Walking the streets of old town Alexandria after navigating the DC traffic, at my stop in this lovely spot on my trek South, I contemplate the unfolding process of my life’s journey and the myriad of lives from which I have sprung to be here now. I stop for cheese and olives at a wine shop, looking forward to my therapeutic appointment with my subconscious, seeking answers to questions that have not yet fully formed.
“Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated “building blocks,” but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object’s interaction with the observer.”
Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism
The symbolic value of the past life is evident to the dreamer/participant and the extrapolation can be made fairly quickly as to the value of the life – sometimes pushed forward by requesting the dreamer to remember a significant event from a past life and/or a previous death. What were the feelings, and what was the person thinking when they died? Fly above and describe the scene as you were released.
It wasn’t what I imagined it would be – a gypsy girl dancing and twirling her skirts with joy in a state of bliss shortly before her troupe was run out of town and ravaged by soldiers or a rich gay soldier in the Napoleon wars, desperately clinging to his fallen lover against a backdrop of fire and screaming horses. He dies soon after, afflicted with sickness and opium.
A woman whisked away from her village on horseback, clinging to her lover, who had promised her a life of luxury and ease in the city. She was saddened to leave behind her young daughter, born out of wedlock, with a poor family who she was leaving behind, fleeing her bad decisions to make worse ones. She became a prostitute in the city and once she finally hit bottom, returned to the village and to her forgiving and joyful daughter and family. She dies old and heartbroken but surrounded by love.
A young Indian boy, at a fire ceremony, pressed into sacrificing his beloved pet, for the glory of the tribal religious offering. He realizes the hopelessness of the old ways. Ceremonies will not save the Indian nations, the futility of his tribal religion and the sadness of his offering leads him on a downward spiral. He eventually kills himself.
I sleep well after the past life regression and enjoy an early morning stroll the next morning in Alexandria. Looking at my feet, enjoying the comfort of my new Fly London shoes, I wonder what kind of door will mark this particular life in this time and place. I suppose I won’t know until the next time I visit the liminal state of bardos.
