Chapter 2 The Heart of the matter

Chapter two ~ The Heart of the Matter

“Many of the Indians believed that one may be born more than once, and there were

some who claimed to have full knowledge of a former incarnation.” – 1911

Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman – Sioux Indian – 1858 -

*******Meditation******

Meditation can be an excellent way in which to experience past lives. Many of my past life experiences came during a meditation. I have to lay down and cover up with blankets because I go so deep into an altered state; my breath becomes shallow, I experience rapid eye movement and become very cold. The inner light comes quickly. There is awareness I am merging mind and heart awareness into one. I have to admit that I do this intuitively as if I have always known how. When asked how I do this, I have to stop and think in order to explain what happens. Moving consciousness into the heart center is not a matter of thinking about my heart. I must feel it and be present in mind, body and spirit. You might experience this if you lay down and try the following:

close your eyes
be present IN your body
move your hand over your heart center -about 5 inches above
FEEL the vibration in your heart center
Let go - notice how consciousness expands

For me, past life experiences surface when merging the third eye center (which is different than the mind and is often referred to as the sixth chakra) and heart center. The two become one. Once this happens, I am not trying to remember, I am not imagining the past, I am in it. It is more than a feeling, more than a flash - it becomes my NOW. Every sensation is as if I am there, sights, sounds, smells, and touch. My meditations always begin with a beautiful blue pulsating light. I have come to know and trust this Inner Light, and have found it to be a ‘door way’ into past life memories and in-between states of being.

*****When Family comes from a strange place*****

I knew Alexander’s sister died of pneumonia. I remembered how his mother died. A meditation several years later helped me to know how his father died. It was an Indian attack. Everyone I knew was killed. Everyone except me. There was an Indian man who took me. I don’t know why he took me, but he did. As he threw me up on his horse I turned desperately toward the battle looking for my father. He lay dying on the rocky field. In what can only be described as a ‘soul moment,’ I saw the look in my father’s eyes. Iknew that he loved me, I knew that he was sorry. I also knew I would not see him again in that lifetime.

I had watched my little sister, my mother and my father die. My entire family was gone. My life (lives) would be forever changed due to these circumstances and so to would my sense of family. The next two life times repeated this loss. I would experience the complete loss of family, again and again. But it was here, in Alexander’s life that I was given a glimpse of what family should be. Through his tremendous losses I came to know a family dynamic that went beyond blood, beyond race, religion, and beyond what was acceptable at the time.

I find myself as Alexander. I am about twelve years old. I know I have been living with the Indians for almost two years. A man wearing full knee-high moccasins and an intricate deer hide outfit with shoulder straps and hunting gear still strapped to his back is yelling at me. I had done something wrong.

I am biting my bottom lip and trying hard not to cry. I can hear him yelling at me in his native tongue. I tried to explain to him, in his language, what little I did know. Not only was I hearing this, I was speaking out loud in the Indian language during the meditation. The transition to another culture was not an easy one. I turned away and started to cry. I missed my sister, I missed my mom and dad. I struggled to regain my composure. I felt it was a sign of weakness for a young man to show such emotions. At least from where I had come from. I walked back to an area of the village where I had been working, tanning a hide. The hides were stretched taut between poles set in the ground. It was one of my chores and something I did for many years. I sat next to the hide making long scraping movements. Back and forth, up and down, I can still feel the rocking motion of this endeavor. I worked all day to clean the hide, working the surface down to a smooth and soft finish.

Time changes……… I find myself standing in a field by a creek bed. I am happy, my heart felt heavy for my white family but at this point I was adjusting well. I was listening to an older man, an elder who had a small group of young boys around him. I had a bow and a few arrows in a case over my shoulder. It was early in the day. I had a deep admiration and respect for this man, even though he was not my biological father. I felt closer to him than I had ever felt to my real father. He was kind, gentle, and compassionate. He seemed so wise and he treated me fairly.

Not long afterward, three young boys and myself ventured into the hills. We were all about the same age, maybe thirteen or fourteen. We were practicing our hunting skills, how quietly we could walk and not be heard. Testing, over and over again to see just how quiet we could be. What an art form this was, and what a challenge. We would shoot our arrows at targets and make wild animal and bird sounds. I was making bird calls, a shrilling sound deep in my voice. It was an amazing feeling. I was so happy.

