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Are You Really Irish, Chinese, or ??, and Why

SeaAndSky

SeaAndSky

Member
OK, I know this is a strange title for a thread, but PastPilot said some things on another thread that piqued my interest in terms of other people's sense of themselves as being Irish, Chinese, or etc. despite their "roots" or lack of "roots" in this life.

For some people, I know there may be repeated PLs in a particular locale (which may also indicate a draw or sense of being at home there). For others, like PastPilot, it doesn't seem to be based as much on numbers of PLs as on something else. Here is what PastPilot says:

"Once you have been Irish, you are always Irish. I still feel my Irish roots, even though in this life, I do not have Irish blood, but I do possess an Irish heart. . . . I am not sure why Ireland has such a hold on my soul. Its not because karma keeps me there. I lived in Ireland before, pre-Roman, during Celtic times, and many times. The Irish were, and probably still are, attached to the land with their hearts. They are still old world. I remember this bond and cherish it fondly. The land is alive. The love that exists for me still remains locked within its foggy shores and green hills and valleys. I seem to recall the spiritualism that existed so long ago and I miss it. Druid-like people once inhabited that land and their energy is still there and remembered. They were a people who were attached to the land like no other. I still can remember the feeling of what Ireland evokes deep from within me. Its not like living in the USA, no matter how beautiful the land may be where you reside. Ireland has a long pre-historic past."

So, do you have a similar story to tell and reasons for why you might be attached to a particular place and/or national identity as defining part of who you "ultimately" are?
 
SeaAndSky said:
OK, I know this is a strange title for a thread, but PastPilot said some things on another thread that piqued my interest in terms of other people's sense of themselves as being Irish, Chinese, or etc. despite their "roots" or lack of "roots" in this life.
For some people, I know there may be repeated PLs in a particular locale (which may also indicate a draw or sense of being at home there). For others, like PastPilot, it doesn't seem to be based as much on numbers of PLs as on something else. Here is what PastPilot says:


"Once you have been Irish, you are always Irish. I still feel my Irish roots, even though in this life, I do not have Irish blood, but I do possess an Irish heart. . . . I am not sure why Ireland has such a hold on my soul. Its not because karma keeps me there. I lived in Ireland before, pre-Roman, during Celtic times, and many times. The Irish were, and probably still are, attached to the land with their hearts. They are still old world. I remember this bond and cherish it fondly. The land is alive. The love that exists for me still remains locked within its foggy shores and green hills and valleys. I seem to recall the spiritualism that existed so long ago and I miss it. Druid-like people once inhabited that land and their energy is still there and remembered. They were a people who were attached to the land like no other. I still can remember the feeling of what Ireland evokes deep from within me. Its not like living in the USA, no matter how beautiful the land may be where you reside. Ireland has a long pre-historic past."


So, do you have a similar story to tell and reasons for why you might be attached to a particular place and/or national identity as defining part of who you "ultimately" are?
Click to expand...
Well I am not Chinese but I have gotten a past life as a Nobleman named Xiang born on the Year of the Tiger and Parents named Qin and Ming. I've had an interest in Chinese History as a little boy and the subject got me into history all together; especially when it comes to genetic ancestry now a days.


I may have Phoenician ancestry but it has long petered out but in my biblical pastlife I was a slave in malta named Simon the Christ (2BC-5AD); you don't want to know what the Romans were doing to me. Anyways the Roman slavers beat my Mom Ishtar to a pulp and I decided to highjack a boat in the middle of the night on a one way ticket to Galilee where I used Christianity to get revenge on the Romans.


To this day I feel a little uneasy of the Romans but it's been 2 lifetimes since I dealt with that incident so I like to honor them as not my brutal captors but a Civilization that contributed greatly in the making of Europe.


Every past life I get into these graphic situation and I end up getting killed every time, this might explain why I had a keen interest in Ghoulish stuff and even did a reasearch paper on the paranormal back in middle school. I used to think Ghoulish stuff was the norm of cool as a little kid and still do just as long as I'm with someone LOL I'm now a days sleeping in my parents basement so not a good place to watch paranormal stuff.
 
