Faces: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Hey everyone! wow, it's been forever since i posted a thread, huh? let's see if i remember how to do this...

I remember a while ago that there was a bit of a discussion about past lives going on, and i didn't exactly have anything to contribute at the time, and, to the best of my knowledge, i was thinking of starting it up again.

Through my own various meditations and explorations, i've come accross a few memorable past lives, which i will list here; as the title says, they're all varying shades of Good, Bad, and Ugly, though those are often entirely subjective. keep in mind i can't tell exactly which of these are Truth or simply imagination gone awry, but it has been a fairly interesting ride none the less. In no Particular order, it's time for the show and tell!

(please not that some of these may be mere fragments, and i may not remember much about them at all, or even remember clear details, so please don't ask for verification, as i cannot provide any as of yet)

Name: (unknown)
Occupation: Privateer (pirate)
Ethnicity: Spanish

Notes: As near as i can tell, this guy was sort of a nomad, as most pirates tend to be. More than others, he tended to follow the image of the more romanticized pirates of these days (Jonny Depp, Orlando Bloom, etc.), as it just seemed to be his nature to be somewhat honorable to a fallen enemy, and he seemed to play around with any sort of heist of a trade ship.

Name: (unknown)
Occupation: Warrior/Soldier
Ethnicity: South American (Inca)

Notes: Again, i don't remember much except that this guy was a warrior (smokin' hot too if i remember right) for some part of the incan empire in the days of yore. the Detail that made me calssify him as inca was first that i remember his hair, which was very long, grouped into five bunches at the end. a friend told me it was inca, and it seemed to fit, since he definitely had a "wild man" vibe to him. another thing that told me he was south american was, admittedly the mode of death. being strapped to an altar and having your chest ripped open is hard to forget. moving on!

Name: (unknown)
Occupation: Shrine Priestess
Ethnicity: Japanese

Notes: yep, a genuine Miko. this one i really only remember the last moments of; there was a lot of fear, the thought of invaders and looters, and fire. i honestly think she commited suicide to avoid being raped and murdered, but hey, i would probably do the same ting if i were (still) in her shoes, so to speak. the thing that tells me she was a Miko is she was wearing a plain white kimono top, and red Hakama, not so much red as Crimson, that and insanely long hair (as a general practice, miko never cut their hair after a certain birthday, it was considered to diminish their powers).

Name: (unknown)
Occupation: Thief/Performer
Ethnicity: Romani (Gypsy)

Notes: This guy i remember the most about; nights sitting around a campfire with music and drinking, laughing, playing instruments... a beautiful time. Wandering valleys and mountains, performing in cities, it was all very light hearted. There were times, however, when this guy was forced to steal, though he often only picked people who could afford to lose a few coins, y'know? either that or, someone he had a grudge against, such as a biggot or some other distasteful person.

Name: (unknown, referred to self as "Bloody Jack")
Occupation: Unknown
Ethnicity: English

Notes: this guy is just plain F***ed up. as near as i can tell, he went criminally insane after witnessing a murder, and just sort of snapped. like i said under the name, as near as i can tell, he referred to himself as Bloody Jack, i get the feeling he was a copycat killer of the Ripper. i don't generally know much, it's all a weird, hazy blur of hallucinations.

Name: (unknown)
Occupation: ... predator?
Ethnicity: French

Notes: this one was actually a vampire. yep, honest to goodness blood sucker. turned at around 15 years old, spent the next century sort of preying on people and posibng as a normal human. i don't generally remember the day to day, but it was a lot of con artistry until the later years, when he could actually afford a house. the strongest memories of this guy are feeding, generally because it was a pleasurable experience, not so much sexually, more like the relief you get by drinking a sweet lemonade or something cold and sweet on a hot day.

are there any that any of you out there would like to share? i have some specific memories of the above peoples listed, so, if you wish for some details, i would say ask, and i can see what i can grant knowledge to.

Best Wishes, and waiting to hear what interesting stories you all have to share,

Razi'el

Very interesting. It is fun to look into those, isn't it? I've learned a lot about myself, and found a lot of explanations behind quirks in my personality and preferences. It's always anyone's guess if they're actual, or figments of your imagination, but mine tended to line up pretty well.

The odd thing is, I've seen myself as three of those things (though I'm not sure about my exact function in Japan - that one is very hazy, but I know I was young, female, and something of that sort) and have always felt a strong, very real kinship with vampires. My time as a gypsy trooper/thief was the first I began to remember, and one of the most vivid, though I think that happened in the second half of the 13th century. I loved the privateer one, and almost want to ask if we were ever on the same ship!

hard to say about being on the same ship, but if you remember a spaniard who was apparently hung like a horse, then that's probably me (not to get too adult rated there).

