Time After Time

I have crossed oceans of time for you-Dracula to Mina

 

I remember as a little kid, watching In Search of…hosted by Leonard Nimoy, and there was an episode on reincarnation. That sparked an interest in me, and its carried on to today. I have friends who are Buddhist and Hindu, whose religious beliefs account for reincarnation. Coming out of a Christian background, that is not something that is taught as a matter of faith. In fact, the consideration that your soul may have been here before is almost forbidden.

 

I recently took a class on past life regression from Ayana Wellness, rather on a lark. I thought it sounded interesting, and it was something that I wanted to learn more about. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I definitely was game. Teresa, our guide on this journey, had us start out with an exercise where we did some deep breathing and then write. I have been practicing yoga for 26 years, I can do breathing. I have been writing even longer, although I do not write a lot of fiction. I thought that this would be a piece of cake.

When I write, I can almost visualize what I am writing as its going onto the paper. I can see the words in my mind’s eye as well as what I am writing about. For example, if I am writing about walking in the woods on a snowy eve, I can picture the trees, the snow, the moonlight as well as what I want to say. During this exercise, I only saw pictures and no words, which is highly unusual. However, I was busy scribbling things down. When I was done, I apparently had a stream of consciousness piece on a schoolgirl in 1940’s London. I saw flashes of riding a bicycle down a lane, hanging laundry in a garden and giggling with girlfriends. I don’t know if this represented a past life or an over active imagination, but it was fascinating.

I did mention during the break between exercises that I can’t be hypnotized. I struggle with focus during meditation as well, and I can’t ever go “deep”. I am so jealous of people who, during meditation, have blissful experiences. I fight back the to do list, what am I going to make for dinner the next night and thinking about the temperature. I don’t usually have one of these spiritual experiences. I was not expecting to see anything other than my eyelids.

Instead, I had a very detailed experience with sight, sound and even physical pain at one point. All of these sensations corresponded to what has happening during this meditation. I will admit that it was one of the most startling, unique experiences of my life. The feelings lingered for quite a bit of time afterwards. 

Teresa mentioned that we will see people from our current life in our past lives. If what I did indeed experience was a past life regression, I was rather disappointed to not see anyone familiar. In fact, I told my husband before I left for the workshop that I was hoping that we were beloveds in a past life too and wouldn’t that be super cool. As a result, I was a little saddened that he didn’t pop up. We were given a worksheet with journaling prompts that can help us explore things more in depth and maybe resolve some issues. I can’t say for sure if I experienced a past life or if it was a writer’s imagination going wild, but it was definitely a cool experience.