During both World Wars I was an American, a man in the first and a woman in the second, and my heart has always been with the USA.


This life I live in England, and my family, though not particularly "proud of their country" sorts, are very adamant about being British because they were born and raised in England and are really pretty rude and awful about other countries and their people. My brother in particular HATES America :/


But I have always felt drawn to America, and I think I always will!! My family have often commented about my slips into American accents and my habit of using American pronunciations or sayings as if it's something weird or bad but to me its nostalgic :) despite the awful health care and such, I still want to travel and spend time there and experience the place that my soul knows so well~
 
I strongly disagree with "once you are Irish, you are always Irish"


there is no evidence to suggest that. Why not say "once you are rich you are always rich"? This is self-projection! Nationality, sex, fiscal status, etc are not up to us, I am afraid....


we are all animistic in our soul, our humanity(consciousness), "roots" (culture) are only skin deep. It is the spirit in us that lives forever and keeps coming back. Culture(roots) as you wish is not something you may carry on but being Druid(once) that is different (that is knowledge!) that you have earned and yours to keep forever! Culture is what you get at home (between age 0-6+)
 
It may have been a (romantic) generalization that doesn't apply to all people. But at the same time, in PastPilot's perspective, it does sum up the sort of connection some of us feel to a time and place we have never been.
 
Sea,


Old souls have recollections, sometimes faint sometimes quite strong but that is usually based on a spiritual connection to a vortex (a special, spiritual place) like Sedona (Arizona) Stonehenge, places in India, the Himalayas, Hawaii etc. There are places on this planet that are very "connected" to the higher realms and it is possible that we have been there, so we have the connection or just because the Vortex has a draw on us(some of us are more susceptible to this magnetic affects). My vortex (draw) is Hawaii. This is just my two cents. There is a good book on this https://www.createspace.com/4634477

SeaAndSky said:
OK, I know this is a strange title for a thread, but PastPilot said some things on another thread that piqued my interest in terms of other people's sense of themselves as being Irish, Chinese, or etc. despite their "roots" or lack of "roots" in this life.
For some people, I know there may be repeated PLs in a particular locale (which may also indicate a draw or sense of being at home there). For others, like PastPilot, it doesn't seem to be based as much on numbers of PLs as on something else. Here is what PastPilot says:


"Once you have been Irish, you are always Irish. I still feel my Irish roots, even though in this life, I do not have Irish blood, but I do possess an Irish heart. . . . I am not sure why Ireland has such a hold on my soul. Its not because karma keeps me there. I lived in Ireland before, pre-Roman, during Celtic times, and many times. The Irish were, and probably still are, attached to the land with their hearts. They are still old world. I remember this bond and cherish it fondly. The land is alive. The love that exists for me still remains locked within its foggy shores and green hills and valleys. I seem to recall the spiritualism that existed so long ago and I miss it. Druid-like people once inhabited that land and their energy is still there and remembered. They were a people who were attached to the land like no other. I still can remember the feeling of what Ireland evokes deep from within me. Its not like living in the USA, no matter how beautiful the land may be where you reside. Ireland has a long pre-historic past."


So, do you have a similar story to tell and reasons for why you might be attached to a particular place and/or national identity as defining part of who you "ultimately" are?
Click to expand...
 
Hi AO:


I can see where you are coming from on logical and objective grounds, however, as the posts by Totoro and Colour bring out, this is more of a matter of heart and feelings.


For myself, I do not have enough remembered PLs to actually be able to say why I might prefer a certain place or consider myself to just, innately, be of or from that place despite present blood lines, history, etc. PastPilot presents a fairly remarkable example of what I’m talking about here. He has no Irish ancestors and hasn’t had but one PL in Ireland in the last couple of millennia, but he still counts himself as Irish and has a special love for that land and people.


