Hi Folks,
I thought I'd update this thread because I have had some more memories and information that I have found from further research. I also thought it might be of interest to new members.
Through meditating on this lifetime many times now, I have realised that the woman who was my mother back in that lifetime was my maternal grandmother in the present. She passed away when she was 90 and she and my grandfather used to live practically next door to us when I was a child. So, John (tommcfearsom) if you're still around on this Forum, yes, I have now recognized someone from that lifetime in my present soul group!
Grandma was very thrifty all of her life even though she had no reason to be. She was always concerned about not wasting food and hated to throw any away. She also had a habit of always giving me a food item of some sort to take home with me whenever I visited her and my grandfather which curiously she did not do with my sisters. e.g "Here's two mince pies just for you, my darling. Don't let your sisters see them!" I had always put this down to being her favourite grandchild, but I now wonder if it was because we were once mother and son and always hungry in that lifetime. I also wonder if her attitudes toward food were likewise related to her experiences of hunger back then. I fear she may have starved after I died because I think it was my poaching and thieving that kept us going. In case you're wondering, I have had no issues with food in the present beyond being concerned about eating a healthy diet. I grow all my own vegatables and soft fruits.
I have also remembered raiding the nests of songbirds in hedges and trees for their eggs, snaring rabbits and fishing in a pond with a crude 'net'. It consisted of a basket made of a thin branch bent in a circle and tied and many thinner, long twigs bent and tied in a criss-cross fashion. The whole being attached to a quite long straight branch. I caught a lot of small fish in this way standing in a pond and dragging it through the water. My whole existance was devoted to acquiring food. I have asked myself in meditation what I learnt from that short life and the answer that came to me was, resilience, resourcefulness and being content with very little.
Through persistantly focusing in meditation on the young woman buried in the marsh, I came up with a related memory quite recently which seems to explain why she was buried there. I was sitting on the floor with my mother eating small boiled eggs, some odd looking porridge and a dark bread ( I had the feeling that it was our only meal of the day). I was telling her what I had seen that morning and she became agitated. She asked me if I had touched the dead girl or if any part of her body had touched me, I assured her that neither was so and she was relieved. I asked her why she was concerned and she said the girl might have had a disease or been possessed of a demon. She also said that such as she must have been found on the road and not known hereabouts and that she would take a stick to me if I asked any more questions. I fell silent, but when I glanced at her she was smiling and I thought how much I loved her. My mother's name seems to have been Grit.
So, it looks to me as if this young woman was maybe buried the way she was simply because she was not known in that area and nothing was known about her. In addition, fear of disease and superstition may have played a part. Interesting eh?
With regard to bog bodies, through a lot of further research, I have turned up some evidence that suggests people were sometimes buried in water because they were considered deviant or evil and quite a lot of them were women. In the ancient mind, water may have represented a boundary or no-mans-land between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The idea being that the soul of the individual interred in water was held in limbo where it could neither proceed to the afterlife nor haunt the living as a discarnate spirit - the ultimate in punishment. Some bodies may ahve been held down with logs on top of them or tied to stakes simply so that the body would not rise to the surface in open water. In addition, some victims may have been tortured to obtain a 'confession'. There is also some evidence that those who became deformed through disease may have been killed and interred in water or bog because they were believed to be cursed or something similar.
I have also found various bits of information from a wide variety of sources that when pieced together lead me to conclude that if say the chieftan of a tribe, or some other important person, was captured by their enemies, the individual would likely be tortured, then killed and interred in water or some other visible boundary such as an area of bog or marsh. The latter may have been done either to just deny them the normal ceremony of burial or cremation which their own people would have provided or to place them in no-man's-land.
Perhaps some bog bodies with obvious signs of violence fall into this category, especially those whom scientists have proved were well-fed all of their lives and whose bodies showed no physical signs of hard labour. In short, they may not have been sacrificial victims as some archaeologists suggest, but important individuals who were singled out for special treatment by enemies who captured them alive.
As always, your thoughts and comments are very welcome.
Angelcat
