- Weekly Astrological Forecast for July 8 through July 14, 2024Continue reading →
July 8 through July 14, 2024
Things hum along pretty smoothly this week, with the only astrological change being Venus’ move into Leo on Thursday. Venus loves to show off her drama and flair under this sign, making for some fun and unexpected joys to emerge! The Moon moves into Leo on Monday, bringing out our generous and caring sides. It can also bring out hidden ego desires, so be careful to think before you speak! The Moon will move through Virgo Tuesday through Thursday, calling on us to pay closer attention to detail, get organized, and make sure everyone around us has what they need. It’s also the ideal time to address health or computer issues, as these activities are ruled by Virgo. Venus will move into Leo on Thursday, encouraging us to change things up and shine a light on our uniqueness. Want to dye your hair blue? Sure, why not? Balance will be the theme as the Moon moves through Libra on Friday and Saturday, while spirituality and metaphysics will rule the day under Sunday’s Scorpio Moon.
- Your Tickets to Past Life ExplorationContinue reading →
Your Tickets to Past Life Exploration, by Judith Marshall
(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)
For many of us, travel is the spice of life. The comfort and security of home are important, but the unfamiliar stirs the soul. Travel in the physical world offers insight, freedom, and expansion. Travel within—the journey of the spirit—provides the same, especially when exploring past lives.
Think about it. Whether you travel without or within, you choose your destination, make the journey, and bring back souvenirs. You can choose to explore your past lives, make the journey by accessing your soul's memory (through meditation, divination, or other life experience), and return to your present life with the best souvenirs of all: information and increased awareness.
Once you do, you'll be forever changed. You'll gain insight into your current emotions, your likes and dislikes, your hopes and fears, and your personal relationships. This new understanding will give you the freedom to heal past and present wounds, to forgive others and yourself. You'll expand your horizons and experience yourself as limitless. You'll know that your soul is bigger than you thought, and that you are more than you imagined.
Your angels, spirit guides, and guardians can act as travel agents who work behind the scenes or as outright tour guides to important sights and events. Intuition will be your constant companion. But, your tickets to past life discovery are openness and trust.
My children, ten-year-old twin boys, remind me of these essential qualities every day. Like most children, they're open as all get-out, and they allow their psychic senses free rein. About a year ago, our family moved from Florida to Massachusetts; phenomenal synchronicity led us to rent a townhouse that was built in 1800. From the moment we stepped foot in the place, my son Geoffrey said he felt he'd lived there before. My husband and I thought he meant the town, but Geoffrey was adamant.
"No," he said, "this house."
From time to time, he repeated this claim. Then, in May of this year, he woke in the middle of the night to see the ghost of an older woman beside his bed. From his description of her hair and dress, she was from the late 1800s or early 1900s. She looked as solid as you and I, and she was crouched over, reaching toward what is now the boys' bedroom closet. Geoffrey guessed that she was reaching toward a stove or fireplace, and when she stood and looked into his eyes, he felt she'd been his mother in a previous life. When he called for us, she disappeared. Her initial appearance had startled him, but after that, he felt no fear. He trusted his impressions and knew she wouldn't hurt him.
More recently, my husband Dan and I took the boys to a neighboring town and ended up at the Old Burial Hill. We wandered aimlessly until our son Connor made a beeline for a small memorial stone. He stared at it for a long moment. Then, he scampered to a patch wildflowers, picked a bunch, and placed them carefully at the base of the stone. With hands folded, he knelt in the grass, closed his eyes, and murmured what I could only assume was a prayer.
When we asked what he was doing, his answer was immediate: "I think I was this person in another life."
From the inscription, we learned the stone had been placed there in memory of someone executed during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.
"I was her," Connor reiterated.
The accused's given name was one usually reserved for males; in fact, it was derived from the name "William." So, Dan and I told the boys he was probably a man.
"No," Geoffrey said, placing his own offering—a particularly attractive leaf—before the stone. "Connor's right. It was a woman."
For the record, many men were accused during the Salem Witch Trials. Both boys knew that, so they made no assumptions about the word "witch." In addition, they're still preteens and believe their parents actually know something, so their insistence about her gender was significant.
During our remaining time in the graveyard, Connor returned to that memorial stone twice more. "I just don't want to leave it," he explained. "I feel like I'm supposed to be here."
In the end, he was the reason we left. "I sense something dark now," he said, hastening toward the exit. "We have to go."
At home, I looked up the name from the stone and learned that the accused was indeed a woman. Whether or not she was connected to Connor, he and his twin trusted their gut instincts, regardless of my opinion or that of my husband.
We haven't researched either of the boys' claims further. One day, if they decide to follow up, we'll be happy to help them. In the meantime, I stand in awe of their open minds and trusting hearts.
Do you want to learn more about your past lives? Approach your investigations as a child would. Yes, you'll check the facts and analyze up and down. But open yourself to receive whatever comes. Trust your intuition and impressions. And trust that you'll learn exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
If you'd like a travel guide for your inward journey, check out my book, Past Lives, Present Stories: Healing and Wisdom through Past Life Exploration. You'll learn more about the interplay of past and present lives, as well as specific exercises to help you along the way.
Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2014. All rights reserved.
- Double Vision: Can We Dream Of Past Lives?Continue reading →
I'm a Caucasian married mother of three living in the U.S. Last night I dreamed I was a little boy with dark skin and dark hair, living in a very rustic little house with dirt floors. I was about six years old, and the entire dream was experienced from this boy's perspective. While I didn't know anyone in that dream in my waking life, I felt I knew my dream father and brother as well as I know anyone. There was a feeling of political danger in the dream, like "they" were rounding up people and doing away with some of them. There was a lot of anxiety about whether or not my father should go into the village to see someone about something or not, because he may not come back. This experience was so vivid - I remember someone holding me because I was scared or upset, and it was raining so we were on this porch, tucked out of the rain. While I suppose this could have been a dream of a past life, it felt so current that I'm wondering if I dreamed the life of a boy who lives a world away, or even more far out, if I could be living more than one life right now. Thanks very much!
- Sheila
Dreamchaser:
What you dreamed about was one of your past lives. Genocide and war have been going on for almost as long as there have been humans on this planet, so lots of us have experienced them.
This may feel like a current life because of all the problems in various parts of the globe, but I feel very clearly that what you were seeing in this dream was your own experiences in a past life.
Our souls don't understand time; time is only relevant to living people. When we are in spirit form or on the Otherside, time has no significance. This is why your dream felt so fresh and current.
Quite often when we awake from a very vivid dream, we feel like we are still in it, or like the dream is in some way real or is going to affect us in our waking lives.
Further, in many lifetimes you have had the experience of being held by someone when you were afraid for a loved one, so this feeling may feel very fresh to you even though the experience you remembered was from long ago.
Your current husband will hold you when you are afraid, and you will hold your children when they are afraid. This may not sound like such a big deal, but feelings carry over from lifetime to lifetime, which can cause a bit of blending when it comes to our memories.
There is one life you lived that is jumping out at me in particular, and in it, you were a runaway slave in the U.S. before the Civil War broke out. You were actually a slave in what is now considered the North, and your family was trying to get out West so that you could all be free together.
You traveled the Underground Railroad and were put under houses through trapdoors covered by rugs, or behind fake walls of closets, etc. You would sleep in those places in the daytime and move around at night. You were terrified, and your mother would hold you on her lap and whisper for you to be brave and not be scared. You were constantly afraid that you were going to be caught.
You were a girl no more than ten years old when your family was on the run. For the record, you made it and so did the rest of your family. However, the fear you experienced at that young age never really left you, and when you got out West, you realized that you had a whole new set of things to worry about. So you basically lived in this state of fear for most of that life.
You worked REALLY hard, grew up, married and had children. You were a very loving person and a good, attentive mother. Despite all of this, you were afraid about something most of the time.
How does this life resonate with the life you're living now? Before you sleep, you can ask your guides to help you to KNOW you are dreaming so you don't wake up with that same icky feeling.
I wish you peace-full dreams.
*****
Astrea:
I've seen movies about women who are leading two parallel lives romantically, but I don't believe it's possible for you to be living in two physical places, or for one soul to inhabit two bodies.
The Universe is too kind to do that to us. To be that divided would be SO miserable, especially since you have children to care for. Though we may wish we could, we can't be two places at once!
There are many different explanations for what you're experiencing in your dream life. If this dream recurs, then it is most likely a past life experience, though it could be a scene from a FUTURE incarnation.
We don't know enough about time to know if the future is another dimension that exists parallel with the now. It seems highly unlikely. I think that time travel like Mark Twain wrote about in "A Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is also highly unlikely. The nature of our soul's connection to the God Force is too deeply imbedded in my psyche for me to entertain such a notion.
It could also be a past life that you share with one of your current children, and you're dreaming about it because there is something related to it that you're supposed to do in the here and now.
You might gently quiz the kids on whether or not they've noticed any dreams in which they "become" other people, or see through someone else's eyes. You might find your answer right there, and be able to clear up some karma from another life that relates to issues of abandonment.
Whether we are the betrayer or the abandoned, karmic abandonment issues are some of the most difficult to reconcile. If this is what's happening, don't miss this opportunity to clear them up!
It's also possible that you and this little boy were both traveling in the astral, and your minds collided. He had your dream that night, and you had his. He was "visiting" you even though he is a stranger because something about your spirit appealed to him. While you were dreaming about his life, he was dreaming about your home and children.
Personally, I think it was a scene from a past life. Sometimes we have very brief incarnations that we re-experience through lucid dreaming. When you get a chance, research Nicaragua in the last few years before you were born into THIS life, and see if anything or anyone jumps out at you.
Although information is pretty sketchy about that time and place, I have a strong psychic feeling of my own that you WERE that little boy, that your dream was a scene from that life, and that you died at a young age.
If that's the case, this is coming up for you now so you can heal it and let go of any issues you may have carried over from that lifetime, so you are wise to be exploring the deeper meaning of this experience.
Astrea:
Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.
Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!
While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!
I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!
As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.
I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.
You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!
Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.
A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.
You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.