I believe I have read some accounts of other people with the same feelings, sometimes from places and cultures that have been swept away by time, like ancient Egypt, Greece or Rome. They may still feel Egyptian or Roman, but the peoples and cultures inhabiting those lands now are so far from what was there before that only the land remains. I think some of them may wander through life after life always seeking relics and being charmed by reminders of the old days, but feeling a bit like displaced persons.


OTOH, there seem to be plenty that are just as happy in one place as another. I also wonder whether this is related to the gender issue where some souls/spirits “identify” as being a particular gender and others don’t. It could be that some souls/spirits “identify” with certain things in order to bring some permanence, stability and structure into the otherwise constantly shifting realities they experience passing through successive and very different incarnations. Others may simply not feel this need.


For myself, I would have to say that I identify primarily as Scottish, though I have plenty of reasons for doing so in terms of Scottish ancestry and name. There are also a whole lot of things I identify with in Scottish and Celtic culture generally. However, if I cut through it all, I would probably hone in on the Celtic approach to nature and nature spirits as being at the bottom of things. So, maybe it’s just because certain streams of Celtic mysticism appeal to me. I don’t have enough remembered PLs to know whether I also identified as “Scottish” in those lives or even whether I have ever lived there before. So, I’m in the dark and just wondering where others may be coming from on issues like this.


Cordially,


S&S
 
Hello S&S,


Heart and feeling, yes, anything is possible. Talking about feelings, I am reading about the man who was a nobody and became insanely famous by discovering the tomb of King Tut. As a young boy he was a sketch artist (making drawings of the wall painting of burial chambers) working for peanuts just to be in the Valley of the Dead(which is an other vortex). He lived an insanely rugged, austere life just to be there. His name was Howard Carter. I have no doubt in my mind that with this kind of an obsession/love for the place he had been there prior.


Cheers


AOS

SeaAndSky said:
Hi AO:
I can see where you are coming from on logical and objective grounds, however, as the posts by Totoro and Colour bring out, this is more of a matter of heart and feelings.


Cordially,


S&S
Click to expand...
 
I've often wondered if reincarnation could explain the people who "adopt" a culture and become more comfortable in it than they were in the culture of their birth. Charles "Hindoo" Stuart, T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia", and Heinrich Schliemann come to mind.


Some Jewish sects believe in reincarnation and say that a soul is Jewish whether born as a Jew or not. They tend to be pretty accepting of converts wellcomimg out of the belief that a convert is a soul returning to Judaism.


My personal experience is this: as a child, I wanted to be Native American, as a teenager, I wanted to be Jewish or Middle Eastern. I had no more than intellectual interest in their religious beliefs, nor did I want to join their cultures. I just identified with Native Americans, Jews and Arab Muslims.
 
Interesting!


So I've had three past life regressions and interestingly enough each had to do with a place that I don't particularly love or dislike. Each one was somehow connected to America. At first I was an English merchant captain in the Carribean. I was based in England and was often away from my family. In the second I was a young woman called Roberta Lake in 1870's Arkansas. In the third I was a slave called Ademu in the early 1700s in the Carolinas.


What's interesting to me is my favourite place in the world is England. I am kind of in the middle about America like I don't love love love it, but I don't hate it. I would say that I've always been interested in the south of America though. I've definitely always been interested in the history of the south and movies like Gone With The Wind.


Who knows!
 
Oh yes. You are onto something. Sometimes people cannot shed the last incarnation as if the current one was an karmic accident...a Cosmic, akashic hiccup, if you will. I don't know, but I know that I love history not because I want to teach it or research it but it brings me very cozy, comfortable feelings of certain eras such as Edwardian England, Native American, Roman times and WWII. Why? I am not sure. I was a severe Anglophile, in my childhood, which lead me to believe that I might have been AOS the English mystic/artist, who loved cats and magic - did magical drawings and left money and fame behind to die penniless with a burst appendicitis.

Anna H. said:
I've often wondered if reincarnation could explain the people who "adopt" a culture and become more comfortable in it than they were in the culture of their birth. Charles "Hindoo" Stuart, T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia", and Heinrich Schliemann come to mind.
Some Jewish sects believe in reincarnation and say that a soul is Jewish whether born as a Jew or not. They tend to be pretty accepting of converts wellllllcome out of the belief that a convert is a soul returning to Judaism.


My personal experience is this: as a child, I wanted to be Native American, as a teenager, I wanted to be Jewish or Middle Eastern. I had no more than intellectual interest in their religious beliefs, nor did I want to join their cultures. I just identified with Native Americans, Jews and Arab Muslims.
Click to expand...
 
AOSpare said:
Oh yes. You are onto something. Sometimes people cannot shed the last incarnation as if the current one was an karmic accident...a Cosmic, akashic hiccup, if you will. I don't know, but I know that I love history not because I want to teach it or research it but it brings me very cozy, comfortable feelings of certain eras such as Edwardian England, Native American, Roman times and WWII.
Click to expand...
I love history as well. That comfortable feeling of certain eras is the main reason why I studied it in university. I have always been interested in European history. History of other continents doesn't interest me at all.
 
I Am Not French


One interesting note about feelings of nationality with regards to Past Lives. Although I feel a connection with Ireland, a while ago, actually at least 25 years ago, I went to see a psychic and near the end of the reading she mentioned some of the past lives I had had. A number of these corresponded to my memories, except the last one. She stated I had an important life in France. My immediate response, which came from within me somewhere was to exclaim, "I was not French!". I repressed it and thought about it for some time. Where on earth did that come from? I started to think about the medieval period, the time period the psychic insisted that my past life took place.


After pondering it for a year or two and going through various books on the subject, I was suddenly connecting to a book I had in my collection on medieval Burgundy. It was then that the pieces started to fall into place. I had been Burgundian, which in that life time, as we used to say and think, was not being French. Perhaps today, Burgundy is French, but in those days, we were fighting the French and allied ourselves with the English. I don't think I had a life where I was actually "French". I was Burgundian, Dutch or Flemish, but not French, despite the geological regions changing hands every 100 or 200 years after each major war.
 
That was a thought that resonated there. It just occurred to me, from that, that some British people alive now but undergoing regression sessions in coming centuries might, equally vehemently, declare they aren't British - because of coming from some other part of Britain than England.


Not so much a culture in my case, but my (very very vague indeed) intimations of previous lives do have me telling myself "You're not an Edwardian lady now you know...you cant give orders as to how things will be...you have to have equal-to-equal discussions in this lifeLOL" and the reverse side being that, if anyone tries to dictate how things will be, then time to let Edwardian Lady persona looseLOL and make it plain to them that "We are equals...because its recognised that everyone is equal now...so cut it out".
 
I try to focus on this life time ... who I am now, it's all I got tangibly anyway...


But once I was visiting Germany it freaked the heck out of me (in a positive way, though) it was kinda deja vu, like seeing "myself" everywhere... and I did not feel so weird. And I usually feel weird so... that was actually very pleasant. But I was surprised, as I had expected to feel crappy there (due to my upbringing & family history, what I had been told all my life.)


So all of this helps us understand that the soul can easily cross borders & maybe if reincarnation was widely understood, we'd be more tolerant of each other and differences in race, gender, etc.
 
I wonder if this person has ever been to Ireland. It sounds like a very romanticized view.


I'm english and my genetic roots are from england, ireland and irish traveller (gypsy) and although I can see that in the way I behave and look, my past life is totally unrelated to my heritage.


In a past life I lived in the middle east, or possibly somewhere like Morocco or Turkey. I know little to nothing about these cultures, apart from a love of the food - which was probably what I was like in my past life too. I'm not much of a 'connected to the heart of the earth' kind of person.
 
I feel mostly Greek, Athenian to be specific :)


Although my heritage is mostly hellenic, I know it is not only my current live that brings me to feel that 'connection'.


