Who Do You Think You Are?

[poliphilo]

Who do I think I am?

Well, I'm a sort of a Buddhist. I believe in reincarnation. I think this no longer very active body is the latest of many I've knocked about in-  which means my so-called ancestors are only related to me for the duration of this particular short life. When I shuck this body off I'll lose them as well.  My real lineage has nothing to do with my family tree but consists of all the random, genetically-unrelated people I've been.  So if I were to discover that my blood ancestors were slave owners and slave traders I wouldn't be greatly bothered. Those guys ain't me

Silly Ben Affleck.

(As it happens, the ancestors I know most about were Quakers, which means they'd have been abolitionists as a matter of course. Those are my mother's people. My father's lot were shopkeepers on one side and unknowable on the other. I think (can't prove but have reason to believe) that my grandfather was illegitimate. His mother had a lodging house in Erith and his father was what- some passing sailor? My grandfather was very swarthy- which makes me speculate (indeed hope) that his father may not have been English. All this is quite good fun- but I can't take it seriously.)

The soul's journey from incarnation to incarnation is a story of checks and balances. You go badly wrong in one life, you get back on track in the next.  I'm sure, on the law of averages, I must have been some pretty awful shits in my time.  Never mind. That was yesterday. We're here to explore the potential of life in human form on this planet- to have experiences- and we'd be doing a lousy job if we only kept to the straight forthright and never veered off into the bush.

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Nice. My one gateway ancestor takes us back to a surety baron of the Magna Carta and ultimately to the ancient kings of France, via the Normans. My favorite might be Roger the Moor Eater. I like the little pile he left behind at Conches-en-Ouche. His son, and my ancestor, Raoul II of Tosny, was one of the few proven companions of William at Hastings.

Sometimes, I think reincarnation seems to answer more questions than it raises. Of all the weirdness I've experienced in my life, one of the oddest things involved drinkies. When a coworker mentioned vodka and tonic, one day, I suddenly remembered how much I enjoyed gin and tonic and how long it had been since I'd had one. I bought the makings on the way home and found it exactly as I'd remembered. The problem is that I can't for the life of me recall when I'd first drank G&T. It's possible that I first tried it at a fraternity house, in '81, but that begs the question of why, if I liked it so, I'd never thought to have another in the thirty years since.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Why does almost anything to do with the Crusades bring tears to my eyes? Does it mean anything? I dunno.

My daughter went for hypnotic regression and remembered three wonderfully unglamorous lives- as an American business woman, a French nun working with babies and an Indian merchant. Would these be lives that anyone would come up with if they were just imagining things?

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Why do I speak French with a German accent? I can't even hear it, but it drove my ex-wife to distraction. Doesn't happen with Spanish. I have a German 'twin', too. We don't look so much alike, but I've never been more perfectly at ease with a nominal stranger in all my life. Our personalities were so weirdly similar that his girlfriend brought us together, just to see what would happen. We talked, ignoring everyone and everything else, for about six hours without stopping.

The results of hypnotic regression are indeed fascinating. I remain somewhat agnostic about what it's telling us, though, in part because I'd rather just close my eyes, exhale one last time, and be done with it.