ahamtatsat
The Stranger
Was asked to tell about the multiple incarnation memories i was born with. i know - so many people say you can't know before the age of 5 or 4 or some apparently random age prior to the development of the limbic system - usually before the age of 7 for that.
Well, my first time dated memory this time around was the day at about 6 weeks when i was baptized. Dad changed my diaper and carried me up to the first rows on the left side, facing the podium. People behind pulled faces to try to make me laugh or something. The mind connection did not seem to work..... Basically asked them to pay attention to the preaching happening - they allegedly came for that, not to pull faces at babies. They didn't "hear" that request, and i could not articulate speech, thus in frustration i cried. Dad pulled me down, no more baby faces - whew!
So i recall this, and many times on Mrs' DeVries's kitchen floor - lineoleum tile when i could not even "scoot", just roll over a lot if i managed to pick up my head and it was imbalanced. Lay face down and scratch the floor and talk to the sunshine.
When i was a bit older the way the India incarnation came through was that i was big enough to fight the little "I" volume of the 1952 Book of Knowledge encyclopedia set. When i fought it out of the shelf it was tall enough to reach from my knees to my neck. i would grab it and push it against Dad's chair, and push it with my body as i grabbed under it to push onto the chair. Then it was usually only a few tries to climb up on the chair. i would wrestle the book open a little left of center. There were sepia toned pictures of temples in India, and i would rock back and forth - sometimes crying a little - telling myself "i want to go home, i want to go home, i want to go home." Apparently i thought the Golden Temple at Amritsar (Sikh temple) was very beautiful, but i thought it was for bad people - so obviously i was not without my prejudices, lol.
There was always a sense that i was going to die as a young man, but that was from recalling a stone prison with barred windows multiple floors above the ground. i recall looking out the window, knowing that around sunrise i was going to be beheaded. This memory almost resulted in a phobic refusal to read Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities in high school, where my teacher had to threaten me to read it. It was very, very frightening, and i frequently cried as i read it. When i finished it, there was no longer any fear involved in looking at things from that period, whereas before i was actively avoiding that in all my reading. i read a lot. Usually dozens of books per month.
Until i was over 30 years old, i resented and hated shaking hands. i always resonated with the Japanese architecture and felt absolutely at home with much of what little i was exposed to. As a child there was just a very subtle........awareness of a time spent in Feudal Japan, because i did not want to look at what i'd done there. It turns out that as a Samurai, i was returning to a village in a sliver of moonlight when 2 ronim (masterless samurai - thieves sometimes) jumped me. Without thinking or emotion i turned and parried a high slice from my upper left shoulder, and as i parried it to my right hip i started to raise it in a reverse arc - retracing up to the left shoulder. In the process, i slid my sword and changed the angle and sliced the attacker's throat, continued the circle around to my left hip and stepped left while changing the angle again and disemboweling the man. The second ronin ran away. i wiped my sword on his clothes and returned the sword to my scabbard and continued walking down the hill to the village. i literally felt less emotional remorse than i have had for killing flies in this lifetime. Not an active anger or anything, just an emptiness.
That lack of care about my fellow man - even if the response was justifiable - scares the hell out of me. Always did, hope it always will.
Well, my first time dated memory this time around was the day at about 6 weeks when i was baptized. Dad changed my diaper and carried me up to the first rows on the left side, facing the podium. People behind pulled faces to try to make me laugh or something. The mind connection did not seem to work..... Basically asked them to pay attention to the preaching happening - they allegedly came for that, not to pull faces at babies. They didn't "hear" that request, and i could not articulate speech, thus in frustration i cried. Dad pulled me down, no more baby faces - whew!
So i recall this, and many times on Mrs' DeVries's kitchen floor - lineoleum tile when i could not even "scoot", just roll over a lot if i managed to pick up my head and it was imbalanced. Lay face down and scratch the floor and talk to the sunshine.
When i was a bit older the way the India incarnation came through was that i was big enough to fight the little "I" volume of the 1952 Book of Knowledge encyclopedia set. When i fought it out of the shelf it was tall enough to reach from my knees to my neck. i would grab it and push it against Dad's chair, and push it with my body as i grabbed under it to push onto the chair. Then it was usually only a few tries to climb up on the chair. i would wrestle the book open a little left of center. There were sepia toned pictures of temples in India, and i would rock back and forth - sometimes crying a little - telling myself "i want to go home, i want to go home, i want to go home." Apparently i thought the Golden Temple at Amritsar (Sikh temple) was very beautiful, but i thought it was for bad people - so obviously i was not without my prejudices, lol.
There was always a sense that i was going to die as a young man, but that was from recalling a stone prison with barred windows multiple floors above the ground. i recall looking out the window, knowing that around sunrise i was going to be beheaded. This memory almost resulted in a phobic refusal to read Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities in high school, where my teacher had to threaten me to read it. It was very, very frightening, and i frequently cried as i read it. When i finished it, there was no longer any fear involved in looking at things from that period, whereas before i was actively avoiding that in all my reading. i read a lot. Usually dozens of books per month.
Until i was over 30 years old, i resented and hated shaking hands. i always resonated with the Japanese architecture and felt absolutely at home with much of what little i was exposed to. As a child there was just a very subtle........awareness of a time spent in Feudal Japan, because i did not want to look at what i'd done there. It turns out that as a Samurai, i was returning to a village in a sliver of moonlight when 2 ronim (masterless samurai - thieves sometimes) jumped me. Without thinking or emotion i turned and parried a high slice from my upper left shoulder, and as i parried it to my right hip i started to raise it in a reverse arc - retracing up to the left shoulder. In the process, i slid my sword and changed the angle and sliced the attacker's throat, continued the circle around to my left hip and stepped left while changing the angle again and disemboweling the man. The second ronin ran away. i wiped my sword on his clothes and returned the sword to my scabbard and continued walking down the hill to the village. i literally felt less emotional remorse than i have had for killing flies in this lifetime. Not an active anger or anything, just an emptiness.
That lack of care about my fellow man - even if the response was justifiable - scares the hell out of me. Always did, hope it always will.
