tanguerra's memories

[tanguerra]

I also remember being a dancer in Ancient India (although who knows when it was - but it 'feels' like a very long time ago in Earth years). I remember being a very small girl when going to the school - which was some sort of live in arrangement and we had little cells to sleep in - nothing at all fancy. I had the right body shape or something and was sold to the school by my parents who were very poor. I remember the training being very harsh and crying a lot at first, missing my parents and being whacked with a stick when I made a mistake, but in the end I got used to it and got quite good at it. I vividly remember my first public performance and my absolute terror of making a mistake. After some time I became an accomplished dancer.

 

[tanguerra]

Childhood memories and corresponding knowledge


I grew up remembering things. At first, when I was very small, I never questioned it. It just was what it was. I noticed before long though that certain behaviour was considered odd and learned to hide it.


For example one time when I was about four or so I was at a party with my parents and some Scottish music came on the stereo and I just knew how to do it, and started dancing - I knew how to hold my hands and how to do the hopping on one leg thingy they do.


My parents' friends thought this was very cute and asked my parents how long I had been having lessons. My parents were a little dumbstruck (I still remember my mother's expression a mixture of confusion, pride and fear) as I was not getting lessons of course.


My feet just knew what to do and it was fun and up I hopped and started dancing around gleefully because I heard the music and it was irresistible to me - one fist on one hip and the other hand in the air. I remember thinking rather regretfully that I wished I had a kilt and proper shoes instead of my party shoes which made it a bit hard to do it properly.


Another time in sport class in primary school (maybe age 8 or so) I picked up a javelin for the first time and I remember balancing it in my hand, knowing it was a 'toy' one and rather badly made, and poorly balanced, but nevertheless taking a couple of steps back and then hoiking this thing through the air as though I had been doing it all my life - muscular memory can be very powerful.


The teacher and everyone was astonished of course and made a big fuss and wanted me to do it again, but I realised I had done something inappropriate and flubbed it like all the other kids from then on. I just wanted to fit in and had begun to realise that these types of episodes had already given me the reputation of being a bit weird.


I used to go off by myself and play what I thought of as imagination games. I would remember hunting for instance as a young boy in Africa and would 'play' at doing this - flooded with the memories and sights and smells of running across the grassy plains with my brothers. If other kids asked me what I was doing running around by myself I would just say 'nothing'.


When I was a teenager I sort of forgot about it all. When I would have these flashes I just ignored them or told myself my imagination was over active and so on. Then I read a book about reincarnation and realised what it was all about. Then I met someone I had known before and it all sort of fell into place and made sense.


Now as an adult, if anything I am getting better at it, but I still hardly mention it to anyone as they give you this 'look'.


This post and discussion is continued in the thread Adults who were children with PL memories

 

[tanguerra]

A warrior in many lives


I spent many, many lives as a warrior in various different period costumes, taking the lives of others in various bloodthirsty and messy ways with a variety of sharp implements.


At the time it sometimes seemed exciting and exhilarating. I rarely knew what I was fighting for exactly, it was just what I did and what I was good at.


Eventually I tired of it and became eventually revolted by it. I remember one or two major turning points when I really began to question what I was doing as light slowly began to dawn in my consciousness.


This post and discussion is continued in the thread Past life Resonance with current events

 

[tanguerra]

France in the 1400's


I remember coming home across the fields (France, 1400s is my thinking I was a teenage boy - maybe 14 or so) and seeing my house (hovel) on fire - thatched roof smoking.


I looked in and my family was gone - where? who knows and the house was all wrecked. Don't know what happened, but there was a war on and stuff like that tended to happen.


I walked to the nearest town and kind of hung around not really knowing what to do. No sign of my family. I tried begging a bit, some people took pity and gave me some scraps, etc.


I met a soldier as he and his mates were moving through the area (scruffy looking bunch of guys by today's standards, they did not have uniforms as such back then - but they looked very glamourous to me). They looked big and strong and I desparately wanted to have a sword and all that stuff.


I remember one of the soldiers being fairly kind to me - gave me a coin or two, showed me his knife, let me hold it even! Ooo! Showed me how to throw it so it would stick into things - you know. This made a big impression on a lonely boy.


I begged him to let me come with him when they moved on the next day, but he said, no, I was too young and I don't think he wanted the hassle. Anyway I was devastated sad when they left, lonely as I was and frightened, not knowing what would happen to me.


I don't remember much after that, except stealing a goat, knowing I would probably get caught, not caring and then being hanged.


I remember we had to wait until the district magistrate thingy came around on his circuit. He was all dressed in black, with a white collar and some kind of wide hat and set up his table under a tree to do the month's judging.


