So yes, I have found out I have a Cathar soul. I never, ever, imagined it. But as I was reading the book La herejía cátara, by Jesús Ávila Granados, book that was recommended to me by a forum mate, believing it would be useful to me, I began to realize that since childhood I was showing some attitudes that could be described as typically Cathar. To put in order in my head all this mess, more than anything, I have made a summary of my relationship with religion in my current life, trying to recapitulate which have been my feelings and actions during these short 42 years. I have also noticed some details that could only be coincidences, for example my favorite number has always been eight (it seems it had a special symbology for the Cathars, though it is not the only number with symbology). Also, I suspect many of my intuitions while I was researching my life as a warrior monk come in reality from my Cathar life. It seems this matter of religion transcends several lives until it reaches the present, reincarnation aspect that always seems fascinating to me.
Well, my lives as a Cathar woman and as a warrior monk are not the only ones in which religion has been very important. I also suspect one as a woman, possibly in one of the first Christian communities (in which we were also persecuted); and another one as a nun in a convent, where I didn’t arrive precisely for vocation, though life itself in the convent wasn’t too bad. With this past, it is not strange I have always felt a great attraction to the figure of Christ (I don’t like to say Christ, I prefer Jesus, because this refers to his human condition, as a Cathar would do). But, of course, we all in Spain have been raised surrounded by Catholic symbols, with the cross above the blackboard at school, and at eight they were already stuffing the Gospels down our throats in catechesis, so feeling an attraction for the figure of Christ (Jesus, I meant to say) wouldn’t be so rare either.
I have been wondering for days if I am remembering this life and reflecting about all this precisely because it is Christmas, one of the times of the year that are more sensitive for me. In my adolescence and first youth years, it was difficult for me to bear this strong feeling of absence whose origin I didn’t know how to explain. The years I had my English boyfriend, I projected on him that feeling of missing someone who was in another country, but now I know it wasn’t due to him, as I had felt the same way before meeting him and kept feeling the same way after breaking up with him. Now I know it was mainly for the Second World War and the last Christmas I spent in Prague. But here there is nothing religious. The religious part gets me angry, more than sad. But I am realizing it is like what happens to me with politics. All my life I have claimed I am apolitical and no, it is rather the opposite. I prefer to ignore politics as much as religion, because they both bring out the worst of myself, my extremist vein. Likewise, all my life I have said (and say) I don’t belong to any religion, and however, what bothers me the most about Christmas is exactly the absence of religious feelings. If we are really celebrating the birth of Jesus, it doesn’t look like it in the very least. And no, I don’t advocate we set nativity scenes anywhere, not even in my house. Because it seems to me it is all rather for show. Everything seems to me it is for show, and that is why I hate Christmas. If you are really a Christian and celebrate the birth of Jesus so much, that should be apparent all the year, fundamentally applying the principle of non-violence he never got tired of preaching. And the principle of non-violence begins at the table, with the things you eat every day. Perhaps this might sound very extremist, but today it is called VEGANISM, and Cathars, though they were only vegetarians, not vegans, at least they tried to bring the principle of non-violence to their way of life. As I write these lines, I think about how much I would like to build again a Cathar community, where we all would live according to the old principles. Clearly I keep being the same woman...