A Life in the Day

Last week I experienced my first Past Life Regression. I've had thoughts and 'memories' that have arisen before that I've attributed to past lives -- miniature flashbacks to a moment that didn't belong to me or this lifetime -- but although I was aware of these happenings on the fringes of my consciousness, until last week I hadn't ever purposely explored them, so when a local metaphysical store offered a class on them, including an actual regression, I jumped at the chance.

After talking about what she does, about past lives, and about hypnosis, the instructor began to lead us on the experiential portion of the evening. She started us out at a place of safety, and thus I found myself lying in the back of my family's RV, which was my favorite place to be when we took family camping trips to various parts of the country when I was a kid. I have never felt as safe as I did in the back of the camper, all wrapped up in a cozy sleeping bag, the open window above my head blowing full on my face as I watched the ever flowing dance of car lights and darkness on the ceiling while my dad drove through the night toward our destination, the muffled voices of he and my mom up front mingled with Chet Atkins' guitar licks from the eight-track player. My blood pressure drops just thinking of that. 

From that point she had us meet and merge with a self of ours from our future, in this lifetime, who has knowledge and experience doing this work. Then as that self we walked down a hallway with a row of doors on either side, eventually being directed to choose a door. The door I was drawn to was wooden and round, like a hobbit door, which easily swung open with a gentle push, and I stepped through.  

Instantly I found myself outside, surrounded by a coniferous forest. I looked around, throwing a glance behind me to see if the door was still there. It was and I smiled when I saw it hanging open from the trunk of a huge tree. I faced forward again, and through the trees I saw a stone house in a clearing. It wasn't my house and, though I wasn't afraid, I knew I needed to avoid it, so I backed away while simultaneously nocking an arrow, just in case... "OH WOW!" I thought, "I have a bow and arrows!" My excitement swelled until I realized that Sherwood Forest was probably more deciduous than this. But still... Bow and arrows!! I looked down at my feet and saw soft leather moccasin boots. I'm Native American, and the house was that of a settler and, though I had no ill will toward them, I couldn't be sure of the same from them. I continued backing away, amazed and almost alarmed at how silent I was in executing my retreat. There was no crunching through the underbrush that I'm so familiar with this present lifetime, but 'back then' not even a snapping twig belied my presence.

With gentle prompting, I moved to a little later in the day where I found myself deeper in the forest at night, lounging against a log in front of a fire where the game I'd shot earlier, possibly a boar, was roasting. Then, as our guide ushers us forward again to the next morning, I find myself at a small river where I drank from cupped hands before dowsing my face and hair with water. 

Then moving to a significant point in that life, I find myself in a teepee, looking into the eyes of my beloved as my heart swells with love and joy. Our backstory is instantly deposited into my mind.  I know that I left my own tribe to be with her and that she is the daughter of a chief, which means it was extra challenging to prove my worthiness for her. Apparently presenting him with 10 buffalo hides that I'd personally hunted and prepared was proof enough of my worth. 

With that thought I flashed back to another point in that lifetime where I saw a huge buffalo not too far away from where I'd snuck up on it at the edge of some trees. It turned and started walking slightly away from me, and when its stride revealed the patch of skin behind the elbow, with sudden certainty I knew that that was the spot where a single arrow could take down the great animal.

My focus returned to life with my beloved, and a scene unfolded of children surrounding me, laughing and playing and wrestling around. As it turns out, we had no children of our own, but, just as I find myself in my present life, I was the adopted favorite uncle to all the children of the tribe. I was the Storyteller and my purpose was to tell of the old ways, to keep them alive in the hearts of the youth who would one day lead the tribe. 

Again we were guided ahead to a significant moment, and l find myself an old man, embracing my beloved beneath a buffalo hide as we stand watching the tepees of the village being taken down and prepped for travel. It's cold, a trace of snow on the ground, and we are being forced to move to a reservation. I am disheartened, as well as concerned for my beloved, uncertain she can survive the trip. I consider staying behind with her, finding a secluded place in the forest where the whites won't find us, but our family talks me out of such an idea, and I see the wisdom of staying with the group. 

One more time we are prompted ahead, though I don't remember if it was to another significant point or if it were specifically to our passing. Regardless, my death in that lifetime was the next significant event. I was even older, and I believe alone now, having lost my wife years before. One afternoon, out of the blue, I just felt this strange sense of completeness, like a gentle bell going off inside. I stood up and walked into the woods. I had been with others at the time but there were no goodbyes, or words of any kind to anyone there. I just got up and walked away, as if someone had knocked on the door and I'd gone to answer it. I found a spot under a tree with a slight concave to the trunk so as to cradle and hold my old body comfortably, and there I sat watching the beautiful rays of the sun setting for the last time through the branches and leaves, feeling an exhilaration and expansion as my life seeped out of my body and into all the teeming life that surrounded me. 