Even if I was born in Athens, my family is not at all athenian, but from Thiva (Thebes,in Boeotia). The other side of my family is french from Toulouse. My french grand-father would always try to make me feel pride towards my french roots, he would tell me, when I was younger, that I was lucky to be French,exc...but I would always tell him that I was not french, but only Athenian. My greek side of the family would do the same thing, exempt with Thiva. My greek grand-father, would try, jokingly, to reason with me and tried to explain to me that I was not Athenian. He teased me by telling me that I was never born in Athens, to see if it would do anything.


But I wouldn't believe him;)
 
In my immediate past life that I know of I was a Corkman who emigrated to London like many young men at the time. I came back to Ireland in time for the 1916 rebellion. I adopted Dublin as my home throughout the war of independence.

In my current life I wasn't impressed by London when I was on jobs there and I was ( until reincarnation gave me a new perspective ) a proud South Dubliner. I was always drawn to Dublin city like a moth to a flame so I do think that past life identities and locations have some bearing on identity and location in some peoples current lives. That's been my experience anyway.
 
Recently I came across a quote by Rielke (sadly in Spanish, I can't seem to find it either in English or German) which roughly translates as "A person's only fatherland is their childhood". I interpret it as your true fatherland is what made you, your memories. I suppose I like it because it links place + a specific time, and I have stated for years that nationality is more than a country, is also a particular time in history, because places are not always the same. I always thought it was interesting, for example, that while I got the name of a place where I could have been born in the XIX Century: "Glenville", which is in Ireland, when talking about that life I would consider myself "British", and during Victorian times, Ireland was part of the UK, it wasn't until the 1920's that it became a separate country, but I didn't read about that until later. So would I feel "Irish" this time around? No, I feel more like "Victorian British", and my real fatherland does not quite exist anymore. But that's just an example.
 
Ireland was a separate country before the Norman invasion Owl. It was an occupied country after it. In all my Republican lives I considered myself an Irishman. Anyone that considered themselves British living in Ireland was a traitor. To me the British were the enemy.

I also get insulted by the majority of present day Protestants in the North considering themselves British. They were born on Irish soil.

I remember working in Europe with a Protestant Northern Irishman. He insisted he was British when asked for his nationality so I insisted on speaking Irish. He said "Why are you speaking that? They don't understand". I answered " Why are you insisting your British? They don't understand. Besides you wouldn't be so stubborn about it if you weren't born an Irishman".

No offense but a Brit in Ireland in the nineteenth century brings up images of a fat landlord while the people starved for me.
 
I don't think I was a fat landlord, quite the opposite. And I don't think I spent too much time in Ireland either before moving to England.
 
I lived and worked in England for a portion of my last life Owl. I also have done jobs in England many times in my current life. I have zero issue with the English people but I dont like what happened in my country.

This is a speech I gave in my eighteenth century life:

http://theunitedirishman.blogspot.com/2013/11/wolfe-tones-speech-from-dock.html?m=1

I doubt my soul will ever really rest until reunification happens and the whole island of Ireland has nothing to do with Britain.

I'm hoping with brexit and certain actions I took in my current life we are one step closer to reunification.
 
I remember being a little kid and trying to convince my mom that I was Italian because I used to be a Roman citizen and 'Italy' was the best I could come up with to try to explain myself lol.

As an adult though, I don't really think about it too much. Not because so many of my former homes don't exist in the same ways anymore, but because it really doesn't matter to me. The experiences of living in those places mattered far more than the countries themselves imo. Just a small piece of a much bigger karmic puzzle. I do still have some lingering attachments to various places, but I'm content just hanging out in America this time around.
 
Here's a question, how many people feel that they have reincarnated with their families / extended families? How many of you would then consider yourself to be "ethnic"? That is having strong feelings and ties towards a certain place, people or culture?

I've reincarnated with my extended family and I thought that was normal until I was posting in another thread and someone said they found it was more typical of people from ethnic cultures and I realized I was just generalizing my own experience as the norm.

I've always felt Chinese through and through, but quite surprisingly, my dad who has never had an interest in Asia in this life, has been the strongest proponent in our family of returning to China.
 
I prefer to not think of myself as English, British or whatever else but as a spiritual being in a 'human suit'. To me i see every human wherever they are in the world as one race :).
 
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