Past lives

Me writing in my notebook, out in nature

I'll be honest. I have wanted to get a past life regression done for some time, but the time must not be right for that yet. The hypnotists that I contacted in this new area where I live haven't gotten back to me. So I've been opening up and listening in on my own. And what do you know.... I had a spontaneous awareness of a past life while I was cleaning my microwave the other day. But before I share how that happened, I want to introduce you all to Karl.

Karl is the guy I'm married to. He has a lot of awesome quirks and eccentricities. I like quirks. And eccentricities. Gradually over the time that I've known him, I have realized that most of his interests lie in the past. I brought this up to him the other day, and he did agree that this was quite uncanny. 

 

For example, he is interested in researching old local maps from the 1700's to the turn of the century. Then he goes to these sites and does metal detecting for relics and old coins. He is only interested in reading old classic books, if he does any reading. He won't touch a cigarette (too modern), but he wants to smoke a pipe. He is fascinated with living in an old colonial home, such as a log home, and we almost bought an old home like this. He dreams of owning a farm and farming it with old fashioned tractors pulled by horses. He is recently into wet shaving, the classic way that gents shaved before cartridge razors and canned shaving cream were invented. The razors he uses are one step away from a straight razor. He haunts old antique shops looking for old razors and shave relics, and then he collects them.

Karl is also intuitive. He knows when a crash is going to block a highway minutes before he sees the crash, and he gets flashes about his twin brother or family when something big happens.

Being intuitive and always interested in the past, I guessed that Karl would also be interested in past lives. He's not interested yet.

So the other day, I was cleaning the microwave. It is above our stove, and so it is the same height as me. I basically had my head almost inside of it, and was just caught up in the repetitive scrubbing and wiping. I had my back to Karl, who was sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner. So, as I was scrubbing away, I suddenly saw Karl and I living in a stone home in England in the late 1700's. We had pigs and chickens in a fenced in yard in front of the house, and I was always afraid that one of our children would wander into the mud and a pig would roll over top of them and crush them. We had 12 kids, and they loved Karl. At night they would sit on his lap, on his back, drape themselves over his arms, and sit on his feet. They would crawl over him like ants, and he loved them all. He was quiet and gentle. And he loved those kids. I liked how calm and unruffled he was. He rarely if ever showed emotion. I liked how he was a solid rock, and I could depend on him. But when I asked him what was going on in his mind, he couldn't ever access that, and he just didn't talk. Back then, I always wished he would talk more. I suddenly realized that his name in this life was Roger, and I was Darla.

The funny thing is, I call Karl "Roger" as a nickname, and I don't know where I got it from! He just looks like his name should be Roger. He reminds me of the easy going, tall and lanky Roger from the animated "101 Dalmatians." This Roger is always in a dream world, easy going and a little goofy. Karl is this way, and he even walks and moves like the animated Roger in this movie. In this life, Karl doesn't hide his feelings at all... he talks all the time, much more than he did when he was Roger. 

But I digress. As soon as the movie of Roger and my life had begun to play as I was mesmerized while cleaning the microwave, I suddenly turned around to tell Karl about it. But as I turned around, the shape of Karl's long back hunched in his chair over his bowl of soup reminded me suddenly, "This is how Roger sat. He would come in from a long day of work at the farm in the dark, just like it's dark now. He would sit and eat his soup like this with his back to me as I cleaned up the kitchen behind him. And he would sit his muddy shoes by the door just like Karl does now. And the stone wall. Oh. I wish I had treasured my time with him more when he was alive. He fell off that wall and died, and I was heartbroken. I always wished he would talk more, and I wasn't content. But he was such a good man, so calm and gentle."

Suddenly, I was about to cry remembering Roger back then, and how much I appreciated him and missed him. There were tears spurting up in my eyes, and I suddenly hugged Karl and said, "You're back! You came back as Karl!"

I told Karl what happened, and I think he almost teared up as well, but  I don't think he completely believed it. Which is OK. We still call each other Roger and Darla.

What if...

  

What would you do if you one day woke up to a realization that you and everybody you knew were actors and actresses in one huge, complex play. But only you know this. No one else seems to know this.

What if you realized that what you thought was your only chance at life was just one role you were playing, along side many other roles. That you could have a number of character changes. That life isn't as serious as it seems.

 

What if you realized that you're simply sharing the stage with other actors that you have seen in different plays in different times. That you know you've met before, even if you can't quite put your thumb on what character they played. You know you had a bond before and will again.

 

It is fun to be an actress. But when you go home for the evening after a day of work, you oddly enough can't shed your character. When you go home for the evening, you are still in character. And it feels so real, your life, this play that you are in.... that you almost believe it is.

Image: https://www.facebook.com/iamsooohappy?fref=ts&ref=br_tf 

What is real never changes

 

Have you ever walked past a mirror and thought, "That is not me. I am more than what I see with my eyes."  I do this quite often these days. I used to think I had one finite life, and that I was the accumulation of only what my physical senses perceived in this one life. But there is so  much more to me than this.

I am not my brown eyes, my brown hair, my body shape, my shyness, the texture of my voice, my remembered experiences. I am not female only, caucasion, a person with strong runner's legs and determination. I don't fit into a neat box, I cannot be labelled, and I am infinitely more than what my mind and words can communicate.
 

I have this tendency to gravitate towards people who look like me or act like me.  I think, "You get me because you remind me of myself."  I suppose that most people do this? But then I remember that I have lived in many cultures, bodies and experiences. So pretty much anyone I meet will "get" me and I will "get" them since you chances are, I've been in their shoes before. It's just that I might not remember with my mind that I was them and am them. But something deep in the cells of my body knows.

