I think there will always be elements in my life that are related to my past lives. As opposed to what many people think, we don’t remember past lives necessarily because there is a trauma or an unresolved emotion. Sometimes we simply remember because similar situations occur and they make us feel as we did in the past. In the last months, I suspect these elements are those concerning the promotion of veganism. Being an activist in this sense entails to confront every day mockeries, scorn and personal attacks for defending a position that should be of basic ethics: you can’t claim you love someone while at the same time you participate in their exploitation and death. As happens to me with other lives as well, fortunately today it is unlikely someone will come to behead me for thinking that way and disseminate that truth, but that doesn’t prevent me from feeling the same way I felt in my Cathar life in a given moment. Every other day I have to find ways to transmit my messages without falling into intolerance, pretending those attacks don’t affect me. But deep inside they do affect me, and make me feel like in that scene of humiliation on the part of two soldiers, in the fortress that would end up being my tomb. I didn’t even want to describe that scene in detail. Instead of using helmet and armor, now humans shield behind computer screens, but in essence we haven’t changed much, and some individuals still believe that it is licit to insult and mock someone who defends the life and rights of defenseless beings. Needless to say, my Cathar life is giving me a lot of inner strength to carry on with my activism. As a fellow activist says, you quickly get over it when you remember the real victims are the non-human animals and not you. The fact I got killed in a previous life is not going to stop me from fighting for something that is just.
When I shared the memories of my Cathar life in Foro Reencarnación for the first time, my fellow members asked me about the emotional weight. Undoubtedly, ending up decapitated for leading a fully peaceful way of life and wanting to live according to our precepts of non-violence, is quite traumatic. Yes, it is. And yes, if I think much about it, I feel some emotions. Only if I think much. I have the impression those emotions are still quite stalled.
I have also been suspecting for years why it is so hard for me to write a novel in which there is a painful distancing between the protagonist (my alter ego), and one of the characters, who in reality is H disguised as a character. I created him myself in my teenage years, without knowing he was less imaginary than I thought. The other day I strove to keep writing because I noticed the inspiration inside me, and when I reread what I had written a long time ago, a fragment where the lack of understanding between the two and the breaking up this is going to provoke can be clearly seen, suddenly I felt strong desires to cry, an unequivocal symptom something is stirring up.
Whether is accidental or not, in my Cathar life a painful distancing took place with my eldest son, Dominic… Despite my teachings, something didn’t work with him, and our religious stances became irreconcilable. I still don’t know which was the exact nature of those discrepancies, though my intuition is they didn’t have so much to do with our respective ideologies, but rather with his skepticism and his more pragmatic way of seeing life. He knew we could end up dead. He wasn’t willing to end up dead due to his religious beliefs, something totally legit and understandable. On the contrary, I, if I am the same woman that appears in the chronicles, “was a heretic of the worst sort”. And if I wasn’t the same woman, I do know from my memories that my beliefs were deeply rooted and the idea of giving them up didn’t cross my mind. Seeing the way I am today and how I have been in other lives, I also know I can be quite extremist and stubborn. At the end, as was expected, I ended up dead, alongside a few more dozens of people. He didn’t. And what lesson can be drawn from all this? I am not very sure yet. But I think my spiritual guide (that is to say, H disincarnated) has already given me some clues. And now it is me the one who has to draw her own conclusions.
I see myself doing daily tasks, walking around the village with lots of slopes and everything cobbled. Every day I have to go to the fountain with metal buckets to fetch water. I see very covered women with some kind of wide band to tie up their hair. Sometimes I also see soldiers with oval-shaped helmets that cause me a bit of fear, I guess this is in those times when we felt persecuted.
I see myself arguing with Dominic at home. The fire is in the same corner as the other occasion, on the left as you enter. I would say Dominic has paid me a visit. I show him something that is handwritten on a paper, he calls it blasphemy and throws it to the fire and that angers and saddens me. He tells me I must abjure my faith, but he knows I won’t, and he leaves the house angry too. It hurts me but I can’t do otherwise, I tell him, “This is what I believe, and I know in my heart it is true”, so I can’t abjure. I wonder what went wrong with him, what did he learned outside of home that makes him reject what I had taught him, I think some consider him a traitor. However, I have the impression that it is not so much an ideological matter, but a practical matter: he knows we are in serious danger, he knows we are going to end up dead, and he is only trying to save us.
I also see myself going to private houses to visit the sick. I remembered I was some kind of healer, but I don’t have a place of my own to work. This scene surprised me because perhaps it proves I was indeed a Parfaite (female Perfect), though I keep having doubts. I go to see the sick and sometimes there is no solution, then the relatives ask me to perform “that ceremony” (I put it this way because the word consolamentum never comes to me, besides I am not sure it is the same). I accept but I tell them this must remain completely secret. I see myself doing the same ritual that those two men used to do when I was small: I have a wooden medal and I place it on the brow, the mouth, the throat, the heart… Meanwhile, I recite some words, more or less I ask God to receive this person’s soul.