When I came out of the meditation, there was such a deep sense of joy. Family had come from a strange place, a strange people, a people who held a different form of spiritual belief, foreign to my early Christian upbringing. Yet it was here I felt I was home.

Family dynamics can be some of the most difficult and challenging relationships we encounter. Understanding them takes dedication and hard work. Past life experiences have enabled me to more closely review my relationships with my family then and now and to objectively review our interactions and reactions to each other.

******Holographic memory******

Researchers say that souls return in “soul groups;” meeting again and again to work through karmic issues or to be with loved ones. I never consciously started my meditations looking for family or friends. Instead, I was drawn to them due to an emotional attachment, trauma, or deeply held feelings. I came to know the identity of these individuals through a duality of images; one a past life memory of who they were, the other a holographic form of who they are now. In other words, during the meditations Iremember and see the person in my past life. Then, projected over them is a holographic light, which takes another form - the form of who they are to me now. Both are fluid and in motion. The best way I can explain this is to reference the holographic projections at Disneyland in the Haunted House. Imagine seeing a physical person and over their body is a holographic projection of light that fully describes another bodily form. This is how I sometimes see people who were in my past lives. It confirms the souls identity for me, and I am able to see that the person then and now, they are the same soul.

The best research I could find to collaborate my experience was the work of physicists. Some physicists suggest that the universe is a hologram, or holomovement that contains both matter and consciousness as a single field. They suggest that all matter is inseparably woven, enfolded throughout the totality of the universe. Physicist David Bohm went so far as to say that all life and intelligence are present in time and space, that they are woven within the entire universe. In other words, every portion of any object contains the whole, and every portion of the universe enfolds the whole.

If reality is holographic, and time and space a construction of consciousness, my memories were showing me that memories were also holographic. So I combed through many books and tried to comprehend the vast studies of modern physics. I found some interesting theories, but the best was the work of Karl Pribram, a neurophysiologist at Stanford University. He first started researching memories in the early 1940’s and it wasn’t until he found the work of Bohm and the hologram, that his research regarding memories began to make sense. Karl Pribram arrived at his conclusions separate from Bohm, and although they were working in two very different directions, the concept of the hologram brought to light multiple meanings and implications scientifically regarding consciousness and matter. Their holographic studies showed that memories also affect consciousness. Memories are then viable portions of the hologram!

When I reviewed my journals I noticed how many times other people surfaced, and how the memories happen. Almost always they were holographic. When I close my eyes today and think of a family member or friend, it is a normal memory. But during a past life experience it’s different. I see people who were with me in a different time and place and at the same time I see who they are to me today. The following is an example:

Fast and then faster as I feel my spirit body spin in a tunnel consisting only of light. As the experience slows to a normal speed, I find myself as Alexander. I am 19 or 20 years old -- my hair is long. I am wearing a loincloth and moccasins. I am standing in a meadow with wild grass that is as tall as my waist. I reach out and run my fingers over the long-stems. I close my eyes and listen to the breeze as it dances through the grass.

My Indian name means Little Hawk; I am no longer called Alexander. I am standing in the field remembering my little sister, how much I loved her and how much I miss her still. I am remembering watching her play by our old home and how she was teasing me to play with her. But I had chores to do and would not, and for that I am now sorry. My life has changed, so drastically. I am living with the very people I was once afraid of. I am married to an Indian woman. I have a wife and a child. Tears fill my eyes, as I see my wife walking toward me; I see holographically projected over her my daughter now, Jennifer. The two are one, they are the same soul. She has taught me much about family, and about love. I feel so at peace. There is a sense of harmony with nature, and I am so in love with her. It is different here, not like when I was living with my white family. I do not miss that way of life, but I miss my little sister, I wish she could be here with me now.