When he handed down the death sentence he very ceremoniously took off his hat and put on some type of black silk veil or hood thing, which was pretty scary. I was past caring what happened to me though - in today's language, probably very depressed and suffering a bit of post traumatic shock or something.


I re-met the soldier dude again in this life when I was about 19. Our eyes met across a crowded room, he stopped what he was doing almost mid-sentence, came over and introduced himself. He was about 20 years older than me and very dashing and glamourous - an artist who had lived all over the world and had many exciting tales to tell.


We lived together for about a year and he taught me many useful things (how to play chess properly, how to chop wood and build a fire, make stained glass windows, various cooking techniques, an appreciation of Mozart, the benefits of regular exercise, lots of things) and generally set me up with all sorts of useful information which has stood me in good stead in my adult life.


After about a year though we went our separate ways, partly because he was always teaching me things and it started to get my goat! :laugh:


This post and discussion is continued in the thread Little Wolf

 

[tanguerra]

Carol's life - an English "taxi dancer" in Paris


My name was Carol. I remember being a 'taxi-dancer' when I was young 17-18 maybe.


It was in Paris although I was English between the great wars i.e. sometime in the 1930s I guess.


For those not familiar with this term a taxi dancer was a girl who would dance with men for money. It was one step up from prostitution and often also a thinly disguised method of soliciting as well depending on the type of 'establishment' in question.


My father had been killed in WWI when I was only little and we were always poor anyway and I have always been an adventurous and independent little minx and had left home very early.


I had met a much older man who got me into that line of work and arranged the Paris trip because that was where the money was to be made - Paris was going 'off' as we would say nowadays. In my youth and gullibility I thought it was all going to be very glamourous, I was going to be in the movies, on the stage, blah blah blah...


He had various other 'business' interests over there - mostly of a somewhat dodgy nature I have no doubt. I knew that man most of that life. He used to beat me, but somehow I always relied on him and depended on him and so on - perhaps because I had nobody else? There was a strong element of 'love hate' going on there for sure. I can still see his pencil moustache,the hat he would wear and the sly, mischevious look in his eye.


I must have returned to England before long - year or two perhaps it was understood another war was coming, my mother may have been ill maybe died (?) - and before long became a prostitute proper. By this time I was no longer as young and lovely as I once had been.


I remember the WWII Blitz in London. I remember the man I loved - "the only man who was ever decent to me" - a pilot getting killed, as of course many, many young men were during that terrible time.


I remember many sordid details and difficulties - cold, dirt, poverty, violence - which I won't bore everyone with.


Eventually I could not take it any more and ended my own life in the bath with a razor blade at probably around age 30 or so. I believe the war was still going on, but I had had enough.


This post and discussion is continued in the thread How much do you remember..

 

[tanguerra]

A young Japanese woman


I have been trying out a new technique, which is to relax as per usual, then to imagine myself in front of a large wall of shelving and run my eyes over all the costumes there and see what seems to 'jump out' at me.


Last night a delicate, pale green kimono was foremost and 'voila' there I was wearing it and sitting in a garden.


It was not very comfortable really wearing all that and with the fancy hair style and all, but nonetheless I was feeling a bit pleased with myself wearing this lovely outfit and knew I looked gorgeous and was feeling very happy because I was in love.


In that life I was a young Japanese woman, early 20s or less, married to a much older man who I did not love. The marriage had been arranged.


I had an affair with a young man and I remembered the earliest days of our love affair, which were filled with such joy and excitement it almost made what followed later 'worth it'.


I remembered various scenes in particular we were playing 'Go' a kind of board game with black and white tiles.


There were various other servants and so on around and we were having a fun time, lots of laughter. I think the 'boss' was away, as he often was so we were a bit more relaxed than usual.


My young friend deliberately touched my hand a couple of times and we were exchanging shy looks (for fear of being caught out) and it was all terribly exciting.


That was my only experience of love in that otherwise fairly unhappy life.


I remembered the first time we met and it was very much the same feeling as meeting that chap again in this life - an electric type of recognition, feeling of fate, etc. The chap was, (and still is) very careless of convention and a free spirit which is what I liked then and still like about him (and what tends to keep getting him into trouble).


This post and discussion is continued in the thread Memories of your first love

 

[tanguerra]

A Native American man


I wrote a while ago about the long 'chat' I had with one of my previous selves - a Native American man. He was very sad because his little daughter had died of some kind of wasting disease and his wife had blamed him for it and made his life a misery ever afterwards, etc.


