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...

Wordless Wednesday: Millie's Beehive Do

My dog got a new hairdo for the new year. 

Silly Sunday: Big Famous Rocks

Years ago, my sister, brother-in-law, Rhonda, and I left Boston and drove south for an hour to get a taste of our historical heritage by seeing the one and only Plymouth Rock. Once near the fabulous site, a foofaraw gathered around fancy smancy columns surrounding what must have been the greatest tourist attraction ever. Visiting Plymouth Rock was like the Peanuts Halloween special. After all of the excitement  and anticipation of trick-or-treating, Charlie Brown opened his bag and said, "I got a rock." I know how he felt. I don't know why I expected Plymouth Rock to be anything different from the million of other stones on the ground just because someone chiseled a year on it. Sorry, but my recommendation is to save your gasoline.

Here is a photo from some tourist site since a picture wasn't worth the film.

Years later, I was lucky enough to visit another famous rock, the Blarney Stone in Ireland. Legend says that if one kisses this giant rock, one will be given the gift of gab. As you know, I need that; however, I didn't kiss the Blarney stone. The night before heading to Cork, I overheard a conversation between a few locals in a pub. These youths laughed hysterically about how they and their young friends loved to visit the Blarney stone late at night. The stunt consisted of breaking onto the grounds, scaling the walls of the Castle, and pissing on the Blarney Stone before the puckering tourists arrived. You kissed it, didn't you? Ha! Now you have something to gab about.

Since visiting these two tourist attractions didn't work as planned, I've got to check out some more famous rocks. How about the Rosetta Stone? Maybe I could visit the Rock of Gibraltar? Who wants to go with me? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?