At peace.

I know this is going to sound awfully arrogant, but I don’t mind. This is my blog and these are my intimate thoughts. I have had quite an active week, mentally speaking, working on a way to back my ideas about the mechanism of reincarnation with scientific knowledge already existing. And I have found the key. Now I feel I can finally rest at peace, and this is how I feel in the inside: no more doubts, no more confusion, no more need to fight with anyone, as I know that I am right and if they don’t see it like I do, it is because they are not considering all the data I have and they can’t glimpse what I call the Ultimate Truth. And I say “glimpse” because of course that is all I can get too, from my humble, human position. But some of us are just closer to that Truth than others.

As I suspected, I am not the only one who had come to the same conclusion. We are soul and body at the same time. And this is not a belief, it is based on the duality wave-particle. Jean Pierre Garnier Malet, a physicist, elaborated the Doubling Time Theory, in 1988, and he explained how we can shift our consciousness to a different reality where time is different, and this is how we can predict the future. Of course, it is much more complicated than this, and still, it is only a small part of my own theory on reincarnation and human nature. But now I know I am not talking nonsense. I know my beliefs are “something else”, and one day reincarnation will be proved, and finally all skeptics will have to admit who was right all this time.

But the thing is most people don’t realize this. People who believe in reincarnation ignore science. And scientists ignore metaphysical knowledge and the experiences of people who suffer NDE’s, learned to consciously astral project or remember past lives. I have grown quite jaded of the chattering in reincarnation forums. For a while I was still learning, but now I feel I am quite far from all those people who can’t stop talking but rarely reflect and never advance. I feel they are moving in circles. I feel not even reincarnationists can follow or understand me. They decided all we can have is beliefs, they insist remembering past lives is an individual journey, and somehow “we all have our own truths”. Well, of course remembering is an individual journey, and of course we all have our own beliefs, and I have nothing to say about it. But I also feel we have to work for Humanity, to bring knowledge —actual knowledge— to all those who keep being blind. Reincarnation must not be a religion. It has to be scientifically proved. And this is possible, that is what I have discovered recently. It is likely some centuries will pass before we can do it, but it is long since we have the tools and the bases.

I don’t talk about beliefs anymore. There are always discussions about different beliefs taking place in those forums: simultaneous lives, split incarnations, time doesn’t exist in the other side, the astral and spiritual worlds are mixed up constantly, people don’t stop asking about ghosts and other spiritual communications, they wonder how thinks work in other realms... Why, stop talking and study, analyze all the data we have! There are myriads of experiences out there, enough to bring clear, logical answers to these questions. The reliability of these experiences can vary, of course, but that is the reason we have to make use of our analytical, scientific minds, and differentiate them. We also have lots of data that come from the medical field, a lot more reliable, like NDE’s. Instead of thinking, we read something and we instantly say “No, I don’t believe in this account” and discard it. “My neighbor says her daughter dreamed about her future child before the conception. No, that’s crazy, I don’t believe it”. “Someone over lunch said a relative was about to die and he talked to an angel. An angel? No, surely he was hallucinating because of the drugs”. “What? You felt you could float while being asleep? No way! What did you eat last night?”

I feel there is no one there taking seriously all those accounts and analyzing what they have in common, searching for a possible explanation. Scientists are too busy studying other things, “New Age” people are busy building silly theories from doubtful sources and ignoring scientists, and in the meanwhile common people just get crazy not knowing what is false and what is true... The result is complete confusion. Advancement is impossible this way.

Well, I am trying to merge together all the knowledge we have, discarding myths and trying to back my own hypothesis with scientific facts. The soul is much more complex than we think. This is already known by many traditional teachings, but now I have found this can be explained by Western science. How time works in the spiritual realms can also be explained this way. The Truth is just in front of our eyes, and we just can’t see it.

My next book will deal with this hypothesis. My own scientific, logical, ultimate hypothesis on reincarnation and human nature.

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.  

Brothers.

I can’t get the song “I see fire”, from the movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, out of my head. The lyrics are quite simple, the melody is restrained, it evokes impending danger, and loss. And death. It brings past life memories, but not one or two... plenty of them.