Time shifts and I am standing near a river, with my brother. He is not my real brother but my Indian brother. We are close in age, but I am a little older. He is counseling me on the traditions of Indian culture and life. He counsels me on just about everything. I look deeply into his eyes as he speaks to me. I know him....... I remember him......... holographically I can see my Indian brother is the same man, the same soul as my first husband in this life, Mark. It is an interesting awareness because in this life Mark is now Jennifer’s father. The multi-layered implications deepen as I become aware that Mark was once Jennifer’s brother, her Indian brother. I begin to see why my daughter Jennifer was drawn to us in this life. Like a magnet our thoughts, emotions, and feelings brought us together again.

Time moves forward; I am chanting an Indian death song with others. A child I considered to be a little sister has died. She was no more than four. She was Indian, yet as I looked at her, all I could see was my little sister Alishia. Her blond hair, her freckles, and her light skin. I began to cry, the tears streaming down my face. I remember when I was ten with my white family. I cried now, like I cried then. I am remembering sitting in the back of the wagon holding the pink ribbon that was once in her hair.

My consciousness moved back to the burial site of the little one who has just died. High above the ground on stilts, carefully wrapped was the little girl. Tears streamed down my face. I realize this child's death has reopened an old wound. I have not healed from the death of my sister Alishia. The experience becomes multi-layered; emotions, feelings and thoughts, like a hologram, one over the other, all as if they were happening in the now.

To my knowledge, Daniel and I had not been drawn to each other again until 1985, almost 200 years later. Yet the implications suggested that we were drawn together due to our life as brother and sister. I of course wondered why it took so long. Why now? I found one plausible perspective in an article written in 1985 by Sarah Belle Dougherty titled,Looking Beyond the Material. In it she suggests that reincarnation introduced another dimension of understanding. The appearance of soul-groups does not necessarily happen in an unbroken line of cause and consequence. Sometimes there is a vast period of time between lives. In other words, ‘time’ doesn’t matter; relationships are a continuum that span beyond any one life time. Although I held the memories of my sister deep within my heart, the following circumstances are what led me to my next lifetime, without her.

****************The Trail of Tears ******************

Karma is a term that continues to surface around reincarnation and implies in new age circles, “what you sow so shall you reap.” But the original definition simply means cause and effect, cause and consequences. Healing from past trauma and unresolved issues is one of the main reasons for doing past life work. To me, this is where karma and healing intersect and why understanding reincarnation is important. In January of 1993, I did a meditation that revealed the depth of Alexander’s involvement between the white man and the Indian.

I surrendered into the light and allowed my subconscious to take me where I needed to be. The emotions which came with this meditation where very intense. I knew I was among ‘my people,’ I was with several other men from the tribe. We were in a cabin that was used as a trading post. I reached up and touched the beard on my face, and flipped my long pony tail from the front of my shoulder to my back. I wore buckskin clothing, full knee-length moccasins and a heavy fur wrap around my shoulders. It was late fall, almost winter. There were small patches of snow on the ground. I was not happy to be there. I felt uneasy, and awkward. I listened as the white men made fun of me. They called me names and were trying to taunt me to speak their language, testing me to see if I could speak English.

I turned to one of my Indian brothers who was with me. I told him in the Indian language that we should not trade with these men. They were bad, their hearts were not good. As a white man came around the corner, my face frowned and I gritted my teeth in anger. He was a mean individual and spiteful. I hated him.

We moved outside and mounted our horses. There were five of us. Three had waited outside, while myself and one other had gone into the cabin. I said something in the native Indian language to the white man at the door. He couldn’t understand me. I spoke of his evil heart and that we would not trade with the likes of him. We all yelled and whooped and rode off down the road. The cabin was along a creek bed and we headed toward the mountain range.

My throat. My throat suddenly felt very constricted. I could not speak. I didn’t know why. What did I need to remember in order to release this constriction? We are moving. ‘My people’ are angry. I see a young man on horseback and he is yelling war cries and waving a spear. The whites are moving in on us. We are moving -- moving away from their encroaching presence.

I am no longer a child but a man. I feel very wise, yet I am afraid and I feel powerless. I know the white man and his ways, I know of his inevitable coming. I am him, I am not him. I know the Indian and his ways, I am him, I am not him. I see my Indian ‘brother’ wrapped in a blanket, knee-high moccasins, and beads in his long hair. I watch him as he turns slowly toward me, pausing only to look deeply into my eyes. There is a silent acknowledgment of concern between us. In silence, we exchange our mutual respect for each other.

