Where I Think I've Been

[LearsFool]

I honestly don't yet know what to think about reincarnation. Thus far I have not been able to totally reconcile it with the belief that we are all individual souls with unique and eternal properties and histories.

Yet I cannot deny the power of the notion. I have been told by many people of various different spiritual backgrounds that I am an "old soul". And indeed, there has always abeen a certain small kernel of awareness within me that I can recall having even in childhood. Something that has remained constant somehow, even when my concious mind was undeveloped. And I have always felt aware beyond what my years would dictate. (Often this would make me an outcast.)

And though I am no expert, I am aware that one of the signs of having previous lives is a pre-occupation with certain time periods. More than just finding them interesting or fun. The more specific the interest, the more likely it results from having lived a life before now. If this notion is true, there must have been several time periods to in which I have lived previously. (Wondering if anybody else feels drawn to similar places.)

-A misty, distant, Pagan age in what "feels" like Europe to me. This of course could cover a million and one different times and places, yet that is all I have to go on for this one. I know it sounds vague, but it is that very vagueness that makes me feel that there's something to it. I just feel some sort of kindred connection to a people/culture long forgotten...where fires, festivals, rituals and spiritual awareness were of utmost importance. I'm drawn to big dark castles, kept warm by huge fires in winter.

Oddly, I don't feel as though I was in a particularly war-like place, though almost everyone was at war all the time thousands of year ago. (At least as far as we know.) My connection to this undefined era and culture is one reason why I feel drawn to some types of pagan truths to this day.

-Late 14th, Early 15th Century England.
I love, and have always loved all things UK, particularly England. Particularly the royalty of same. But I have always felt a specific attachment to the England of the very late 1300's and early 1400s. I am one of the few people I know that actually reads (and loves) Shakespeare's history plays set in that era. I read about the lives of the monarchs of that time. (Particularly Richard II through Henry V). I have a strange sort of understanding and sympathy for the nature of the powerful monarchy that would seem outdated in the 21st century, for a guy born into a democracy. So keen is my interest and my odd spiritual camaraderie with some of these figures, that i sometimes think that if I was born then, I must have actually been in the royal family somewhere.

-Early to Mid 19th Century England.
Or Victorian England, if you will. London, particularly. By no means a historian on the period, I am drawn to many example of the writing, art, and music of this era, that originated in this time and place. I even find the clothing of many of the people from the time period to be appealing. (When younger I had hoped that certain of the styles would return, particularly for women.) Dickensian England/London of the 1830s and 1840s carry the most potent pull on me. I feel I was neither a beggar nor an aristocrat. I feel I was just pretty average while there. But I have a fascination for all of the classes, rich and poor and everything in between for this era.

-1940's Manhattan.
One of the more specific ones I suppose. As an actor, I have been in several productions that have taken place in this era, (and one that was even in that city in that era.) It always seems so natural to wear such clothing, say such things, and to relate to the nature of society in that city in those days. I am drawn to the way radio worked, the style of hats, once again the way women dressed, and the use of language. I have very distinct notion of walking up and down the busy streets of New York during the 1940s. Even during the war, which would seem to indicate I was unable to fight for some reason or the other. Especially given that my thoughts of the era contain no specific inclination towards the war. I have an intellectual curiosity into the vastly important World War II, but it isn't the same as the connection I feel to the civilian experience in the big city at the same time.

I am sure there must have been many other lives between each of these, if they were previous lives at all. Yet these are the eras and situations that have been a most natural fit to me mentally and spiritually.

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[Xal]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing