Stop Me If You’ve Lived This Before…

One of the most difficult things I find to wrap my head around is past lives. And it’s not because I don’t believe in them or anything like that. In fact, one of the very few unchanging portions of my spiritual practice (from the time that I was a teenager) was the incorporation of reincarnation. Even as an atheist, I felt there was something there that was more than just a simple phrase or yet another belief system guiding others from their fear of death by giving them the promise of a whole new life after death. It helps to alleviate some of the misery that I felt as an atheist, toward the end of that particular phase, actually. But the reason I’ve had a hard time wrapping my head around it is because there are so many kooks out there that are claiming such big, huge claims. They sit down and say, “I was Cleopatra,” and then offer up lukewarm evidence that could be found in any historical context. Or they tell you something really icky and say, “I was Hitler in my past life,” and then tell you about how the dog of his life was named Blondi, even though anyone can read that somewhere nowadays. It’s still touted as proof. To be honest, if there are that many people who were either Hitler or Cleopatra, they could probably all live on their own deserted island, shoulder to shoulder.

And that’s where I come up short in my reincarnation thing. So many kooks.

But, I do believe in reincarnation and have for a long time. Part of the reason for this is because of certain fears that I’ve manifested, in my youth, that didn’t seem to have much of a logical basis. I’ll level with you: my biggest fear is a fire. I’m better about it but for years I used to double and triple check to make sure that the stoves were off, that the fire detectors were in order, and whatnot. (I used to drive the Sister nuts with the stove thing when we lived together.) This fear manifested when I was a very small child. Now, the logical explanation is that my parents were both smokers and it stems from that. However, I don’t think there were any fire-related instances in my youth with both of my parents smoking at the time. And I know it never happened later on in my youth, after the death of my father. But, this insane illogical irrational fear really was hammered home when I was nine or so. (This was two years after the death of my dad.) In science class, we had to do work with Bunsen burners although I don’t recall why. I had such a panic attack the first time that I ran out of the class and was physically ill. This happened a few more times until my mom was actually asked to come in and monitor the class, and me, while we did the work we were supposed to. The fear after that abated but is still around.

Another aspect of this is the Sister’s irrational choking fear. She’s never been choked, but her fear has manifested in the inability to wear a necklace tightly around her neck without having a panic attack. Hell, she can’t wear T-shirts that aren’t V-neck because of these panic attacks. Both of these instances speak to me in volumes and not in unknown childhood instances, either. The fears could have a basis in this life, but I’ve often felt that to manifest such a heart-racing fear at such a young age, something more had come of it. And as far as I was concerned, the best bet was that something had happened to both of us in past lives that had to do with these two fears manifesting in this life.

So, I’ve been interested in what my past lives have been for years. As a joke, once, the Sister and I sat down and started farting around with our cards, asking various leading questions about past lives. We were just having a lot of fun, but one of the things we accidentally stumbled upon were members of our soul group. (For those unaware, that’s a group of souls that chill from one life to the next.) I had already known that BFTX was in my soul group, but I got confirmation that night. It explained more than I could possibly convey how well we were able to connect on levels that most people in our age bracket don’t. It explained why we could fight and come back, separate and come back, and just know, instinctively, what the words “I miss you” really mean. There’s a reason I wrote that post in DON’T PANIC about soul mates because, really, she’s that to me. Anyway, I got confirmation that she and I have walked many lives together. I also learned that TH and I have done this dance a time or two before, but always managed to fuck shit up. Our last life together didn’t end well and we separated for a while. Apparently, we decided to try shit out again.

But what really got to me was learning that my ex-husband was in my soul group. I had never actually expected us to have lived more than a couple lives together, if that. However, it seemed that we had lived more than that together. And none of them ended well for the both of us. The life the Sister and I tapped into was frightening similar to the current life the ex and I were living. In the past life, I choked the life out of my ex-husband for cheating on me while I was away. I killed his ass like nothing else. That night, I was scared out of my mind because it was like we were making things happen the way they had in our past life together. Though the ex-husband never strangled me or tried to, we both dreamed together that he would, invariably, end up doing that to me. I would wake up in my bed sweating and shaking, and so would he for the same reason. We were scared out of our gourds and even though he threatened to kill everything and everyone I loved if I ever left him, he let me go. I brought out the jealous egotistical asshole that his soul really was, or something, and he would have killed me. I have no doubt. So we broke it off. We stopped the mirroring of the previous life with this one, thankfully.

But apparently, that wasn’t the only time we’ve done this.