I also saw myself “preaching” with my second son in some kind of large room. Clearly it is not a church nor anything like that. It is a simple assembly or meeting, with benches for the believers, a table close to the wall where we light up candles, and my son and I sit down and just speak to the people about our beliefs, and about the scriptures. I feel that as I grow older, I hand over my place for my son.
I also know I conceal medicinal plants among the plants I use as condiment. I hide them because obviously I can be accused of being a witch if they are found.
When news comes about the burning of heretics in a nearby town, there are discrepancies among us. There are people who stand up for a violent reaction, and of course I am against that, I think it can’t bring anything good. If we are going to be persecuted and killed, the only option is non-violence, no matter if it is hard. I think for us anyone who commits an evil act is like a victim of the Devil. Therefore, we don’t blame them entirely, we see it as something inevitable because evil dwells in the world and it is what makes people evil.
At home, when I pray I also light up many candles in a corner and I stay a long time staring at the flames, asking God to give me strength if that moment arrives.
(Regression 23-3-2018).
For the last few days I have been feeling a bit of ache in my neck again, not much, only it doesn’t relax wholly at night. Today I did yoga and at the end I again noticed the energy accumulated in that area, though it didn’t flow well and I didn’t notice many emotions. Only a strange flash came to me about someone carrying a few heads caught by the hair, I don’t know if I got to see this being alive or dead, or even if it was a real scene. Afterwards, I went to have dinner and I stayed with those strange emotions, quite intense but hard to define. There is a lot of sadness, there is some despise but not much, towards those men capable of committing such atrocities in the name of God, a lot of incomprehension, I am left once more with that big question in my head and that great incomprehension: WHY? And there is also certain wrath but very well restrained, as if I have held back myself because I don’t consider it appropriate, but is there anyway, obviously. It is as if I know I have to pity them or forgive them… but it is very difficult to do that and remain impassive in front of so much barbarity.
Part of that anger comes because I suspect that in addition to killing us, they treated us with real scorn and hatred, as if we were no more than animals. I feel that somehow this is related to that scene of humiliation I recalled being in the castle, the way we heretics are treated. After our death they still don’t show any respect for us, possibly they didn’t even bother burning our bodies nor burying us properly. I can’t believe my fellow human beings can act that way, something tears in my soul, I think it is while I am waiting for the execution because perhaps I saw dreadful things I haven’t yet remembered, though I do feel the emotions.
(Regression 31-3-2018).
Scattered scenes came to me. First I felt that the reason for which I sat down and let my son talk in those meetings also was that I was pregnant with my last (alive) son. I feel the weight of my belly and then I see myself restless at home because I feel it is the time to give birth, those around me ask me and start the preparations. I would say my daughter is around twelve or thirteen. Finally I lie down and give birth, almost sitting, and I feel the love for my son as with the others, but it is as if I am already tired of doing always the same, I feel as if “I have already done my duty” and I would like to commit myself to other things. I see myself with a big bundle of wood, on the back of a mule of gray hair I caress with affection, then I take that bundle that weighs a ton and carry it inside. In my head I have that matter about starting preaching seriously. On the one hand, I am afraid we will be persecuted. On the other hand, my uncle and my father died already, I would have to look for another Perfect to make me one of them… I don’t know for sure, but I think I didn’t get to do it, though that didn’t prevent me from speaking about those religious teachings. I am also frustrated because I feel old and I am not very good at writing. Anyway, I remember that since ancient times we were told to be careful leaving anything written or we will be quickly accused of heresy, and if we preach, we must never do it in public (as seems it happened in the other village). So, we always get together in this type of rooms.
Then came the most emotional part. I am in the castle or fortress, and now I do not only feel guilty for my family, but also for all the people gathered there. I have the impression the last night comes, and men go away and leave us there. I understand, but thinking about what will be awaiting for us when the warriors finally enter the castle terrifies me. I think I tell those remaining that surely they will make us abjure our faith, and every one of us is free to choose what they want. It is clear to me I won’t do it, because I know we haven’t done any evil, rather all the opposite. Slight intuition that babies were snatched from their mothers and smashed into the walls, but I doubt if this is my imagination. Weeping and cries of women. For some reason I am one of the last. And I keep doubting if we were really asked something. In this part I couldn’t stop crying. The way everything is coming to an end causes me so much anguish and so much rage, and I think again: “Why did I have to do it?” I have the impression it was me the one who took them to their deaths. I hear in my mind: “They chose freely”, and I reply: “They chose death?”, and I hear again: “They chose peace”.
(Regression 17-4-2018).
For all this, today I also choose peace. I choose veganism. I choose justice. If all of us did the same, the world would very different.