Glimpses Of The Past?
Nov. 27th, 2019 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWe did past life regression once in a group we belonged to. I don't think our leader really knew what she was doing- and to be honest I don't think she even really expected it to work.
And for most of the group it didn't.
But I saw this much.
A room with a black and white tiled floor- as in 17th century Dutch paintings, sparsely but expensively furnished. I sensed rather than saw that I was a middle-aged to elderly man- well-to-do- a doctor or scholar or lawyer or something along those lines- dressed in clothes I'd date to around 1600. I looked out the window and there- about half a mile away, across the valley on its bluff- was Durham Cathedral.
I've never had much to do with the North East. I've visited Durham a couple of times, Newcastle once. But there's something about the region that speaks to me. Last time I was there I found myself writing a sequence of poems- dramatic monologues- in the voices of local people- a monk at Mount Grace Priory, a Roman soldier, a Prince Bishop, the daughter of a medieval man who was scavenging stone from Hadrian's Wall, a Viking settler, a witch, a Victorian mason working on Durham cathedral. I'm not claiming all these folk as past lives- but there was something going on- something unusual. It was like a tap had been turned on- then off again. They came quickly, one after another and then they stopped. I'd never channelled voices like that before- nor have I done it since.
And for most of the group it didn't.
But I saw this much.
A room with a black and white tiled floor- as in 17th century Dutch paintings, sparsely but expensively furnished. I sensed rather than saw that I was a middle-aged to elderly man- well-to-do- a doctor or scholar or lawyer or something along those lines- dressed in clothes I'd date to around 1600. I looked out the window and there- about half a mile away, across the valley on its bluff- was Durham Cathedral.
I've never had much to do with the North East. I've visited Durham a couple of times, Newcastle once. But there's something about the region that speaks to me. Last time I was there I found myself writing a sequence of poems- dramatic monologues- in the voices of local people- a monk at Mount Grace Priory, a Roman soldier, a Prince Bishop, the daughter of a medieval man who was scavenging stone from Hadrian's Wall, a Viking settler, a witch, a Victorian mason working on Durham cathedral. I'm not claiming all these folk as past lives- but there was something going on- something unusual. It was like a tap had been turned on- then off again. They came quickly, one after another and then they stopped. I'd never channelled voices like that before- nor have I done it since.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 12:21 pm (UTC)I'm always suspicious of 'past lives' because they so often seem to be this and my own background is common as muck for way back.
I'd have been the serving wench, not the lady of the house. It's perhaps no accident that when we visit great houses, the place I feel most at home is the kitchens!
no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 01:16 pm (UTC)And it's simply not true that people who regress mainly remember being high status individuals.
Someone compiled statistics. And they came out in about the right proportions. Most people remember hardscrabble lives. A lot remember dying in childhood. Hardly anyone remembers being someone who figures in the history books.
I have the problem that, being historically literate, it would be very easy for me to imagine myself in any period and get the details approximately right- so how do I know if I'm seeing is something that actually happened or something my brain is improvising from all the book-learning it already holds.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 01:00 pm (UTC)Like so?
no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 01:17 pm (UTC)Where is that window?
no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 05:16 pm (UTC)A house of the right period in the right position- and I had no idea it existed!
I see the Billinghams who owned it during the relevant period were a notorious lot. Oo err!
no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 04:24 pm (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUrePBJH-7M
no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 06:54 pm (UTC)They are also much more likely to see spirits.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-27 09:36 pm (UTC)