You see, I know someone who does a lot of work in the shamanic, astral capacity. She’s a pretty cool cat, so if you haven’t read her blog, you should get over there and start. After my Hekatean oracle session from Sky last week, Miss Shaman offered her services to those of us belonging to the FB group, The Island of Misfit Pagans. We all pretty much hopped on because, you know, cool. I really thought about what I wanted to know and after my card reading about Hekate and I having worked together in past lives, I asked about that. I wanted confirmation of my gut here. It wasn’t that I disbelieved my gut, per se, but that I just wanted a little extra to add to what I was already feeling. Miss Shaman really gave it to me. I received the reading last night and while there is a precursor to the Hekate reading that will come at a future date. Right now, let’s talk about Hekate… and my ex-husband.

The life that began the journey with Hekate was a peasant’s life. I was a simple woman. Apparently, one night, I went off to do whatever it was that I had to do only to come back and find my husband (at the time – TH??????) killed at the hands of the soul incarnation of my current ex-husband. (MEH for short.) MEH was rife with jealous over me. He wanted me but I had refused him in that life. The husband he killed and I had a child together and Miss Shaman came into this life when I was on the run from MEH with my son. I was running and scared and knew that if I were to stop, he would kill me and my son. That would be the end of it. After running and running and running, I ended up at a crossroads with a well at its center. At that well, a woman with a torch pointed me in the direction of the left hand fork in the road. She was saving me. She was Hekate. When MEH came upon her, she pointed him in the opposite direction and for a while, my life was saved from him.

I came to a village where I hid myself and my son. My son grew up strong, well, and capable. He was a good boy (can anyone guess who that child was…?) and took care of me as much as I did him. The problem was that I was wracked with nightmares because of what MEH had done to me, to my husband, and to the life I had been living. I couldn’t take the nightmares anymore so I went to a local wise woman who gave me a tea. This tea would end the rash of nightmares, but it did something else to me. It gave me a gift of prophecy. The woman knew this would happen and possibly did it willingly. Be that as it may, I began to see the future and it always ended with MEH killing my strong, capable son and me being unable to stop it. On top of prophecy, I also began to dream about the woman who had saved my life. To me, she was a guardian and I began to ask the villagers about her. They didn’t know who she was but said that she was a guardian of sorts. And I began to seek her out.

I went to the well/crossroads where I had seen her when she saved my life and my son’s life, and began to pray. I tossed coins into the well and I cried. I prayed. I begged. When she finally came to me in a dream, she told me what the price of life and death were. If she were to save my son, then I had to serve her in three lives. I agreed to it – anything to save my son. What that service was depended on the life in question, but it was pretty much my speaking on her behalf without really knowing that was what I was doing. And on the day that my son was supposed to die while hunting in the woods, instead of MEH shooting first and killing my son, my son shot first and ended MEH’s misery. For a time, anyway.

I started crying when I read this. (There’s more; in a minute.) I knew that it was true. I knew that MEH and I had fought. I knew that we had argued. I knew that the lives we lived together were miserable and not supposed to be. I also knew that in past lives, as well as this one, we arouse such jealousy in one another that it destroys all things. MEH always said that the girl he loved in high school was the “one who got away.” (My right butt cheek. He fucked her enough when we were together for this descriptor to be inaccurate in every way.) He was always jealous of whatever male was in my life. Our souls keep reincarnating together and I think the lesson is the one that we finally learned in this life. And that is that we are not good together in any life. (This is my next step in “letting go.” Everything MEH. It should be “fun.”)

But, for saving my son, I had given service to Hekate for three lives. That life went well and I watched my son grow up and I watched our lives pass us by. The next one I know little of. But the third one was the most recent. I apparently felt that Hekate was the Virgin Mary and used her as that representation to spread the word necessary to fulfill the contract. Something that resonates with me is something that Hekate told Miss Shaman. She said of the other lives in which you gave Her service your other Gods were asleep. As in there were lessons apart from Them you needed in those lives. This goes hand-in-hand with something Sky said in her blog (about gods being asleep until recently). And my deep belief that each life is a lesson of some sort for our souls for whatever reason. It’s like I’m getting confirmation for someone else’s UPG with Hekate as well as my own…

This is my fourth life and so, my contract is up. I don’t have to serve Hekate. And the way of things in this life will not be the same as they were before. Here, I already have a protector. (Can anyone guess who that is? Guess!) So our relationship will be a little bit more like a guide of sorts. She’s where I go when I’m feeling at a loss at the crossroads. And you know, remind me that being a wise woman is my ultimate [witchy] goal.

It’s nice, if weird and frightening, to get confirmation, though, on gut instincts…

Relevant Posts

1. What’s The Difference…?
2. Sould Mates at DON’T PANIC.
3. An Oracle From Hekate by Sky.