Death is constantly in my mind. I am also feeling a bit blocked lately: like I said in my previous entry, there are emotions brewing in my inside, but it seems they don’t want to come out. I have a few scenes playing in my memory like a video player that got stuck. I know there are things missing there, but the pieces remain lost. They all are scenes of death.

If this is to end in fire
Then we should all burn together
Watch the flames climb high, into the night

This part reminds me of France. I have had to die alone in many of my lifetimes, but in this one we were a whole town fighting for our rights. There is something romantic about dying together, though most (normal) people would think there is nothing romantic about death. Well, I think there is kind of an intimacy when you are dying that makes it a very special moment to share with those who really care. I will emphasize “those who really care”, as that is something you do when you really love someone. That is what my soulmate did for me in Norway. But that was a peaceful death, and we were romantically involved. Dying in a fight is also romantic, but in a different way. It is a feeling soldiers know very well, and so, so hard, to find in real life. In France we were not even soldiers, but there was union among us. There was pride. Maybe there was desperation too, and we knew we were going to lose. But we fought anyway.  

And if we should die tonight,
Then we should all die together
Raise a glass of wine for the last time

More of the same. Only... the words “for the last time” are not exact. I would add “for the last time... in this life, with these bodies”. The chapter is over, but not the book. We will meet again in the future. And this, that may sound quite romantic too, a plain illusion, might surprise certain people when you find out it is totally true. It also reminds me of Cloud Atlas, and how blind we are to the Truth. It is a bittersweet feeling, because even when you know the Truth, sometimes you don’t have clear memories, so knowing the Truth is not too useful or practical.

It also makes me reflect about the meaning of time. Our lives are so short, but we keep wasting our time. We think death is still far, but it can be around the corner. The last time can be any moment. Death may come unexpectedly, in an accident, in a murder in the street, in a battle. You get up one morning hoping you will return home to hold your wife and kiss your boy goodnight, and that moment may never come. All my life I have thought words can’t remain unsaid, but thing is, it is quite likely some words will always remain unsaid. Why, I don’t know. I could say it doesn’t matter, because we will all meet again in the other side. But even when death is not the end of everything, death means the end of a physical life, where there are others connected to you one way or the other. And as most of them live unaware of the Truth, words unsaid can do a lot of harm. There is another song I love as well, Marillion’s “Dry land”, that says “You’re so violent with your silence”. And yes, I have come to know you can indeed be very violent without saying a word. I even learned to use it as a weapon. Not anymore. But still, we human beings are like this. We can be talking about the weather for a couple of hours, but never say what is important to your own mother or sister, for years.

It is also true that sometimes words are needless sometimes, especially when you are going to die and you know it.

And I see fire, Hollowing souls
I see fire, Blood in the breeze

And I hope that you remember me

This reminds me of my son. The one I left in France, I don't know if dead or alive. I said to him "Remember this day". I knew we were not going to make it into History, but I wish we had. I am proud some of my countrymen did, and they should not be forgotten. Victims —from either side— should not be forgotten. But too often they are. In no other life I saw more deaths than in this one. And I have no memories of the aftermath, but I wonder what all those hollowing souls do when massacres happen.

And if the night is burning
I will cover my eyes
For if the dark returns
Then my brothers will die
And as the sky is falling down
It crashed into this lonely town
And with that shadow upon the ground
I hear my people screaming out

My brothers and my people. These are the words that stand out the most from this verse. It takes a lot of love to call “brothers” people who haven’t grown up with you, but when you feel that’s the kind of love that binds you to people you haven’t even met in real life, only online, you wonder whether you have gone crazy or suffer a certain psychiatric syndrome still to discover. And if, in addition to that, you share some past life memories with them, then it’s clear: you have lost it.

Or maybe not. If I have unexplained paternal instincts towards a person even before remembering a past life together, and then it turns out she was indeed my son, then reincarnation might be the explanation. But there are not only paternal instincts, it turns out you also were brothers, and it is quite likely you were also friends... So, what are we really? Many people think motherly love is the best. I’ve always thought that is not true, I think it is very influenced by hormones and nature, it is just a survival behavior. I have always thought that real love is the one that happens when you can love people outside your family, outside your race, outside your town, outside your own species... It is expected you love your kin, otherwise you would be a traitor. Loving someone different, that’s “real love”. And if I have to choose human love, I would choose the love among brothers, as that means it doesn’t matter how you are, or how well you get along, you will be there for me and I will be here for you. We are a team. We may be apart for years, leading different lives, but the bond is always there. Of course I am talking of true brothers, this doesn’t mean there has to be necessarily a blood relationship. That’s what real friends become. That’s the feeling that arises when you spend twenty-four hours a day living with someone and afraid of bombs. Or crossing the Atlantic Ocean back and forth, getting sick on deck, wondering what you will do when you have to shoot someone from the first time, not knowing what the future might bring. Fearing death approaches brings people together, even when you just can’t bear each other. And it is people like this you would love to die with, if you had no other option left.

Brothers. I know I had lots of them in that ship that got awfully burned down. I also have something about fire, but I don’t know exactly what. I don’t remember fire, but there must have been. I don’t remember their faces, but I am sure they were there, and they lost their captain. Sometimes I think I took them to their deaths, but probably they were fighting for the same reasons than me... and we all had hopes to return home safe. Only we didn’t. We died. Together. 

I SEE FIRE

Oh misty eye of the mountain below
Keep careful watch of my brothers' souls

And should the sky be filled with fire and smoke
Keep watching over Durin's sons

If this is to end in fire

Then we should all burn together

Watch the flames climb high, into the night

Calling out father, oh

Stand by and we will,

Watch the flames burn auburn on

The mountain side...High

And if we should die tonight,

Then we should all die together

Raise a glass of wine for the last time

Calling out father, oh

Prepare as we will

Watch the flames burn auburn on

The mountain side

Desolation comes upon the sky

Now I see fire, Inside the mountain

I see fire, Burning the trees

And I see, fire, Hollowing souls

I see fire, Blood in the breeze

And I hope that you remember me

Oh should my people fall then

Surely I'll do the same

Confined in mountain halls

We got too close to the flame

Calling out father, oh,

Hold fast and we will

Watch the flames burn auburn on

The mountain side

Desolation comes upon the sky

Now I see fire, Inside the mountain

I see fire, Burning the trees

And I see fire, Hollowing souls

I see fire, Blood in the breeze

And I hope that you remember me

And if the night is burning

I will cover my eyes

For if the dark returns

Then my brothers will die

And as the sky is falling down

It crashed into this lonely town

And with that shadow upon the ground

I hear my people screaming out

And I see fire

Inside the mountains

I see fire

Burning the trees

And I see fire

Hollowing souls

I see fire

Blood in the breeze

And I see fire (Oh you know I saw a city burning) (fire)

And I see fire (Feel the heat upon my skin, yeah) (fire)

And I see fire (WohoowooOOo) (fire)

And I see fire burn auburn on the mountain side

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...

Christmas time.

This year the Christmas season is being strange. Well, maybe because all the year has been strange. This time I haven't been so depressed as I used to. All my family decided to scatter and celebrate on their own, as nearly no one was up to celebrate anything in a year with so many deaths and losses, so maybe that made things easier. For me Christmas Eve was like any other night I spend with my partner, with the only exception of a homemade apple tart as dessert which was absolutely delicious.

Then December 26th arrived, I was on my own again and decided to sit down for a short while in the garden, to receive some warm sunlight. Sometimes I do self-reiki, but this time I only closed my eyes and concentrated on the energy flowing through my whole being. Maybe that alone is reiki. I mention this because later in the day I started to feel past life emotions. I started to feel a bit of anxiety... then when I was replying to a question about how our past lives have affected current family relationships, tears came to my eyes just thinking about how depressed I have always been when Christmas arrived, as I always missed someone I had never known in this life. Especially in my teenage years, I just couldn't be happy during a season when everyone was supposed to be happy. This year, with so many abscences in the family, I think they all could understand how I used to feel back then, but now... maybe it's too late. Probably they have forgotten about my mood and my resistence to celebrate anything, not even knowing the reason why I did that. Perhaps they never wondered... Well, now I know the reason, but they won't ask me about my past lives. They don't seem interested and anyway I won't talk if I am not asked.