Other than my panther-like self, I only remember one other life. I was male, long red hair, fairly well built. He was a captain in the British infantry against the colonists during the American Revolutionary war. This is then the second past-life connection I recall having to my other, the being that always travels with me, but we take different forms and genders in each one. She was spying on the side of the colonists in the dreams and visions, and I was actually on their side. Some of the dreams have been very graphic in terms of violence and sexual content, which I won't go into here. The events in them have taken place on ships, in make-shift hospitals, in the country, riding horses, outside barns and houses for assignations, the works. This has been going on for about ten years.

Here is where it gets weird...I've always had this connection to that war. When I was a kid, I was fascinated by it, and had the George Washington club in my second grade class. Still, I'm a total anglophile, and largely feel that we should have stayed with Britain. Not just wished, but felt like we were supposed to, but something happened. As it turns out, it is believed that a woman known only as 'the lady' was part of the Culpepper Ring, the group that stopped Benedict Arnold and the British officer Andre, from being successful. I didn't know about this until last week, because it's not something that was really revealed for Americans. Even many of the conspiracy theorists weren't aware of her, and they usually have the dirt on everyone. I'm wondering now, if things have come full circle, and I have my answer?

Another possibility, however, is that my fascination with this particular part in history is only being used to put a face on events that happened in some other context. So I had the form, my other had a female form, but the war was somewhere else, in another time, and my brain isn't ready to see it all yet, so it's putting the trappings of familiarity around the incident.

Quote :

but if you remember a spaniard who was apparently hung like a horse, then that's probably me (not to get too adult rated there).

Is it bad that I find it hilarious that...apparently... his most outstanding qualifier was genitalia measurements? XD There has got to be another clue there LOL


I love hearing human past life memories, because, I think, they help put "faces" to the past. Specific memories, if you have them, of your hung-like-a-horse Spaniard and your life as a miko in Japan would be really interesting. Japan is a place I have really strong ties to too... presumably because of a relatively recent and traumatic human incarnation there, Meiji Era.

Well Raz, I think the most memorable/favorite ship I sailed with was called the Maria Theresa, which sounds Spanish to me. Not sure if I'd remember a shipmate by that particular description, though. Weren't we all?

Veil, it seems to me that people often feel strongly about history connected to their previous lives. I've been fascinated by the Titanic since I first heard of it, and each of the many times I watched the movie, I began to shiver uncontrollably when they hit the ice berg. It always stops after that shot of a woman floating under the dome of the flooded grand staircase. Conversely, I can't even think about trying to sit through "Schindler's List," or anything dealing with concentration camps. Simply typing those two words makes me stare off into nothing, feeling gray and cold. I wondered for a long time if I was putting some kind of personal tragedy into historical drama, but usually the simplest explanation is the most accurate. I do know that once I quit trying to convince myself I was simply imagining things, I stopped panicking if cold water fell on my head. That used to really suck in the shower sometimes.

Scratch wrote:

I wondered for a long time if I was putting some kind of personal tragedy into historical drama, but usually the simplest explanation is the most accurate.

In terms of simplicity often being the most accurate explanation, I would tend to agree. I've lost count of the number of dreams I've had about drowning, and I've actually been in a car that submerged (a window was open, so we had the ability to get the doors open without too much pressure from the exterior). Still, it doesn't feel the same when I see a film or other visual evidence of a person drowning. It's my only form of paranoia, and I believe I remember the captain going underwater, but other events take more precedence and cause more disturbance to me on a daily level. I only have trouble with the water if I am on a boat or pier.

Like my feline version, I also have the occasional incidence of phantom limbs, usually my hands or hair or more personal areas. I remember the feeling of my uniform, I occasionally recall pieces of my voice. Some of the men in my group, I remember their names, and their ranks. Some of what happens in my dreams and visions are very mundane, not exactly the stuff of excitement, which is why I think it's all related to a past life and not just a case of wishful thinking. To me anyway, it also precludes that I am just putting a familiar context on much older events.

Ashtart wrote:

Is it bad that I find it hilarious that...apparently... his most outstanding qualifier was genitalia measurements? XD There has got to be another clue there LOL

well, quite honestly i would tell you more if i knew more about him, all i knew was that he was reckless and sort of a Casanova, and apparently liked doing the job of the rig rat (the guy who bounces around the rigging, setting the sails and such), and was apparently very good at it.

*shrugs* other than that, i'll tell ya more when i get it! lol

I remember countless lives and none of them ended well.

I seem to have mostly been a priestess, worshipping various aspects of the divine feminine. I have seriously screwed it though and got the message wrong so many times. I have perverted destiny on more than one occasion. One in particular I shared with Az and royally screwed up for what I thought at the time was the right reson... yeah right.

