Journey of Souls
(Spring, 1999)
Reading "Journey of Souls" did get me thinking to some degree about spirituality, transitions, and how we move from one experience to another. But it probably didn't do so in the fashion in which it was intended. I found myself thinking almost sarcastically "oh that's nice" at various points during the book, thinking much of it sounded much too pat and pleasant to be true.
What's interesting is that many of the books assertations are, in fact, things that I do believe. I believe that reincarnation is distinctly possible, and I believe that as we move along in life we tend to learn many of the same lessons over and over again, until we're ready to move on. I also believe that even if we don't encounter the exact same people or entities throughout our lives, we tend to encounter similar types of people, people who's own patterns tend to resonate with our own (for better or for worse).
The main problem I had with "Journey of Souls" was that it felt very simplistic and almost too happy for me, as though everything always ends up okay if you just let it be. Maybe that says a lot more about me than it does the book. In fact, I'm certain it does. However, I'm willing to live with that. Life is struggle and pain, as well as hope and joy, and I see no reason for death to be otherwise.
That said, it seems more appropriate for me to start talking about transitions, and how I see those myriad movements through life and death, becuase that's much more important to me than anything else I read about in the book and it brought up a great deal for me.
I've spent a lot of my life in what I call "Very Bad Situations." I'm not going to assess specific blame as to who or what led me to these situations. I'm not even concerned with that. In some cases, others have put me in terrible spots, and in others, I've done it entirely on my own. However, the relevant fact is that for a good deal of my life, I either didn't know how, or was unwilling to look in the direction I needed to in order to move past these situations.
When I was younger, living in Upper Michigan, I used to do a daily ritual whenever the weather would permit. There was a breakwall around one of the harbors in Lake Superior, which is a wall of concrete and stone designed to stop rough waters from having an impact on the boats docked nearby. Each day after school, I would walk along the breakwall. I was not a good swimmer, and though the wall itself was fairly stable, I knew that there were parts of it which weren't the safest. Throughout the entire walk I would debate whether or not to jump off the side of the wall into Lake Superior.
Mind you, I had, and still do have, quite an intense fear of drowning. I don't know if I ever really would have chosen to kill myself in such a fashion. I suspect that I would not have. However, my years in high school were spent being consistently demeaned and assaulted that I was in a fairly consistent state of despair.
So for me, doing this walk was a sort of challenge, something more concrete which I could face, something I could do. It was mostly symbolic because, as I said, I don't think I really ever intended to do anything to harm myself. But there was a part of me which definitely did want to harm myself, and I felt as though I had to face it.
In retrospect, however, I don't think I was facing much of anything. I was once again locked into a cycle. I'd go to the end of the wall, and purge whatever I was dealing with at the the time, and I'd feel better. It wasn't a bad thing. I certainly did need to do something to deal with what was inside me. But it didn't actually bring me anywhere new. It dealt with symptoms, but not the underlying pattern.
But subconsciously, there were other forces at work within me, that I didn't realize at the time that now, fifteen years later, I am just beginning to discover. Because this whole process, as far as I'm concerned, is entirely about transition: the movement from one state to another, whether spiritually, physically, psychologically or otherwise.
It was also around that same time that I first started learning how to play the guitar and when, after years of focus entirely on logic and math, I learned to start focusing on my own creativity. But it was all at a very subtle level, for me. I still loved math. I still embraced logic. But I started finding more inventive ways of of expressing them, such as using my math skills to sort out the rules of chord theory. And years later, the expression became even more direct when I discovered how to design fractals, which are very beautiful images, built around mathematical functions.
More recently I've been discovering that as much as I do love logic and reason, that it can be insufficent for my needs at times, and that it's only effective to a point when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Sometimes approaching people from a strictly logical standpoint will simply blow up in one's face.
At this point, one might wonder where I'm going with this. It's a valid question, and I'm ready to explain it now, but I felt a need to provide background first.
When reading Journey of Souls, the underlying theme to me seems to be that of transition from state-to-state. I.e., as we pass from one life to another, there's a period in-between in which we regroup ourselves, connect back with our psychic roots and develop new notions of where we plan to go.
And, of course, the time at which this happens is after a death-- it's that death which creates a rebirth, just as compost and waste can be used to nourish new life in a garden. It's the same way I've performed some of my most creative tasks shortly after serious emotional trauma.