He was surprised but thrilled to learn that the same spirit which was his daughter is now alive and (relatively) well and a friend of mine and very much part of my life. Sometimes when I see my friend I get a sort of secret thrill knowing how happy my former self would be just to be sitting there chatting away about nothing with this person who has always filled me with delight. He had the same feeling of delight about his little daughter before she died - exactly the same feeling, exactly the same person.


This post and discussion is continued in the thread Moving through grief

 

[tanguerra]

The Blitz


I have been piecing together the pottery shards of my WWII life for some time and think I have large parts of it worked out now, so it is maybe time to write it all out in order.


I first had an inkling of this life more than 20 years ago. All I had was one scene. I was leaning up against a wall, on a cold wet night in London, during the war, in a thin dress (low cut of course), smoking a horrible cigarette (ah! The War! Rationing!) and coughing uncontrollably - perhaps I had the flu or something. I knew my name was Carol, I was blonde, quite pudgy and unhealthy, in my mid-30s and a prostitute. I had to be out 'working' and I was feeling very miserable indeed. Now I am pretty sure that was towards the end of that life.


I was born in England, not London, but a smaller city - somewhere up north, like Manchester perhaps. I know I had some kind of provincial accent. To this day I like the Manchester accent, but also sort 'look down on it' for no reason. My father was killed in WWI when I was only a little girl. I don't really remember him, but I remember when he was killed I might have been 6 or 7 or so. I remember being very sad about it but I remember it was an absolute disaster for my mother because we were never wealthy, but now we were very poor indeed. I had a younger brother and sister I think. I was always very, very pretty. I remember preening myself in the mirror and thinking I would be a movie star. I was absolutely enraptured by the movies. I had my dreams of saving the family from poverty, getting away from it all and being a big star.


When I was about 16 I met a man who seemed much older than me - maybe he was in his 30s. He had a thin moustache and wore a sharp suit and had like a panama hat (which looked dead dashing to me at the time) and he said he would get me into show biz - the old story! He took me to London, but before long it was obvious even to me that the sort of work he had planned was not on the stage. I remember working in dance halls as a 'taxi dancer' dancing with men for money and probably doing a bit of prostitution on the side - which was sort of glamourous in its own way, at least compared with Manchester and the poverty and living with my depressed mother. At least I had some money and pretty dresses. I probably had some idea that I might turn this into a showbiz career given the right opportunity.


I remember going to Paris on a boat with this man, because Paris between the wars was absolutely booming and there was a lot of money to be made. I don't remember much about that, but I do remember dresses with beading, bars, dance halls, lots of drinking and exhaustion. Looking back it ought to have been terribly exciting, but I probably didn't appreciate it at the time. I remember looking at a woman singing jazz on stage in a beautiful blue dress and thinking whistfully I could never aspire to that sort of glamour. My mother became ill, maybe died, and WWII was coming so I went back to London. I had fallen out with my 'mentor' by this time - he used to beat me and I remember a lot of rows. Now I was on my own, and had given up my dreams of a show biz carerr.


I remember there was a bar in London I used to always hang out in and lots of servicemen of various persuasions - a sea of uniforms. It was a comparatively jolly time, really, despite the war, but I was pretty depressed and very worldly by this time and during the Blitz, I used to just keep working (business was brisk!) and hope that a bomb would come and put an end to it all. I was beginning to lose my looks by this time and drinking heavily - but so was everyone.


Two men stand out in that period, both in the air force. Two were upper crust sort of chaps and I believe I had some idea one of them might marry me (emotions ran high during that time with bombing raids and people not knowing if they were going to live or die any moment - perhaps various wreckless promises were made). One of them got killed (the one I really loved) in a bombing raid and I blamed the other because he was the leader of the squadron or something. I had told him to take special care. Perhaps I'd had some kind of premonition? I had some idea he did it out of spite, but probably not. (That particular person has been killed young and tragically in more than one of my lives!)


I told the survivor I was pregnant and wanted him to marry me but he just offered me money and I never saw him again (of course!). I remembered crying hysterically over this after a furious row we'd had just before he stormed out.


I ended it all eventually, in the bath tub with a bottle of gin (an old wives method of dealing with such an inconvenient situation). My feeling is that I may have got half way through the bottle of gin and thought 'To hell with it!' and cut my wrists instead.


This post and discussion is continued in the thread The Blitz

 

[tanguerra]

Marching into Ancient Egypt with the Roman Army


I have one brief memory of marching into an ancient Egyptian city with the Roman army just as a regular soldier.


If I had a rank it would not have been a very high one - maybe a corporal or something, whatever the Roman equivalent might have been.


