A Past Life

A PAST LIFE

Since I had no significant other to go home to, I would take classes in the evenings after work. After spending an evening with a group of women talking about past life regression, I was eager to get home and practice what I had learned. I wanted to see if it was possible to dream about a past life. So, after getting ready for bed I did my meditations, drank my tea, laid down in my bed, and soon fell into a deep sleep. 

I must have been in rem sleep because I was dreaming about a place I knew. It was in the past, in a field, and the air was filled with the scent of fresh baked bread and new cut hay. I seemed to be working with several other women, picking up bundles of hay and putting them on a wagon. We were following behind the men who were cutting hay with a scythe. I knew these people. One was my husband, Igor, rather tall and blond, and the others were friends and villagers. We worked together planting and gathering crops that would be shared with the rest of the village. It was as if I were awake. I could feel the heat of the sun beating down on my sunburned arms and the dirt squishing around the toes of my shoes. My back and shoulders ached from the hard work that seemed to be never ending, and I could feel the sting from the sunburn. I would need to put some of my homemade lotion on them before bed. This was my past life, I knew. 

As we ended the days work, my husband and I went back to our cottage for dinner. We ate alone, as we had no children. Our meager meal consisted of cabbage soup and black bread, and as we ate, we talked about the day and what was in store for tomorrow. In the morning I would need to bake bread, as it was a staple in our pantry. After supper, Igor stoked the fire in the big oven which was in the middle of our living area. It provided heat for the cottage as well as an oven for baking. “This is all so familiar and real” I thought to myself. We cleaned up the dishes and headed to bed. It would be another early morning. We snuggled for awhile and then I made mad, passionate love with the man I knew so well.

I expected to wake up in my new life, but did not. Today would be more of the same. Up at 4 o'clock to bake bread, then we would have a breakfast of kasha, then back to the fields for more cutting of the hay.

The days passed. Each day was the same, baking bread, working in the fields and going home for a meal. We had talked about the Cossacks and the terrible crimes they were committing in the villages nearby. Only time would tell if they would come here. But we just kept to our regular routines, hoping they would not come here.

 Unfortunately, the day came. It was 1905 and we were out in the fields working when someone started to yell, and then I heard the sound of gun fire. I followed the plan. The women were supposed to go to a preselected, secluded place. I followed the other women and then we waited…and waited. We could hear screams and then there was silence. The smell of gun smoke filled the air. The plan was to wait for our husbands to join us, but they never came. After dark we ventured out to look for them, knowing in our hearts, what we would find. Even the children were dead, or gone, apparently taken as slaves. I found my Igor clinging to life…just barely. Through tears I heard him say “Leave, my love, and go to America. You will be safe there.” And then he died. My head was spinning. The man I loved so much was gone. I waited for a while, until the others started to gather in the field where we decided on our next move. The Cossacks were gone and we were all that were left alive. So, we gathered what we could carry and started out on our journey that would lead us to America.

It took several years to earn enough money for passage as we worked our way from Russia to Cherbourg, France. And all that time I wondered when I would wake up. But that day didn’t seem to come. France, that's where we were supposed to go, to get on a ship to America. And I lived each day in this body, in the past.

We finally arrived in France where we were to meet up with our underground contact, who would take us to the ship. Since we were refugees, we were led into a hold in the bottom of the ship. We were instructed not to mingle with the other passengers since they were of higher class, and then the gates were locked leaving us inside. Fortunately, we had some food. It was given to us by the crew members assigned to keep is in line.

“What ship is this?” I asked one of the crew.

“The Titanic!” He replied.

Here I was…in my past life on the Titanic. Or should I say the end of my past life. I tried to wake myself up, but knew I was awake. I was with a group of refugees, locked in a hold in the bottom of a doomed ship. It was April 14, 1912 and the end was near. There was no panic…yet, but I knew it would come soon. “What a time to wake up in a past life” I thought. For I was certain to die…again. “Would I wake up in the life I had been in before? Or is this it?” I couldn’t get my head wrapped around that concept. Why did I even remember I had another life if I was reliving this one?

I felt the ship as it hit something in the water. I knew it was the iceberg. If I was awake in this life, why did I know what was going to happen? The fear gripped me just the same. I felt the ship as it began to take on water. We were trapped. Would anybody let us out? I knew the answer was “NO!” My mind was spinning out of control as I tried not to panic. But there was nothing I could do, except try to calm the others.

As the back of the ship rose out of the water, a calm came over me. I don’t know why, but I was accepting the inevitable. I was going to die…again. I was calm as the water came around me. I could hear the others crying and screaming in panic, but I knew it was over for them, too. But instead of holding my breath, I began to pray out loud, hoping to calm my friends who were here with me. The water came up higher around me. As I was taking my last breaths, I thought about the past life regression class I had attended, and wondered why I chose this life to relive. My last breath came and went. The ship had sunk, and we were all dead. But why was I still thinking?

I woke up in my bed, dripping wet, in clothes I did not remember wearing to bed. “That was odd” I thought. “Was I alive or dead? Had I dreamed it all or did it really happen? And, why was I all wet?” I licked my lips and they were salty, so I licked the water from my arm and it was salty, too. It must have happened. I don’t live anywhere near the ocean so I couldn’t have gone for a midnight swim. I was confused. “If I had been reincarnated,” I thought, “maybe my beloved Igor had been also.” The next class I would take is “Finding Your Soulmate!” And maybe I will find the love that I had lost so long ago.