And for a long time, I was afraid of this-- afraid of mistakes, afraid of rejection, afraid of the pain that was involved. I've spent years in periods of self-imposed stasis, in which I was too terrified to move forward, too terrified to take action which would change things for me, following those same patterns over and over again.
But I'm learning that every time something really horrible has happened to me, something more powerful has grown out of it: Rebirth. Life. Affirmation.
So I'm seeing that I've been clinging to this fear, afraid to change things about myself, afraid to make choices for my own benefit. Yet at the same time, something inside me has known that's what I've needed, because I can see now that I've also been consistently planting seeds for myself that might later help me make my own decisions, such as when I started learning how to design web pages three years ago.
For over two years now, I've been looking for web clients, trying to figure out how to make a living at it, and it's been a horrible experience in all sorts of ways-- looking for people who would hire me, blowing interview after interview, and just consistently thinking of myself as a failure, as someone unworthy of success, as someone who obviously didn't deserve any better.
And suddenly, I have these clients. And they're coming in droves. And they're telling me how amazing I am, and I'm not worried about money. And I'm in a relationship, and she's not treating me like shit, and she really admires and respects me, and totally adores me. And I got a raise at my part-time job, and not just a small raise, but over 30% more than what I used to get paid. And I'm finding out that it's partially because I'm one of the only people who knows how to tutor the things I tutor.
And last term, when my computer was stolen from my apartment, and I was looking towards some very dark paths that I didn't want to go back to, wondering if once again in my life I'd end up having to steal money to survive, something I'd only done once, and almost a decade ago, people around me rallied. My teachers raised funds in classes and people from the internet sent me donations.
And I couldn't understand this, because I kept thinking, "I'm such an idiot, and I've done so many nasty and terrible things in my life. I'm so fucked up. I don't deserve this. Why are they doing this for me?"
And yet they did. And when one of my advisors handed me an envelope full of cash to help me rebuild my system, I didn't know what to say. On the bus ride home that afternoon I figured I should find out how much there was so I could plan things out, and I noticed that a lot of the donations were dollar bills.
While from a functional level, dollar bills were obviously not as useful as five- and ten-dollar bills, there was something much more important about those dollars-- those were people who knew me, mostly only in passing through class interaction-- who had just grabbed whatever loose bills they had in their pocket to give them to me in case I needed them. And there were a lot of those dollar bills.
And I was so torn between gratitude and love and sheer amazement, and anger at myself, and embarassment that people were helping me out when I should be doing it myself. And I spent some time almost resenting the effort while at the same time being truly grateful about it and thoroughly confused as to why anyone would do this for me.
And suddenly I'm beginning to realize that people do care about me, not despite my obvious flaws and shortcomings, but because I'm not an awful person. I've been designing a web page for one client for a month and a half or so now, and I found myself consistently thinking they'd dislike everything about it, and I'd go in feeling like I needed to justify my choices as to design, etc., explaining everything to do them.
And yesterday, while meeting with them, they just consistently praised the page and how much they loved it. And while one of them was giving me a ride, I was telling her how difficult it is for me to realize that I'm doing things right, and that I'm changing for the better.
And it's so uncomfortable for me to realize that there are people who respect and admire me, and that I'm actually good not just at designing web pages but at designing them in ways the client will actually like as well.
But I'm learning to let those old fears die. I'm learning to let their deaths nourish something else in me, something stronger and more wonderful. And I do have fears of the ways I used to be-- capricous, bitter and just plain nasty. And I think I've been afraid of holding onto my own personal power on any level because I thought that if I had power again, I'd start being the person I was when I was consistently angry and holding everyone away from me.
And yet, I find myself feeling so hopeful all of a sudden that it doesn't feel like this any longer. It's as though I just am letting all that pain go, like I don't need to grab onto it the way I used to, as though I no longer need to feel pain to feel as though I'm alive.
I guess what it boils down to for me is something very simple. I'm alive. And I'm afraid still, sure, but I'm not afraid of the fear any longer. I'm letting myself just do what it feels like I need to do, and not constantly worrying about consequences, fears, despair, etc.
I feel as though my soul is being reborn, and everything I've been doing my whole life has been leading up to this.
And it's making me smile.