So from this point of view, it would be good for me to expand my definition of a potential friend. A friend isn't just someone who's walked in my shoes in this particular lifetime. I'm intested in getting to know anyone who has walked in my shoes in other lifetimes. Rubbing shoulders with people who are quite unlike me is like befriending a version of myself from my past or future. How surreal! Interacting with any human on this planet is a cosmic chance to get to know your very own self and your very own spirit from infinite angles.
 

I was on a walk the other day. I passed by this dad walking with his five or six year old daughter who was skipping. I waved hello and felt this out of the blue bond with this man I didn't even know. I was thinking something along the lines of, "I've been a father before. I've walked in his shoes. There's a lot I know about parenting from practical experience, but I don't even remember it. If I could recall all of it and put my spirit for a few minutes into the body I was in when I was a father, he and I would bond like old buddies." I was imagining my spirit with all it's maturity and wisdom gained over many life times, and I felt again this oneness with this person who just randomly walked past me. I felt so interconnected with him and his daughter that I almost wanted to hug them and invite them over for dinner. And no, I'm not drunk as I write this. And nah, I wasn't during the walk, either. This must be how it feels to be one with everyone.
 

I find it pretty exciting that I'm going to choose another life after this one, as well as many more after that. I'll get to be an infant again. I'll get to experience the safety of my mother's womb again. I'll get to feel again my mother's love when she wraps me tightly in a blanket and rocks me. Yep, I'll feel it again.  I'll be a teenager again, and I'll feel immortal. The world will be my oyster. I'll have my first crush again. I'll experience my first kiss again. I'll fall in love for the first time again. I thought I'd never experience these things as firsts again, but voila! 

Nature symbolizes this process in a nifty way. We go through four seasons a year. We are born, we are teenagers and young adults, we are old in the fall, and we die in the winter. Yet our spirit comes back again and in the spring we are reborn. We don't need to mourn the passing of any season of life because we will experience each again many times over. How amazing it is to be able to experience enough amnesia at each rebirth so that each "first" we encounter is a real first. Except for the foggy deja vu that pops up every now and again as our spirits lift the edge up to our real existence ever so slightly.

Viewing life this way makes aging an inviting process. I think I feel comfortable getting older now. I used to resist it. I want to welcome wrinkly skin and gradually whitening hair. I intend to be one of those people who age gracefully... meaning that I embrace it.  I know aging is part of a cycle and I'll be young again soon enough in the next cycle. I want to accept the aging process, enjoying it as something natural and good instead of covering it up with botox and hair coloring.

I come from a place full of love, life, joy, peace and vitality. That's my real nature. It's just that I've forgotten up until now where I came from and who I am. I'm remembering again now. I have the mysteries of the universe buried inside of me. We all do. I have all wisdom and truth from the beginning of time buried inside of me. When I hear others speaking of these concepts for what I think is the first time, I innately know that it is truth and that  I've known it before in my past.

Sometimes I'm in a hurry to peel back the memories and rediscover in this life everything there is to understand and experience right now, at this instant. Poof. The American way. I want it... now. I want to have arrived already. I'm such a beginner at this. But then I remember that I am perfectly arrived even at the early stage I'm at now. I am complete in this moment, in my imperfections. Everyone is. I can rest knowing that everything I'm experiencing right now is enough, and that I couldn't possibly be doing any better than I am right now. I don't even have to do, be or think anything more than what I am right now. It is effortless. I can relax. We all get there sooner or later. Or rather, we are all there right now. I am there now.
 

I'm in a place that is far more than what I see with my eyes. I'm not who I was in another lifetime. I am all lifetimes and everyone. I am the Universe. The Universe is me. We are all one. I am love.

 

"That [which] is real never changes.”
— Lao Tzu (6th c. BC)

 

 

Easier to love

I've been learning about reincarnation and past life regression lately. I've only recently been receptive to learning more, and so this is relatively new. This stuff is mind blowing. It gives me peace knowing that I have lived maybe thousands of lives before, and will live many more lives. There are so many things that I've always wanted to do and explore, and one lifetime is not nearly enough. 

The thing that strikes me most recently though is that suddenly, it is easier to forgive my father for abusing me as a child. Because I have been many, many people in my past lives. I easily could have been a position of power where I could have been a religious abuser in one of my past lives, just like he is now. Even in my present life, up until recently, I myself was religious and a bit dogmatic. I thought I had to be tough with people, ignoring them and not being compassionate to them for religious reasons. I don't place any judgement on myself for this, though. I didn't know what I was doing. Otherwise I would have stopped, right? I thought God approved of this. I feared being punished by God if I didn't act this way. If I hate my father for being abusive to me, then I am hating my own self. I love myself without judgement, so I love my father without judgement. If he knew who he really was, he would be so transformed with love that he would have no ability to do anything but love others. In another life, he will eventually learn who he really is.

 

I also can't judge my mother, who allowed my father to abuse me. Because of all the thousands of lives I lived, I could have been a mother who overlooked my spouse's abuse of my children. Out of fear, or out of ignorance, I don't know. I can't judge my older sister Louisa for allowing her religious husband to physically and emotionally abuse her two kids. In a past life, I may have overlooked the same thing. 

 

I am everyone. I have been everyone. I see myself in everyone. I love myself, and I feel a warmth and love for everyone I meet. I have no judgement of myself or of others. We all reflect over and learn from our lives after we have lived them, and over thousands of years, we grow from young souls to more loving older souls. We carry over our wisdom learned through experience from one life to the next. As we learn compassion and love, we evolve into more peaceful, complete souls. There is no rush. There is no right or wrong. There is no punishment. It just is. We all get there sooner or later. Love wins. Love experiences itself through our human lives. God experiences himself through us. It is a divine process. And quite liberating. There is never anything you or I could do that is wrong. We are each infinitely loved, and we are infinite love.