I remember a feeling of great pride and elation seeing our banners flying in the sun and the bright sunlight reflecting off the helmets of the soldiers all around me.


This may well have been in the time of Julius Caesar when Egypt and Rome had a peaceful alliance, as I don't believe we were coming as conquerers or anything. There had certainly been no fighting on this occasion. But we were making a fine parade (and show of force) entering the city.


This post and discussion is continued in the thread Seeking other Romans

 

[tanguerra]

A little Jewish girl in Poland - 17th century


I have a memory of being a little girl, maybe age 10 or so, in a group of little children rounded up and hanged in Poland several hundred years ago during some purge or pogrom or something.


This memory came up some years ago when I was trying to work out why I am very intolerant of having things around my neck - like tight collars, scarves, etc. It makes me anxious to have anything even touching my neck at all tightly. I have been hanged more than once, but this one is pretty vivid.


I got the feeling we were Jewish and orphaned, possibly by the ongoing war, and in general too much of a nuisance to look after any other way so there were these mass hangings of children.


This was some sort of 'mopping up' operation after the soldiers had been through and the fighting was mostly over. Nasty business. Quite horrible of course. I remember a terrible feeling of helplessness and terror and bewilderment. I deliberately use techniques to tone down the emotional volume on my memories sometimes (!), but I think I was also probably in a state of shock during the actual experience.


There is a certain sense of dazedness in it. Also, being very young I probably did not fully apprehend everything as a grown up might.


I don't know exactly when all this occured, but my feeling is 17th century. This sort of thing was, unfortunately, all too common.


I found an article about the whole period, which feels right to me. But I have found no mention of a particular massacre such as I remember - but these things don't usually get into the history books, even if they were known about at all in the larger world.


It would probably have been somewhere around this time of upheaval when all this was going on. It took place in some small town.


I remember wooden buildings, mud streets, a very cold grey day and going up these stairs where they had set up a temporary gallows over the side of a balcony type structure. I was one of a group of a dozen or so children, some younger than me.


They (soldiers) just tossed the kids over the side with ropes around their necks. They hated us, and called us 'little rats' which is why I think we may have been Jewish - it was unfortunately often like that in Poland. (Fortunately I have self-censored what happened after being on the stairs waiting for my 'turn'.) Just one of many gruesome memories I'm afraid.


The next life after that one I was a man and went on a wild rampage with the Polish cavalry or cossacks or similar. When I was having this memory I had the sense that this was pay back of some kind against the people who had done this terrible thing. Red hot revenge!


This post and discussion is continued in the thread Poland

 

[tanguerra]

My friend X


I have been thinking about how common it seems to be for people to have feelings of longing for their 'soul mates' for want of a better word. We were talking about it here: Memories of a lost love Although I have mentioned bits and pieces here and there, I thought I would recount the story of my friend X in full in one place, in case it is of interest, or others have similar stories to share.


I have met several people in this life who have been former friends, comrades, lovers, husbands and so forth, but this relationship stands above all of those by a mile. Various little things happened before we ever actually met in real life. I used to doodle the same face over and over again when I was 14 or 15 or so, much to the annoyance of my sister. It was just a habit, I just liked it. I knew when it just looked right. I did not even think I was drawing someone in particular. I later came across an old sketch book and it was, indeed, a very good likeness of X which I was doodling repeatedly. Unfortunately, I got a bit spooked by it and threw it away. Now I wish I had kept it.


When I grew up and was in various serious relationships including being married for a time, I always used to feel that something was missing. I 'knew' that there was someone else that was my 'true love', but had not met him. I would often get very sad thinking about him and wish that we could be together in this life. All the same, I would find it very comforting just to think about him and imagine that he was out there 'somewhere' and understood.


If there was a movie with the theme of one person dying and the other one continuing on it would unfailingly reduce me to uncontrollable fits of tears. I remember seeing the film 'Gallipoli' which is not even a love story, but the story of two friends who go to war together, at the movies and sobbing so uncontrollably that it embarrassed myself and my friends! All I knew was that I knew what that was like and the feeling was overwhelming. Something similar happened when I saw 'Ghost' and other films.


There is an old folk song, 'Stretched on your grave' about a lover who lies on the grave of his dead love night after night 'for with you in your cold grave I cannot sleep warm'. The first time I heard that song it went through me like an arrow. I was driving the car and had to pull over and weep. I knew the tune and many of the words were familiar, so knew I must have known it before. I think that was connected with this life (number 2) which involved X.