Shortly thereafter our guide called us back to the future. As I immediately began to think about my trip into the past, there was a quality -- a solidity -- to the experience that I recognized from all the shamanic journeying I've done, which, along with that sense of it having a life of its own with the unexpected surprises and insights I received, added credence to the whole thing. This was not simply whispy daydreams and imaginings. This was an experience.

Of course the mind likes to have its own validation as well, so I googled a few things when I got home. I discovered that the place on the buffalo I'd denoted as the most vulnerable was indeed the best spot for a kill, the heart beating directly behind it. Later, as further validation, When telling a friend about this, she said that an arrow, especially prior to modern hunting tips, may not pierce deep enough for a kill, but that when an animal is injured like that, they always lie on the ground for the earth energy to heal the wound, and in this case the great weight of the buffalo would drive the shaft completely into the heart for an instant death. It took me a minute to pick my jaw up off the floor after that. 

The other thing I researched online had to do with the fact that at some point our guide asked us when and where we were, and instantly "Wyoming, 1832" flashed into my head. Well, in the 1800s, 'Wyoming' encompassed a much larger territory than today, and there were multiple tribes in and passing through that area during that time period. The interesting thing is that the significant thing that happened specifically in 1832 was that the Cheyenne tribe split into a Northern and a Southern contingent. I don't know if I were North or South, but this leads me to believe I was Cheyenne, whose tradition it was, interestingly enough, for the man to leave his tribe and family to join that of his wife. 

So, for a relatively short and generalized group session, I'm very pleased with the volume of information and experience I've been able to glean from it. Plus I know it's just the tip of the iceberg, and now that I have the initial foothold into this new area of self exploration, I'll be making many more expeditions into this new 'undiscovered country' of mine. Who knows? Maybe next time I'll find Sherwood!

The Robin Hood Thing

In a recent post I mentioned some of my interactions with the famous Arthurian wizard Merlin, mentioning how when I first found out he was working with me as a Spirit Guide (and had worked with me through a number of lifetimes) one of my initial thoughts was, "Oh great!  It's the 'Robin Hood thing' all over again!"  I didn't go into detail about 'the Robin Hood thing' then because I wanted to stick to one tangent at a time, so I figured that now was probably a good time to explain.

It all started about 5 years ago with a simple question for Jeshua at a monthly channeling meeting...

Jeshua: Beloved songbird, how are you in this evening?

Patrick: I’m doing really good (Good) I didn’t come with a big dark private secret question or anything, but I got kind of a…I’ve been doing some research—I don’t know for how many years, but I was just wondering what you had to say about Robin Hood.

Jeshua: (Laughing) Very good question. Well, I’ll tell you. I see Robin Hood right in front of me (Laughter) Strange that you should ask. Strange that you should be interested and do some research. Were you part of the merry band? (I could see that, yes) Yes, I could see that also, because it is true. Were you Robin Hood? (I don’t know if I’d go that far, but…) You can claim it (Are you serious?) Of course I’m serious. When have you known me to joke? (Laughter)

Patrick: All the time. Wow, I wasn’t expecting that.

Jeshua: You were. It was a lifetime that you lived. It is a lifetime that you are somewhat emulating even in this lifetime. There is a kinship, a feeling of familiarity with it and a desire to return unto some of those times in a certain way, however it would fit in to these times.

Patrick: That’s why I want a little cabin in the woods and... (Yes, and to live off in the woods; to ride free) And that’s why I’m so into archery and everything like that (Oh, yes) Okay. Wow. I’ll have to process that for awhile, but thank you! (You will have fun with it)

And with that I was instantly inducted into the ranks of those who claim to be Cleopatra, King Arthur, or take your pick of any other famous historical figure, in a past life. Crap! What was I suppose to do with that?

Now had it been Cleopatra, or even King Arthur, I could have easily discounted it.  I don't  hold the same resonance with either of them and so would just dismiss it as something 'interesting' but not to expend much energy on. But Robin Hood?  Here was way too much resonance to ignore -- Not just the fact that I'd always loved archery (yes, always -- tho I had no idea where that came from), and similar things, but perhaps more significantly, the deep sense of honor and chivalry I held before I even had words for it.  There are many ways I have felt out of place in this century, and the last, and that I feel more comfortable in the Middle Ages than this current one, which is why I've been active in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism -- a medieval recreationist group) for so many years.  It truly felt like a home-coming when I discovered such a group existed. 

