"Life"
Originally written 1/27/2008
Introduction
When I
first read about past life regression 13 or so years ago, I knew that it was
something that I wanted to do. At the
time, I didn’t do anything to follow-up on the urge. With or without my help, everything
began to unfold seemingly of its own accord eleven years later.
Here’s a
poem I wrote about it all:
“Unity”
Holy
instant blesses me
caresses
me, undresses me
stripped
clean.
Burning
light, day and night
sun and
moon are gone
hold on to
nothing
be free to
see
we are
one.
Unity
defines me
free of
individuality
just love.
Plummeted
up and into
the
everything that is
single
instant of silence
shared and
known
One gift
truly given
is
returned a thousand fold.
When I was
12 years old, my dad died of cancer. He was barely 29 years old. Despite the
fact that he knew what it was like to grow up without a father (his dad had
died of cancer when he was 12 years old) he still wanted his headstone to read:
“Everything Happens for the Best”. I smile thinking of the faith and wisdom he
passed along with that one simple statement engraved in stone.
In 2005,
my brother turned 29 years old. At the time, his oldest son was only two years
old, the same age as he was when our dad died. My brother had an extremely
difficult time emotionally in the months preceding his birthday. It was a combination
of an identity crisis, mourning and fear that he would not live to see his own
son grown. He only had one memory of our father. In their concern not to upset
us by reliving the tragedy, our family didn’t talk about our dad much. In an effort to give our dad back to my
brother, I contacted family and friends to share with me any memories or funny
stories they had. The project was quickly dubbed, “The Book of Dad” and while
working on it I KNEW that I was doing one of my life’s works. I was joyous.
Each day was a delight receiving emails telling tales about the man I miss so
much. The project was a healing for everyone involved. I put the book together
using the stories and old photos. I put together four large books for my
brother, my sister, my mom and me and then made copies for everyone who had
contributed. On my brother’s 29th birthday in June of that year, the
four of us sat outside taking turns to read the stories to one another. Tears
flowed and flowed.
When my mom
gave me her contribution to the book, I was very much surprised to learn that
one of my dad’s fears as he lay dying was that he would be forgotten,
specifically by his children. To me, this very much explained the overpowering
drive I felt putting the book together. It was much more than a birthday
present for my brother. Throughout the process, I enjoyed an amazing connection
with my dad. We laughed a lot.
The book
and the process of putting it together, the remembering, was the gift referred
to in the poem. This gift led to an unfolding of events that I never could have
imagined.
Part 1 - The
Unfolding
Putting
together the book led to a closer relationship with one of my great uncles. He
and I had never known each other very well and I was delighted to learn we
shared a great love of words both in books and our own writing. In so many
ways, I felt that I was more like this great uncle of mine than any other
family member. He was very enthusiastic
about “The Book of Dad” and shared the project with even more family members.
In July, his
youngest son read the book and told him about a memory he recalled about my dad,
his older first cousin. His dad encouraged him to share his story with me. He
emailed it to me and I was thrilled to read his story of the time when my dad
was teaching him how to do back flips in their pool because I remembered that
same day! Up until that point this cousin and I had probably only seen each
other a handful of times in our lives, once every 5 to 10 years or so in our
adult lives and a little more often as children.
So the
summer continued with my uncle and me growing in our relationship with one
another. In November, another one of my great uncles (his brother) died. At the funeral, my cousin and I talked for
the first time in over 6 years. In
January, I invited him and his wife to one of my husband’s shows.
In July
2006, he and his wife invited me and my family to their house for their annual
4th of July party. At the party, I got to know a brother-in-law of
his. Turns out that this brother-in-law
is a clairvoyant and I couldn’t believe my luck! With my dad hanging out on the
other side, I’ve always been more than interested in talking with anyone
talented enough to communicate in that way. He and his wonderful wife, invited
me to join them at a gathering of their “psycho” friends, as they jokingly
called them. Their spiritualist church was planning a potluck dinner in August.
I was thrilled at the idea of meeting some likeminded people and agreed.
As I was
getting ready to go to the dinner, I realized that I had no idea of what to
expect. All I knew for sure is that it would be a gathering of mediums and that
there would be food. I remember thinking that the one thing I was most
interested in was past life regression. I finished getting ready and left.
I arrived
before my cousin and her husband, and I didn’t know anyone else there. I said a
few hellos and then sat down on a couch. I was soon in conversation with a nice
woman named Peggy. She clued me in a little about the church and what the
evening would be like. After about 15 minutes or so, I saw them arrive. As I
excused myself, Peggy informed me that she is a hypno-therapist and said that
if I knew of anyone interested in past life regression to please give her a
call! She handed me her card and I laughed, saying that I now understood why I
had sat down next to her in the first place.
Part 2
-The Regression
I called
Peggy not long after the gathering and made an appointment a couple weeks later.
Not knowing what to expect, I was a little nervous. I was also questioning
whether or not I should try and direct the experience in any way, meaning
should I try and revisit a past life that included a specific person in my
present lifetime or should I just leave it all up to the Powers that Be.
Ultimately, I decided that I don’t know what’s best for me and so I left it up
to the universe to present me with an experience which would best serve my
greater learning. In hindsight, I really shouldn’t have been surprised that I
recalled a lifetime of such pain and loss.