I am sitting in a hut structure. The room is very dark and only a small candle flickers in the corner of the room. I have a feeling we have been traveling for some time; it is very cold outside. There is a lot of anger and hostility among the people in the room. The Indians are upset and I am very sad. The sadness is overwhelming. I become aware of feelings, feelings of being responsible. Just then a man in a red jacket with brass buttons and white long hair comes through the door. I can feel the blood flushing to my face. I am so angry with him. He has lied to me!!! I hate him...he is evil, and I do not trust him. He seems to identify with the English, and although his jacket was old and worn, he liked to flaunt his ties to England.

Suddenly I knew the reason for my feelings, for the upset between me and my Indian brothers. I was the only one in our tribe that could speak English fluently. I had translated the messages between the Indians, and the man in the red coat. The man in the red coat had lied, he had lied to me and this meant I had spoken lies to the Indian people. I felt responsible and helpless for what was happening to them. I knew the white man’s ways, and despised him. I was caught in his deceptions. I was him, I was not him.

Time moves forward.... it is the dead of winter and we are traveling a long way. It is cold in the snow; the wind is piercing the skin on my face. Many people are dying. There is little food and only a few wagons. Most of us are on foot. Tears come easily...... It is a Trail of Tears.

We have stopped to rest. I see a white man in a full length fur coat. His face is covered with a beard and his legs are covered with leathers. I can see that he feels sorry for the Indian people; I can see it in his eyes. I reached over to put something in the back of a wagon, loading it up to get back on the trail. I am tying ropes around the objects to secure them. I see a woman draped in old blankets. She is crying and hitting the ground where they have just buried her child -- the Christian way, a Christian burial. She did not want to leave her child in the ground; she is hitting it with her fists and pleading for the Great Spirit to help her.

I look over my shoulder and see an Indian man stripped naked except for a loin cloth, he is on his knees. He has his hands outstretched to the sky pleading with the Great Spirit to end the suffering. Later that night, I am preparing to leave, my intention is to find help. The conditions of this journey are inhumane and the white man who is our guide seems to be lost. My wife is there with me wrapped in a blanket and we both are crying. I talked to her, aloud in the meditation, tears streaming, about how sorry I was to have to leave, and that I felt the only honorable thing for me to do was to go for help. I had to try and ‘fix’ what was happening. I touched her face, many times, and hugged her. I had the greatest chance of not being stopped. After all, I was a white man.

I am now traveling…I have chosen higher ground in order to not be followed. It is a very torturous trail, and seemed to last forever. The cold is piercing, and my horse froze to death. I try to walk on, but I too am freezing! It becomes harder and harder to move. Then I experience from Alexander’s perceptive... myself finally collapsing onto a snowdrift next to a tree. It happened in slow motion. I fell into a deep sleep…..I too froze to death! I saw myself raise up out of my body and go into the Light. The Light was beautiful, it was peaceful and Alexander didn‘t look back.

I came to know the suffering, the pain, the wounds inflicted upon the spirit of a people whose culture did not and could not understand the ways of the white man. I held in my heart the woman pleading for the Great Spirit to help her. I held in my thoughts the Indian man with his hands outstretched to the sky pleading with the Great Spirit to end our suffering. At the time of my death, my feelings were of helplessness, my emotions were of anger and negativity, my thoughts were fearful. The Indians were at the mercy of the white man and his ways. I wanted so badly not to be a white man. I wanted to have darker skin like my Indian brothers.

Reincarnation matters, beyond just knowing about who we once were. If we understand the patterns from lifetime to lifetime, we can create a positive future. From childhood to childhood – what we hold in consciousness affects us now and in our future. When Socrates asked; “What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming to being?" he was referring to states of consciousness -- what we hold within. My life as Alexander led me to my next life. One in which I had darker skin and I was not a white man. What I held in consciousness at the time of my death, I myself created in my next life. My name was Clara. I was born a black girl in 1840 and sold into slavery on a white man’s plantation in 1848.

__________________________________________________________________

HISTORICAL NOTES that helped validate my experiences

** In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase opened up the west.

** Originally, the Choctaws were separate societies located throughout east-central Mississippi and west-central Alabama. Later they were also in Arkansas.

