Regressive.

Last night my sister and I attended a Past Life Regression workshop led by the same guy who I took the great meditation course from last summer. I've always been curious about such things and was really excited by the idea that I could actually find out about my possible past lives. Who wouldn't want to know that? I was talking to my husband about it last week and he and I both agreed that we felt fairly new - if past lives are really how it works, I don't think I've been around the block too many times. So, in retrospect, that may have been part of the problem. Because, as it turns out, I suck at regressing.

I should have expected that it wouldn't be easy for me because when we did a visualization meditation this past summer I had a really hard time with it. I wasn't really seeing what I was supposed to be seeing. I couldn't seem to force my brain to do what it does effortlessly during every boring meeting and class I've ever attended. I have vivid nighttime dreams, a crazy imagination and I live in my head most of the time. So why do I suck at meditation visualization? I do fine when the instructor tells me to imagine I'm in my own house, tells me to look around at my own furniture and take in the detail. No problem, I see it all. but when we are meant to be throwing around glowing white light and gliding along the timeline of our past lives, I really have to fight to make it happen.

I should back up a bit. The class was held in a tiny room down town in a really cool old building across from the Lee Monument. (It had a Cutler Mail System like that hotel in Chicago! I totally geeked out.) The chairs were plastic and wildly uncomfortable and most of the folks in the room were older and had done this all before. I was very interested to see how it would all go down. After explaining various theories of the whole past lives thing, we were led in a general relaxation meditation. Then we did another one with visualizations of our house, which I talked about above. That was easy. I'm in my house, I'm looking around at my stuff, all good.

Then, we took the plunge and did the first regression meditation. We floated above the building, threw out our timeline and were supposed to glide back over it and then enter a past life. I remember gliding past blobs of purple, which I decided were my possible past lives, but I think maybe they were the weird shapes and blobs you see when you're in a bright room and close your eyes. Finally, we were asked to enter our past and look around. What do you see? What are you wearing? Are you a man or a woman? Who's around you? What year is it? Move on to another significant part of your life. Move on to your death experience. The questions came slowly, but I struggled to see anything.

Foggy.

Dog? Wolf?

Garden!

Foggy.

little garden pond or fountain.

1803

I'm a child?

Foggy.

I'm in a house alone.

A dark wooden bed with high edges.

I'm in a tudor-eque room.

I'm in the sand. Am I dying?

Lying in the sand, someone is with me.

And that's all I got. It was work, hard work to try and see or make sense of any of it. It was very hazy, very foggy, I got almost no detail. Then everyone else told their stories and oh my God, the detail! They were Mongolian warriors, Asian mutes, World War I nurses. I was...not. The woman who was the Mongolian warrior talked about the smell of the furs she was wearing and the great physical pain she felt when she got, um, stabbed in the chest with a spear. I KNOW. What the hell, subconcious? Why am I foggy and vague?

The second regression involved someone we had a close relationship with - we were meant to go back and try to find that person in a previous life. I picked my husband because we have always had such a crazy connection. This time the beginning went easier - floating, white light, throwing out the timeline, all good. However, when we went into our past life, I was more obscured than ever. I tried so hard to see and for a moment I was conscious of walking across a covered porch and looking out onto a garden with the ocean or large body of water beyond. Then we were told to go find the person we were to seek. I had one more image of sitting on the grass with a party of people but couldn't see any faces. I had one quick vision of being in bed with people looking over me, but again, no faces. Then I just stopped trying and everything was dark with more of the reddish purple pulsing blobs I'd seen the last time. Probably just the backs of my eyelids.

The class was running late so I didn't really get to talk about my failed second attempt. The people who did share said they did much better the second time - it was much more vivid. Hmph. I drove home grumpy and by the time I got home I was pissed. Why was my subconscious such a stupid bitch? I told Kenny about it while I changed clothes and was all,

"WHY CAN'T I BE A WARRIOR OR A SOLDIER. MAYBE I WANTED TO GET STABBED IN THE CHEST. IT'S TOTALLY UNFAIR!"

Yes, he laughed at me and then I got mad at him for not showing up.

"OH, AND WHERE WERE YOU, MISTER? WHAT, YOU'RE TOO GOOD FOR MY SUBCONSCIOUS? GOD."

He gave me beer and pasta and I felt much better. I really can't wait to try it again and I hope I get better results. My sister had very meaningful, interesting regressions (much better and more detailed than mine), so go read those. I thought it was interesting how similar some of our imagery was in our first regressions.