Then, when I went to sleep, spontaneous (old) memories started to surge, to play in my mind, as clear as any other memory from my current childhood, or the place I visited two days ago. It never ceases to surprise me. There are data missing, of course, data that is there somewhere in my subconscious and I can't seem to be able to bring to the surface. But there are a few images I just can't erase from my mind: a big Christmas tree and an ice rink in a square at night time, the snow in the window sill, the images of the house I lived, the thoughts of war, strange voices crackling in a radio talking of German occupation, an uncertain future... I was wondering, if I always get so depressed during Christmas, is it because I already missed him back then? Maybe we couldn't be together. But I have the feeling I feel like this because Christmas was just the period where the last happy memories of that life took place. I believe we made that trip to the mountains in that time. After that we had to travel to France. And there we would find real war, and death.

Death found us, but I went on living in a new body. As many reincarnationists know, death doesn't put an end to anything, with the exception of the physical body. And my feelings of missing someone I didn't know always became stronger in Christmas time, even when I didn't know who or what I was missing. Even as I write I can't shake off the sadness it still causes me, it is just stronger than me.

My heart sinks just contemplating current pictures of the Christmas market in Prague's Old Town. I know I was there. I remembered quite early those wooden stalls, I think I didn't live too far from there. It resembles so much my current hometown, but no, it is not exactly the same. People are different, the feelings are different, my clothes were different, much older and poorer. It is all here inside me, but somehow it is something I can't completely grasp. It is like an old echo you can hear in the distance, but can't recognize or bring it to your senses with all its strength and reality. It is a part of me that got lost.

Even when I know I can't recover or relive anything I left there, among other things because I am not the same anymore, sometimes I wish so much I could travel back in time.

Insanity.

This is one of the darkest aspects of reincarnation, and one that is quite hard to talk about. I have been thinking about it the last few days, trying to put into words something that most of the times is just a weird feeling during regression. Weird, hard to understand, mysterious... but also crystal clear.

I have observed that when you remember to have done "evil" things in a past life, the first thing you ask yourself is whether you were sane or not when you did it. I suspect being insane is a great excuse to do things you know are unjustifiable. It is also a natural tendency we all have: when we watch in the news a serial killer killed a dozen women in the last five years, we all want to think there was something in his mind that didn't work quite right. And if this is not the case, we just think he was "evil" or a monster. Believing someone can do that just because he likes to kill is almost inconceivable. However, I think this is so in the majority of cases. And the worst thing is we can't do anything about it. It is his choice, as is everything else we do in our human lives.

Then I read a book called The Projection of the Astral Body by Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington. It said that one of the reasons a person can stay in the astral after their death is precisely insanity: an alteration of the mind, so frequent in the last years of many people who suffer from dementia, for instance. I don't remember to have stayed in the astral for this reason, but it made me reflect on how deep an alteration of this kind can affect your behaviour. If it does after death, I guess it is equally (or more) powerful while alive, obviously. And though I don't think I have even been so insane as to not be able to act perfectly knowing what I was doing, and therefore, being totally responsible of my actions, I have felt in a few occasions, in more than one life, how certain events influence your mind, and pain can indeed make you lose your sanity. I can understand how someone might end up killing all their family, in a given moment, out of suffering, jealousy, despair, fear, or whatever emotion overcomes that person. I guess our minds are the tool we use to control our basic instincts. Sometimes feelings are too overwhelming and cause a lot of confusion. And, scary as it sounds, sometimes they win the battle against the mind, and then we lose it.

Well, when doing a regression, you can feel it. You can feel how your thought patterns have changed and they are not the same anymore. You also can feel how cultured you are, whether you were good writing or reading, or you hadn't learned these abilities, or how intelligent you were. Of course, this is obvious for people who regress regularly, but maybe it is not so obvious for people who haven't tried to remember past lives using this method. This is how we believe our minds are different in each incarnation. And feeling how it can be altered, unbalanced or destroyed through events happening to you, is surprising and so, so interesting. Frightening too, as it makes you realize none of us is immune to commit certain crimes, insane or not. You also realize you could have done even worse than you did, so at least you can be glad of this fact. When terrible things happen to you it is not easy at all to keep your balance and make the right choices. And I am sure all this has a lot to do with what living means, with that gut reaction we all have to certain events, the results of which will determine our future and the outcome of that particular life.

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.