Anyway, there was a bunch more stuff of this nature, but eventually, I met X in real life and it was like an electric shock when our eyes met (although he says he did not feel it). My sister actually introduced us funnily enough, at a party. She quite fancied him I think, but the minute we met we struck up an intense conversation which went on until the small hours of the morning and the rest of the world went away. He was suffering from a potentially fatal illness, the same one that had killed my father, and was going into hospital the next morning. We talked about life, death, love, the universe, its purpose anything and everything. I did not see him for another year, while he was in hospital and I was in a relationship anyway, but I thought about him a lot.


We remet at my sister's birthday party when he was just out of hospital and I had broken up with my partner the day before, coincidentally enough. Naturally the same thing happened again and we talked intensely all evening. My sister has always been incredibly jealous about X and to this day still does not speak to me, largely because of that. I now understand it is because, not only a bit of understandable jealousy from this life, but we were all involved in this life in old Japan. She was the husband and he was the young man. When I had that memory, I was actually trying to interrogate my psyche as to why my sister is very antagonistic towards me and X all the time. I knew it was excessive based on the present life situation.


Anyway, there are half a dozen or more lives that I recall when we knew each other. I can describe those if anyone is interested. Each time they ended the same way with him either dying or disappearing suddenly and I spending the rest of that life feeling the separation dreadfully and a couple of times 'ending it all' because of it. In this life we have been together for a few months and he has broken it off twice. Each time I have been very devastated by it. But each time I have survived it.


These days we probably see each other a couple of times a week, catch up for coffee or run into eachother at various social events. Both of us truly enjoy the other's company and can unfailingly make the other laugh and smile. He features in my dreams most nights. He is just part of my psyche, as he always has been.


These days, since I have been putting the pieces together and have come to the conclusion that the purpose of all this is for him to learn about 'constancy' and 'trust' in love and for me to learn 'love without desire' - to simply love without wanting anything in return, just for the sake of it.


This is an extremely difficult lesson to master! But, despite poor health, he is still alive and we are still fast friends despite some fairly bad behaviour on his part over the years - this is a major breakthrough for him and for me.


This post and discussion is continued in the thread My friend X

 

[tanguerra]

All I have of my own experiences in Ancient Rome are a few flashes. I was a soldier in the army - nobody special or famous or anything. I was maybe a sergeant or whatever the equivalent was then. I had dozen or two men under me. I remember bits and pieces of battles and bits and pieces of events in various military encampments. The camaraderie with the men was very close and loyalty to each other was everything. We did not have much time or opportunity to have much to do with women, so our primary relationships were with each other (but in a very butch manly way!). It's like that when you face life and death together on a regular basis, after all. I was certainly far less aware than I am these days. I was 'just a grunt', just a soldier. I didn't really think much. I just did as I was told.


I remember marching in a parade into Egypt - so that puts it somewhere between 25BC-250AD. That is probably the most vivid memory from that time. It was not a huge spectacle like in 'Cleopatra' movie with Elizabeth Taylor (a very silly and unrealistic film) or the paltry reenactments of such things I have seen sometimes on TV with a dozen or so men trying to portray the Roman Legion - very cheap production values! But somewhere in the middle. There would have been a couple of thousand or so men - quite a large number but by no means the entire army or anything - but I couldn't say how many exactly, other than 'a lot' (I doubt I knew how to count very high back then!) It was certainly a show of strength and precision, meant to be impressive and indeed intimidating, rather than a peaceful celebration or decorative in any way.


I remember seeing the bright sunlight glinting on our golden decorations, standards, armour, helmets and such which had all been polished up for the occasion. It was very hot! There had been a lot of fighting for several years before we got to this point, so it felt very satisfying in a way to be there (like winning the trophy at the end of a very long football season or something).


I know we had not been in Egypt very long and had been camped (massing?) outside the city (for a week or two at least) up until this parade. I get the feeling there had been a lot of negotiations going on with the 'higher up' people, which obviously had nothing to do with me! I know the soldiers had been a bit bored waiting around without any orders (except to shine and clean everything) or any idea of how long we would be there and what would happen, whether there would be any fighting or not etc ... But that was always just 'part of life' back then. To this day I can just lapse into 'waiting' mode just as I have done many, many times before if I need to (not just in that life). While others will get all upset and impatient, I just get sort of passive. I have heard present day soldiers talk about this and nothing has changed!


I remember during the parade wanting to take a look around at the strange streets and people, but keeping my eyes front in the proper way, to set an example to my men, for the glory of Rome and all that stuff - and also for fear of getting into trouble! That's about it, apart from various random memories of battlefield incidents, drinking sessions with one's comrades and so on, which I won't bore or disturb anyone with.


This post and discussion is continued in the thread Bracca