And I could go on and on about similarities, synchronicities, etc, but my purpose here is not to convince you -- Just to give some background of why it makes sense to me.  And it's not just me. I remember my girlfriend at the time, who was at this particular Jeshua meeting, just nodded, saying that it made so much sense because I had such strong sense of justice.  And that has pretty much been the same reaction I've gotten from the friends with whom I've shared this little secret.  Someone will ask if I have knowledge of or memories from any past lives.  I lower my head sheepishly, and shyly reply, "...yes."  Inevitably they press for more info, so I tell them, and the inevitable response is, "That makes so much sense!"

So what does it all mean or how does it affect me?  Well, at some point in this quantum Universe where we are all one, the whole idea of past lives breaks down because ultimately there is only one of us here, so we have been everyone and everything that has ever existed.  So from that standpoint, everyone was Robin Hood in a past life.

Then, making it a bit less ethereal, time is an illusion, so all our past, present, and future lives, are happening simultaneously with a give and take, back and forth so that whatever you do ripples backward and forward in time, affecting all your various lives. The best book I have ever found to explain this is The Education of Oversoul 7 by Jane Roberts (medium and author of the Seth books).

But to bring it down to it's simplest, I really think of it in terms of resonance, as I've already mentioned.  It's more a matter of who I am at my essence resonates deeply with the Robin Hood mythos.  Am I Robin Hood?  No.  I am Patrick.  I am a 21st Century shamanic cartoonist, with my own lessons and my own path, with enough idiosyncrasies of my own to deal with without bringing someone else's into this lifetime.  I may have connections to, and ripples of influence from, a famous semi-mythical medieval man, but I am not him. 

My favorite way of thinking of it is what one friend told me.  It's not so much that I lived as Robin Hood, but that Robin Hood lives in me. 

Still, there are times when I'm in the woods somewhere when I feel all the errant parts of me fall back into place, and I have to catch my breath from the sheer magnificance of the scene because I recognize the timeless forest from between the worlds overlaying and underlying whatever trees I am standing amongst.  And for a moment I am home in Sherwood.    

Deja Two

You know that feeling of deja vu you get when something strikes you as totally familiar yet there should be no way you've been there or experienced it before? In the past week I've had two such incidents, totally unrelated other than that this type of thing is happening in my life with more and more frequency.

The first happened last week when I finally was able to return to archery practice with my local SCA group after a long absence. I had been sooooo itchy to get back out on the range again, that in the past few weeks I have found myself actually, spontaneously going into an archer's stance like I was drawing a bow. I also had been promising to take my best friend with me and was able to finally carry through on that promise, which is where the deja vu thing comes in. My friend hadn't shot for about 20 years, and that had only been for a week or so, but as she stepped onto the line, nocked an arrow, and drew back the string with perfect and noble grace, it was obvious that this was not a foreign experience for her. And it was so unbelievably familiar to me to see her that way.

But wait! There's more! The sense of familiarity only deepened as I approached the line. She is left-handed and so, me being right-handed, I naturally stepped up behind her, so my back was to hers. I raised my bow and took aim, but as I saw her drawn bow out of the corner of my eye, I had to lower mine again. "Holy crap this is familiar! We've been here before." "Fighting back to back you mean?" "Yeah!" "I know, huh!"

Wow! Still blows me away.

The second flahback occurrence happened last night as I was watching Avatar. I mentioned in an earlier post how this movie had elicited multiple feelings in me that were closer to being memories than being fiction. Well, I was excitedly watching my very own, newly purchased copy, and was at the point where the Nav'i climb up to the place in the floating mountains where they first become bonded with the mountain banshees. As they approach the mouth of the cave where they will emerge to perform this rite of passage, my mouth dropped open. I had been there, or in a very similar place. The view outside the cave was almost exactly as I remember it from a vision I had years ago.

It was one weekend when I was still married. Saturdays had become a time when I could sit at the kitchen table and draw comics to my heart's content, and as I would do so, my ex would sometimes read to me. This particular Saturday she was reading from one of Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Rider's of Pern books. I don't remember the scene she was reading about, or what was happening in the book, but at a certain point I momentarily flashed to somewhere else.

I was humanoid, I was pretty sure, as I sat at the lip of a large cave and let my legs dangle over the edge. I turned to my left and there, lying or sitting beside me was a dragon -- my dragon! I just spontaneously, and without thinking, reached out my hand and stroked its neck. I still have the tactile memory of that experience. It really wasn't scaley at all, but more like the soft suppleness of human skin -- perhaps a bit denser and thicker, but definitely a softness that was pleasing to the touch. It lasted but a split second, but had the impact to still be etched in my memory all these years later.

So it was interesting to have two such occurrences happen in a single week. Things in my life, are definitely exhilarating. And now that I've broken you in with my dragon experience, and assuming you're still reading and not convinced I'm totally off my nut, perhaps soon I will write about my experiences with Unicorn...