** In the 1830s the U.S. government shifted Indians in the East to lands beyond the Mississippi River. Tribes dwelling north of the Ohio River would go to what is now Kansas, while those living south of the Ohio traveled to the place we call Oklahoma.

** Indian Removal included the Five Civilized Tribes--the Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee and Creek--They called that journey the Trail of Tears.

I have never felt I was a Cherokee, even though my great-great grandfather in this life is Chief John Ross of the Cherokee nation. This is a biological fact. It is common knowledge that the Cherokee are well documented with regard to the Trail of Tears. It wasn’t until ten years after having repeated memories and experiences regarding the exodus of the Indian tribes that I found there were actually five tribes that walked the Trails of Tears. The first to walk was the Choctaw in 1831. Their journey took them to Oklahoma. The Cherokee were moved via boat down the river……….which did not match my memories. However, the journey of the Choctaw did.

Chapter two: “The conditions of this journey are inhumane and the white man who is our guide seems to be lost.”

“The Choctaw however were promised that if they walked -they would be given land, money, gold and supplies. 300 decided to walk. The guide that they had been given, however, was not the expert on the West that he claimed to be. The Indians were led off the path and had become caught in a blizzard. They became lost in Lake Providence, which was 30 miles long. A rescue party was dispatched from Monroe to rescue the remaining Indians.”

Chapter two -" I move to the burial site of the little one who had just died. High above the ground on stilts, carefully wrapped was the little girl.” Research confirms: "As soon as the breath departed from the body of a Choctaw, a high scaffold was erected, thirty-six feet from the dwelling where the deceased died. It consisted of four forks set in the ground, across which poles were laid, and then a floor made of boards or cypress bark.”

Chapter two: "I see a woman draped in old blankets. She is crying and hitting the ground where they have just buried her child - the Christian way, a Christian burial. She did not want to leave her child in the ground; she is hitting it with her fists and pleading for the Great Spirit to help her."

According to Indian Removal records, the Indians who died were buried in the ground along the way - but they were shallow graves due to the ground being frozen.

Chapter two: “A man wearing full knee-high moccasins and an intricate deer hide outfit with shoulder straps and hunting gear still strapped to his back is yelling at me.” And “I am 19 or 20 years old -- my hair is long. I am wearing a loincloth and moccasins.”

When my experiences first started happening, I had thought I was up in the North West plains due to the clothing I saw us wearing; But research showed otherwise: "Men were dressed in the buckskin leggings similar to those worn by the plains tribes. Instead of a loin cloth which hung across the belt in front and back, the Choctaws seemed to be wearing ones that simply tucked into the top of the belt. Deerskin was the main material used for clothing for The Choctaws."

The Choctaw people once lived with the plains or mountain tribes and many of their old customs and the clothing worn were almost indistinguishable from theirs. Warriors dressed in buckskin leggings similar to those worn by the plains tribes. Instead of a loin cloth which hung across the belt in front and back, the Choctaws seemed to be wearing ones that simply tucked into the top of the belt, much like bulky "fruit of the looms."

http://marciesalaskaweb.com/choctawclothing.htm

From The Social History of the Choctaw Nation: 1865-1907, by James D. Morrison, edited by James C. Milligan and L. David Norris, pages 25-26, copyright © 1987, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.-----------------------------

“The fundamental character of the belief in immortality is shown by its appearance in the burial customs, the most curious and the most distinctive of all Choctaw ceremonials. When a member of the tribe died, the body was covered with skins and bark and placed upon an elevated platform which was erected near the house for that purpose. Even if the death had occurred far from home, the body was carefully brought back and placed near the house.

Beside the corpse were placed food and drink, a change of clothing, and favorite utensils and ornaments which would be needed by the spirit in its long journey to the other world. A dog was killed to provide the deceased with a companion, and after the introduction of horses, ponies were also sacrificed so that the spirit might ride.

For the first few days a fire was kept constantly burning to furnish light and warmth for the journey. The body remained upon the scaffold for a fixed period, which, however, seems to have varied from one to four or even six months according to local custom.”