Seeing that it was urgent to do something, on Sunday (two days ago), before dinner, I decided to try for the first time a session of the so-called “restorative yoga”, this is to say, very soft and slow exercises aimed to release tension and bring relaxation. It lasted an hour, and while I was doing it I already noticed how energy began to flow. I again felt how loaded my neck was. At certain points I felt the desire to cry. But in yoga you are told you must concentrate on exercise and breathing, and if thoughts come to your mind, you must ignore them, so I did that. Before going to bed, rather than meditate, because I was still processing the emotions from last Friday, I decided to do reiki. Most of the times I do reiki for myself (self-reiki, as I call it), I don’t feel anything unusual, except the typical tingling in my hands. Past life images don’t come to me, nor anything similar. This time I made sure that the emotional channels were open, something I don’t usually do. Perhaps that is the reason why what I am going to tell next occurred.
When I laid my hands on the heart strong emotions started to arrive. I knew they were coming from Roderic. There were guilt and feelings of frustration, which accompanied me during the days previous to my death. Among other things, I thought about my brother Gareth, that is to say, another one of my guide’s incarnations, another lifetime in which we were together for some time. When I am depressed I always miss him, and that feeling was also present all the previous week. In the Ireland life we grew up together. He was older than me, though it is hard to specify how much, maybe two or three years. He had black hair, shorter than mine, and light eyes. When he got married he left the village, and I was left alone with our father. I must have got married a bit later, and in the ensuing events Gareth was absent.
In short, he told me I was focusing too much on the only mistake I had made in that life, and I had forgotten all the good things that had happened to us. I remembered my childhood and part of my adolescence with him. The affair with our mother and the plundering carried out by our lord’s men always were there, overshadowing our days, but apart from that, it was a good life. Almost perfect, I would say... and that makes it even worse, I thought. Gareth pointed out: “No life is perfect (you should know by know)”. We lived near the mountains, we had a father that taught us how to hunt, a mother whom we helped with her tasks, a ground we could sleep on. Without the quarrels to own the lands and the violence of the lords against their subjects, we could have been very happy.
I always regretted his leaving. I missed him so very much. I missed his advice. I always think that had he been by my side, things would have ended up other way, maybe he would have made me see things from a different perspective, maybe he would have stopped me... He denied it with his head. “Do you think I would have acted differently? You blame yourself because you couldn’t prevent their deaths, but you never abandoned them”. I remembered my wife’s labor, I was there as near as they allowed me to, suffering outside while I was hearing her screams of pain. While she was pregnant I was gentle and protective with her. They were my family, how could I do otherwise? “You blame yourself for what happened to our mother, you focus on the fact you couldn’t do anything, and forget you were just a child, a child! How many times did father and I tell you?”
Later, once the reiki session was over, I remembered what he was referring to.
REGRESSION FROM 14TH MARCH 2012.
There is a celebration. I see people gathered in a small countryside esplanade, everything surrounded by dark green vegetation and small houses scattered around, very humble houses. But in a glade they have put garlands, and I see little girls dancing, they have put flowers on their hair and dance around a pole to which they have tied colored ribbons, and each of them takes one of those ribbons. Farther there is a couple: it is my brother Gareth with his girlfriend. It is his wedding day. I think it is not a proper religious ceremony, but they have to take his vows in front of an elder of the village. I am happy for him, but at the same time I feel sadness, as I know he has already decided to leave.
Then I see myself a few days earlier, he and I are sitting at a wooden table in our home. Our father is near. Our mother died or we didn’t see her again. We talk about his imminent departure. He tells me he is leaving because he wants to live a life in peace, he doesn’t want to put his wife in danger. I don’t know if he gets to say it, but I think he doesn’t want the same thing that happened to our mother happening to her. Then I feel a deep grief inside. I always think something should be done so that things could be different. And I feel impotent and guilty for being incapable of changing them. That event in my childhood marked me deeply, I keep blaming myself because I couldn’t prevent it, and I drag a great hate and a great resentment towards the one who did it. I think that I would kill that man if I saw him. My father and Gareth know it still affects me. They don’t cease to repeat I was too small to do anything, but I know I had a knife in my hand, I could have stabbed it on his back or his foot if only I had had the courage... Most likely, I would have only achieved to be mistreated too or murdered by that man, but anyway I keep blaming myself.
“Don’t you see you gave your life for them and even so, you keep blaming yourself? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU, BROTHER?”
Knowing he would have approved what I did changes things a lot. I know he used to take sides with my father when the issue of doing something for our mother was addressed. He would try to make me forget about it because he was more aware than me of the danger it entailed. When I was chastised, our father and he were there while a woman tended to my wounds, and both condemned my actions. I would complain: “What’s wrong? Can’t I even feed myself?” They were worried, nothing else. And they didn’t want to bring more violence and grief to our families. But once you don’t have a family, what does it matter? Perhaps the word is not “approve”. I don’t think Gareth completely approved my actions, but perhaps he would have understood. After all, it was my wife and son the ones who turned out dead. If he had been by my side, maybe we both would have ended up hanged, who knows.
In any case, my guide made me see the positive things in my life as Roderic, and though I know from experience that I have only begun to scratch the surface and Roderic is not totally “broken” yet, I think this is a good beginning. I feel I have partially freed myself of the burden that weighed on my shoulders. And appearing as Gareth is one of the best gifts he has ever given me.
There is another Arena song, called "City of Lanterns", that also reminds me of those feelings and brings a light of hope: no matter how bad things have turned for you —like they had when I was waiting for death in that dungeon-- everything gets to an end. We all survive.
Oh my brother, kneel with me and share this dream of paradise
Through this cold and freezing night we will survive
Oh my sister, walk with me and share this dream of paradise
Through this unforgiving night we will survive
As the Lantern City lights burn ever bright