The idea of reincarnation feels like a lonely pursuit, taking the plunge into a new physical existence alone, disoriented, and untethered from source. When the cord is cut, the new self is wrenched from the maternal womb and the journey to life comes to an abrupt end. What now? There is no turning back?
Physical birthing is a lonely undertaking too, though mother and infant share the struggle isolated from the chaos around them. Alone together in an epic undertaking. Surviving the final push to life and the first breath!
Few people remember their birth. At least by the time they are old enough to talk about it. But if the newborn could talk, they would share a remarkable story of the journey from a recent past life to a spiritual interlude where shared choices were made about reincarnating at a particular time and in a particular place with a particular purpose or set of purposes.
As I grow older, I think more about those earliest of relationships in my youth. I remember Peter who lived just a block away and was born a few months after me. There was a deep bond between us, but never spoken of until we were in college. Without knowing, we had loved and yearned for each other as middle-schoolers and teens. There was a time when we could have openly shared these feelings with one another, but I let it pass, though I still feel that same yearning even today. Soulmates? Perhaps.
And there were the friends and classmates from elementary school through high school graduation. We shared values and goals and the idealism of an era into which we were born. We followed those paths throughout our lives, each in our own way. I've often wondered why high school reunions are so full of meaning, the pull to reunite as a group ten, twenty, fifty years later. Even here, I let most of my own opportunities to reunite pass. But now I see that we were destined to strive together for common goals in this life and perhaps many of us are part of a soul group with that very intent. As the idealism of our youth is shattered by current political circumstances, we seem to share equally in the pain of its loss at a deeply profound level.
So perhaps reincarnation is a communal effort after all. Not a lonely sojourn. Just as we can find ourselves straddling two worlds as death approaches, so too for life in utero and for a time after birth itself. A newborn's multidimensional experiences continue unbeknownst to the adult, but often are shared by siblings or other very young children. In fact, the "imaginary" friends that children talk to or play with are as much a part of their reality as the crib that they sleep in or the touch of a mother's hand. Invisible friends also may be part of a soul group or the manifestation of others reincarnated at the same time. A child knows, for example, of its newborn contemporaries. Their lives fit together in a mosaic of life plans to be played out in a particular historical period or generation.
To exist is to yearn. Physical existence is separation from our true nature. In spirit, planning for reincarnation can be a joint endeavor within spirit groups and spirit families and with advice and counsel from spirit guides. Yet, although the newborn arrives fully sentient, self-aware and remembering, that awareness and memory gradually fades. The lonely sojourn doesn't really begin until the veil of forgetfulness starts to descend around the age of five or six or seven. The source from which we come is forgotten. The shared experiences of life between lives or even past lives together are lost to vague experiences of dejá vue or vivid dreams when we sleep or momentary flashes (visions) in a state of daydreaming. The sense of yearning and separation can enter the psyche and perhaps last for a lifetime. And without knowing why, we begin our search for our soulmates, those who have long been forgotten.
What if the forgetting did not take place so completely? What if we could maintain memories of source and the soul self? Many people do remember into later years and often share these memories within the family unit into adolescence or adulthood. Scores of people undergo hypnosis or past-life regression (or between-life regression), trying to remember, or take psychedelic drugs or undergo transformations in sweat lodges or holotropic breathing practices just to re-member what they deeply know within themselves.
What if...? I think the world itself would transform in a way that we long for--a place of love and interconnectedness with each other and with all the earth fed by the knowledge of who and what we truly are. No fear, no hatred, now war. Perhaps we should be listening to our babies and toddlers when they share memories of past lives, or talk about their "other" mother, or bring to us an endless store of wisdom and knowledge that we often dismiss. Some say the veil of forgetfulness is thinning with each new generation. Perhaps a transformation is closer than we think.
There are many resources available if you wish to expand your knowledge or challenge yourself to new experiences. I'll site a few here or you can follow the link to these pages on my website: Children's Past Life Memories, Birth of the Sentient Child, Useful Resources.
- Michael Newton, Destiny of Souls: New Case Studies of Life Between Lives
- James Van Praagh, Growing Up in Heaven: The Eternal Connection Between Parent and Child
- Marge Rieder, Mission to Millboro
- Jane Roberts, The Individual Nature of Mass Events (Seth Books)
Reincarnating Together