Going Back—wayyyy back!

I’ve been at least a semi-believer in reincarnation for most of my life—I’d say since mid teens anyway. I’m not sure if there was anything that triggered it except maybe some correspondence with a long-ago pen pal, Jose Cazador,  who sent me a page ripped out of an old poetry book that spoke about the possibility. I finally tracked down the poem and its writer just a matter of months ago. Anyway, the idea always resonated.

Although it isn’t specific to this theme, I will share my first OOB experience, which was rather odd. It would have been the summer of my 16^th or 17^th year and I was sitting out after supper in the bed of our Ford pickup, just watching the sky and maybe some distant lightning. I looked up and saw a plane, a jet airliner I am sure, going east across the north end of the Verde Valley in Arizona. At that time I had never flown and had no idea what it was like. But for a few seconds, I was in that or another craft with the lights dimmed as they do at night, sitting in a window seat on the plane’s left side. I looked out the small oval window and got a glimpse of lights far below. Then I was abruptly back but that flash had seemed so real and authentic. I’m not sure if I was “remembering” or made some odd link to a person on that or at  least a plane. Now I only shrug and say, “¿Quien sabe?”

I’ve had a number of “déjà vu” experiences and especially have met people with whom I had an instant sense of “knowing” so we could start talking as if we had just left off a conversation a day or two earlier. In most such cases, I was strongly drawn but in a few strongly repelled. This is probably not so uncommon but it has been quite intense a few times. I have a distinct feeling wemet to renew a bond and that we will meet again other places and times. 

Back in about 1998 I went to the RWA (Romance Writers of America) conference which that year was held in New Orleans. I’d met Melinda Rucker Haynes at a previous conference in Anaheim and sat in a couple of her workshops. That year, I scheduled an hour long hypnotic regression with her.  Melinda is a licensed and trained hypnotherapist and I was anxious but not worried or fearful about the experience.

The feeling was odd; I was ‘there’ and yet not there (in my body and in the room) —on the tape she made for me my voice is a bit strange, low, husky and uneven. I went to a lifetime as a Native American woman of perhaps 1000 years ago. My name was  Humming Bird or in their vernacular, “Wind Dancer” and I was a potter.  I visualized woven yucca sandals on my feet and a kind of blanket dress of coarse but soft fabric as my attire. Who knows? It did not seem odd or farfetched.

Before and after that I read a lot of books on the subject such as those by Dick Sutphen, Brian Weiss and many others.  I found regression has often been used to work through traumas of various kinds. Also after that I somewhat self-regressed a few times and in each case found a possible cause of a physical or emotional issue. Wishful thinking or reality?  

In one, I was a young Jewish girl living somewhere in the Middle East about 100-200 AD. My father was a merchant and our family well-off so we lived in a walled compound. I had an older brother and one day sneaked out to follow him and his friends to go hear a stranger speak that they had learned of.  The speaker was apparently a follower or disciple of St. Paul and spoke eloquently about women being evil and needing to be controlled and kept from going astray! I got back home without being discovered but felt very guilty and soon after that experienced my first monthly cycle. I was terrified by the blood and pain and just knew I was being punished!  My maid or ‘nanny’ discovered it and calmed me down but the fear and shame prevailed. I was married very young to a contemporary of my father’s and died in childbirth. Ah ha, was that a partial source or cause of my severe cramps in this life and also sterility? Who can say?

Another time, I was cooking supper and suddenly slipped off for a short time. Since Melinda first asks you what is on your feet, I asked myself. “Jackboots, o’ course” was the reply and spoken not in my voice at all. Turned out I was a younger son of minor nobility in England and a bit wild. My elder brother banished me and I took the horse I considered mine but he had me named a horse thief and I was hanged! Another ah-ha—I hate to be touched round my throat and did not even like to wear turtlenecks or choker necklaces!  Did some part of me recall that rope and my neck breaking? Again, who can say!

There have been others but those are quite vivid. A dear spirit-kin friend told me of two instances relative to his own memories. In one he dreamed he was near an oasis in the desert with his brother, just a bit younger. Some bandits or maybe Bedouins came to the water and the boys hid but the younger one was caught and my friend remembered watching the strangers take him away and being too scared to do anything but feeling very guilty and sad. . At that time he had no knowledge of real desert, camels etc. but visualized it all clearly. He, like me, is the eldest child and almost compulsively protective of his siblings and other kin. 

In another, he was helping brand calves on his parent’s ranch as a young kid and looked up to see a plane flying above. He didn’t quite go there as I had but he felt a strong connection and kinship to the idea of flying. Later, when he took flying lessons, he zipped through the ground school and on his first actual flight, the instructor was amazed to find he knew exactly what to do and needed no coaching at all. He is sure he had been a pilot who probably died young in one of the two world wars and came back quickly. I think this is not an uncommon thing as early deaths may leave karma and work undone and the spirit needs to return and carry on with the prior plan, one way or another! Oddly we “knew” each other at the first meeting after corresponding and talking on the phone for about a month; there was a spontaneous rapport as if from true recognition but we don’t know where or when that bond started, just that it exists.

If any of my readers have any experiences they'd like to share, I'd love to hear of them! You can email me privately at azwriter427@yahoo.com if you prefer not to go public in a comment.