Sins

Dear World,

I'M SORRY. In a past life I did something awful and now you seek revenge. I was not thinking when I sacked your village and plundered your precious silver. We barbarians did those sorts of things. When I smashed golden statues in your palace, it was the alcohol forced upon us pawns. Stealing your boat and leaving you stranded on an island was not cool, but what did you expect from pirates? I honestly don't remember what I did, but it must have been terrible because the karma coming at me in this life is strong, and I'm tired.

Also, if I did anything naughty this past year, please forgive me for that, too.

Joyce

I'm the Host for This Post! PAST LIVES

If karma is real, I must have done something dreadful in my past life. Perhaps all of us teachers burned multiple villages and our students were the victims of that wrath. They take pleasure in helping us atone for those heinous crimes. Why else would we step into a classroom?

That might have been my first incarnation, but it wasn't my most recent one. To quote Steve Martin, "I was born a poor black child." Seriously, I looked something like Aunt Jemima as I watched the white folks dance with a fiddle around a campfire. I longed to join the fun but looking at my fat, black thighs, I knew no slave could dance with whites.

I saw this image under hypnosis at a college event at the AEPi house. The fraternity hired a hypnotist for an evening's entertainment. As we sat in a circle, we closed our eyes, traveled back to a previous life, and voila––the slave watching the party.

Each fraternity brother and little sister told a unique tale of guarding castle walls or enjoying picnics with a family. My friend frantically recalled a room filled with people screaming as fog entered vents. The hypnotist immediately snapped him out of his trance.

One may argue that a brief vision of myself as a slave does not mean I was one; however, this image makes a lot of sense. Every t-shirt I own has a stretched out neckline from my compulsion to loosen anything tight around my neck. I've never been able to wear turtlenecks and seeing choker necklaces makes me ill to the point that I once got dizzy from looking at one. I always wear my long sleeves rolled because I despise anything tight around my wrists, too. Even my watch dangles loosely from my arm. Did I once endure tight ropes around my wrists while being led to my hanging?

I also find a natural chemistry between African Americans and myself. No doubt about it, I was a slave.

Before I suffered in the fields under the lash, a family friend, who has been helpful to us over the years, claims to have been Queen Isabella of Spain after a visit with a hypnotist. She has since apologized for her cruel actions toward Jews. I guess karma strikes again.

Furthermore, when my daughter was two, she told me she missed her other mother. I said, "I'm the only mother you've ever had." She insisted she remembered another mother with yellow hair who wore a doctor's outfit. Who knows? Maybe Erica really did remember another mother.

I've found a few interesting reads on the topic of reincarnation. Dr. Brian Weiss was skeptical until he met a patient recalling her past life traumas. He went on to write multiple books on the subject, which I absorbed like a sponge. A few years back, I read a fascinating work of fiction by Ann Brashares called My Name is Memory about a man who remembered all of his past lives and worked through multiple lifetimes trying to make the same woman fall in love with him. This book kept me up all night but after three years, I've yet to see the second book of the trilogy.

Now it's your turn. Since I'm the host of this post, link up after midnight. What do you think about past lives?


Powered by Linky Tools
http://www.linkytools.com/wordpress_list.aspx?id=178319&type=thumbnail">Click here

to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list...

#GBE2: Curiosity/Wonder and After Life

As a little girl, I kept seeing these huge wads of toilet paper in the bathroom trashcan each month and couldn't figure out what they were. So one day, I reached into the garbage and opened one to see for myself. Scared the snot out of me!

Maybe curiosity is not such a good thing, after all it killed the cat. Plus there is the old "ignorance is bliss" phrase too. None the less, I've always been intrigued by death. I wonder what happens when we die? Where do we go? or...Will we come back in a reincarnated form? The only true way to find out is to die, and I'm not that curious. I am, however, sure we're never totally gone because the body is made of energy and energy can never be destroyed. It only changes form; scientifically a part of us will always remain on Earth.

None the less, I believe in reincarnation and karma. For example, as a teacher, I must have done something horrendous in my past life. I have a theory that my current and past students belonged to villages that I sacked and burned, and they continuously get their karmic pay back on me every year. That's the history of everyone in the teaching profession because why else would we suffer such abuse?

But the barbarian's life must have been an old, old existence because back in college, a hypnotist captivated us kids in a journey to our past lives to observe what we had experienced. I was an African American slave and knowing myself, it makes sense. Although I'm white, I've always gotten along well with black people and feel a natural chemistry with African Americans who I've worked with or have had the pleasure of being around. Also, I instinctively have a terrible fear of authority figures and hate wearing turtle necks or anything tight around my neck or wrists. I've even experienced anxiety and had to look away upon seeing someone with something bound tightly around their neck. Yep! I was probably bound, shackled, and eventually hung. In my mind, hanging would be the worst way to die.

What? You don't believe this? Fine. I'll prove it to you in the next life. And by the way, a friend of ours visited a hypnotist who told her she was Queen Isabella in a past life. As a result, she has apologized for the way she had treated Jews.