not sure what happened to my wife and kids, but I doubt they survived. And one of the main conflicts from this life is precisely this: I was trading the lives of my loved ones for some shitty rights. My own wife had argued with me for my decisions. But, the same question comes back over and over again: what else were we supposed to do? It is not a matter of pride, it is not a matter of vengeance. It is our land, our work, our basic needs... you just can’t stand and watch while they are stealing all you have. Maybe the problem is... you can’t rise up in arms and kill either.

We lost it anyway. Everything we had. Was it worth? Over 200 years later, I don’t know. I like to think revolutions change the world, but the world hasn’t changed much since then. Maybe revolutions only change... people.