I cried during the entire session. What better experience to revisit
than one that was so painful that its effects were being carried over into my
present lifetime?
The
setting was Egypt, Africa in a very, very poverty stricken backwoods tribe. The
year that I entered into the lifetime was 1906. I was 24 years old. My life was
full of incredible loss and scarcity. Our tribe didn't have enough food and
people were dying from a terrible fever, which I believed to be coming from
our water source. When
the pain overwhelmed me, I used to go to a secluded grassy area to be alone. While
I was off by myself, I would wish that I was a bird so that I could fly away.
In horror and agony, I watched my mother (my sister in my current life) brutally
beaten to death by three men, all because she had broken a tribal rule and
given food to a starving child who was not of our tribe. Everyone else in our
tribe looked the other way and said nothing but she was betrayed by one man
who took the law into his own hands. He went and recruited two men from a neighboring tribe to help
him in the slaying. My sister (in this lifetime) completely freaks out if a man
tries to pin her down in innocent horseplay. She considers
this past
life regression as much a gift to her as it was to me.
I was the mother of three sons, though I only saw two of them. I'm fairly certain
that one of them died at birth. Of the other two, my eldest was my father in
this lifetime. My youngest son was my
daughter in this lifetime. He was a joy to behold in that
barren life. He brought joy to everyone. He never complained when there wasn't
enough to eat and the light of love lived in his eyes. I watched him die of
fever when he was approximately six years old. Right before he died, he became
momentarily conscious and looked deeply in my eyes. That moment of connection,
I took as my greatest gift and locked it up inside my broken heart. It was the
only thing that kept me living.
I relived the fear and terror of watching my eldest son go through initiation rites of passage which
had something to do with a leopard and being alone in the wilderness. He passed
and my relief when he returned triumphant and proud was beyond description.
My current
mother was also in that lifetime. She was a worrying neighbor / friend. I saw correlation between our relationship then and our relationship now.
There was
also a “crazy uncle” as I called him during the session. He just sat all day
long and we all took care of him. I have a feeling that he is in my current
lifetime but I still don’t recall who he is.
My husband
was completely emotionally shut down. His eyes were impenetrable walls showing
no emotion, ever. He provided for us as best he could. He was strong and hard
on the exterior but inside he was a broken man.
The tribal
medicine man was a goofy but gifted sort. There was one particular moment after
our youngest son had died when I was in despair before him on my knees and he
reminded me that I had to do what I had come to do.
In 1934, I too became ill with the fever and died with my eldest son (my dad)
by my bedside. I remember not wanting to leave him
alone but I just couldn’t go on. I believe that my husband was out on a hunt
and came back to our village to find that I had died, leaving him with another
loss to bear. Once on
the other side, it was clear to me that the life lesson was that there is never
sufficient reason not to be joyous! The same lesson our youngest son had been
teaching all along during his short lifetime.
I had
always associated my fear of abandonment issues with the loss of my father this
time around. During the regression, I realized that the fear actually stemmed
from this time of terrible loss.
The gifts
from this session continue…
Part 3
- The Confirmation
At some
point soon after the regression, I went on-line to search for fever epidemics
in Egypt during the early 1900’s. Turns out there were a couple. As much as I
knew the experience was real, I was very excited to read about it as a part of
history. I also tried to find specific tribes that fit our physical
characteristics but only narrowed it down to a few. We were very tall and thin,
of course being on the verge of starvation, and we had the deepest blackest
skin.
When I
left the session, I immediately called my sister. She was anxiously waiting to
hear how it had gone and was absolutely floored to hear the role she played. I
drove out to her house the following day to give her the tape.
A few
weeks later, the spiritualist church was hosting a gala which included various
out of town mediums standing in front of the congregation giving readings. My
sister and I went in hopes of hearing from our dad. We sat through the event
basically unimpressed. Most of the mediums felt a bit bogus to me and I was
trying to hold onto the hope I had when we first arrived. Early on my sister
pointed out the medium sitting at the end on the right, the last speaker. My
sister said that she liked her and had a feeling about her. (My sister has
psychic tendencies too.)
We waited
patiently. There were some powerful readings and some that were an insult to
our intelligence. We didn’t hear from our dad. Finally, the last medium, Rev.
Suzanne Greer, stood to give her readings. She specializes in spirit art which
are drawings of souls, angels, etc. She then uses the drawings to give reading
to the person for whom they were intended. She said that she had drawn the
pieces on her plane ride from Washington to Cincinnati. She was down to the
last one and my sister and I were trying not to let our disappointment get the
better of us.
She held
the last piece in her hand and asked if anyone had a (my husband’s name) who
was close to them. A lot of hands went up but she looked directly at me and
said, “I think this one is for you.” The next sentence out of her mouth nearly
knocked my sister and me out of our chairs. She said, “I’m not big on past
lives but does Egypt have any meaning for you?” Tears were streaming down our
faces and she called me forward to give the drawing to me. As I walked forward,
she continued talking about my recent astral travels and how doors are opening
for me and that I am to continue on this journey of discovery, that I am
learning at a very high speed and that many gifts would be given to me in the
process. I don’t remember any more
specifics because everything is very much a blur after that. The picture that
she drew is of me from that lifetime. In the drawing, I have a large shining
third eye.
~*~
Now, 16 year later, I see that the unfolding is still revealing itself and I give thanks for these profound gifts.