A theme that permeates throughout all my lives is that I was directly responsible for the death of children; often my own. And I don't mean that I just caused their deaths... I precipitated them.

I have a very vivid memory of tearin an infant from the arms of its mother and throwing it off a cliff. i felt nothing at the time and find it hard to feel anything now even though consciously I know it wasn't a good thing... but was it wrong... certainly not by the mores of the time.

i have pierced the hearts of children, cut their throats, drown them... all in the name of the goddess... only it wasnt, not with hindsight.

One memory I have which is the most vivid and most painful was in seventeenth century France. I was the daughter of a wealthy man and lived in a beautiful house in massive grounds. It was always cool inside even when it was hot outside. I had small heels on my shoes that clicked on the stone floors.

My room was never cold though. There was always a fire and I had maids who took care of me. We were friends though; my servants and I. We laughed together a lot, especially when they were dressing me. There was one in particular whom I trusted with everything. We had been friends ever since we were children. My parents were very liberal and had relaxed attitudes about class distinction.

I talked to her about everything; good and bad. I told her about the man I loved more than life. I told her when I got pregnant by him.

Oh god he was beautiful and we were both so naive.

I had always known he was diferent. He had an air of constantly looking over his shoulder although he never physically did. I had the strangest sense that I had known him before... always.. forever. And I had... I have.

He had a long name but i remember him as Marc. He was my everything

I used to walk in the gardens... there were long avenues of trees that radiated down to the summerhouse. It was built in the style of the Ancient Greeks with marble statues and columns. This is where I would meet him. My maid brought me notes when he was to come.

I didnt know why thre had to be so much secrecy I knew that my parents wouldn't have had a problem with our relationship but he said that his would have. I was somewhat spoiled and couldn't understand why anyone would have a problem with me. How naive I was.

One day he came and he was afraid, so very afraid. I couldn't really get anything coherent about what he said. He made me promise that I would never tell anyone about our meetings He made me promise that I woudl forget he ever existed I was so frightened, so upset. I would have promised him anything. All I could think about was that he was going away and never coming back.

He put his hand on my belly and made me promise to protect our son no matter what. He was so proud, even when he was so frightened.The last I saw of him was riding away on his horse as if the devil himself were biting at his heels. Little did I know.

I went back to the house and wept for days... in the arms of my friends... and then they came.

By now I was heavily pregnant and still weeping every day even though it had been months.The men scared me and I sensed that they scared my father too. Nothing ever scared my father. They said nothing to me but grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the house. My father was protesting. my mother was crying and my friends threw themselves at them trying to free me. They were beaten.

I was put in a carriage with my father. I was sobbing, begging him to tell me what was happening but he just sat there. He wouldn't speak to me. I was so so scared.

I don't know where we went but it seemed that it was a long way. At one point I fell asleep and that was the only time my father put his arms around me.

I'll never forget what happened next. It is etched into my mind forever. Sometimes I still dream about it. Sometimes I still speak to him - in my head. Sometimes I think he is still with me in a way. it is painful to write about this. I cry every time it comes up but maybe it's important that I tell his story. I've tried before but it's been through ficton and I've been kind of stood back from it.

I can't describe exactly what happened because it's too painful. I still remember the faces so well that I would know them if I met them again. There was no compassion in any of them.

They were evil sick manipulative bastards who styled themselves as the Vampire Council. They had no authority except what they took for themselves by fear and hatred. What is a vampire? Not what they are displayed in literature and myth that;s for sure. i know what they are but i've been battered down too often to set it out here.

I hate them, every one of them. I cursed them but it was pointless.

I'm lapsing into writer mode, as if it's ficton but I guess that's another self defence mechanism.

Apparntly they had taken Marc because having a relationship with a non vampire is against their laws... laws they made up for control and had no more validity than those which caused the fall in the first place.

They tortured him to make him tell but he didn't. They came for me just because they found out that he had been visiting me. But I wasnt as strong as him. Or maybe I was just more stupid or...I dont know. I never tried to deny it. i might have been safe if I had... no, that's not true either. It was a story that had to play out... it had before. I don't thing that anything I said would have changed it. Anyway, I didnt deny it and they sat there and pronounced judgement If it hadn't been so serious it would have been funny.

Apparently there was a particular form of executing one of their own who broke the rules. They hand you upside down by one ankle and cut your throat. It isn't pretty. I had to watch. He loved me to the end. It's an image ingrained in my mind. i have to work hard to keep it away.

When he was dead they... well lets just say they killed me in a different way. I don't think I'm ready right now to talk about that.

Sorry about unloading my shit. Az knows all about it and he knows that sometimes I just need to talk about it even though it hurts. maybe it's beacause every time someone reads about it it keeps his memory alive.