Strings of Narrative Strumming Across Lives

Hurdling, past lives and a developing theory

Heads up: like the following posts, this one starts off the rails.

What if We Were Actually All Each Other?

Alien Abduction and the Nine Year Change

Conscious Storytelling as a Spiritual Practice

So the thesis of this post is:

IF stories are made of individual images and their associated feelings, and

IF our identities and experience of the world is made of stories, and

IF our identities include lifetimes before this current incarnation, then

we might integrate images from other lifetimes into our current one,

AND MAKE IT PART OF OUR STORY.

I recognize this doesn’t make sense, but I’m going to unpack it anyway.

First a little more on how I see and navigate the world.

After writing and telling thousands of spontaneous stories, I have found that “reality” is wherever our attention goes. I’ve had enough weird stuff happen in my life that this seems like the most sound explanation of what is true and real. If our attention is toward danger, then the world is a dangerous place. If our attention is directed toward wealth, we become rich or poor depending on how we story it.

Photo by Brands&People on Unsplash

This is similar to the law of attraction, except that I think ALL KINDS of other things are happening at the same time: we just don’t pay attention to them. Like dark matter. There is WAY more dark matter in the world but we don’t notice it. We are more interested in the tiny speck of light.

So this means I live my life knowing it is a tiny sliver of all the lives I’m living at the same time. The multiverse is very real for me, and from time to time I will “slip” into one of the other universes and “return” with a new tune. I will integrate an image from another story.

We all do this every day.

When we adopt someone else’s mannerism or turn-of-phrase, we are integrating a moment from another story. When we learn a lesson from a tv show, we are integrating a moment from another story. When we relate to someone’s account of a bad day, we are integrating a moment from another story. Totally ordinary (and again, how reality works—where our attention goes).

Which then leads to the whole past life thing.

First of all I don’t think past lives exist exclusively in the past. I think they are tunes that continue to play, without being put on a timeline. Sure, one of them might be of a fourteenth century victim of the black plague, but that story is still being told right now—its not dead and buried. It is as alive as our attention will allow it. At least it is alive for me.

Therefore, if all these “past life” stories are continually unfolding parallel to the live we are currently living, then it makes sense to me that certain images and feelings would “strum” across timelines/lifetimes/universes. There might be a particularly potent moment in your life as a twelfth century cobbler that creates a theme or a tone or a phrase or just a vibration that makes its way into many lifetimes including this one.

For instance, when Beekman, the aforementioned cobbler and one of my “past lives”, chose not to step into his destiny and instead hid in his studio filled with fear, it created not only a narrative flavor but an active dynamic that I can fall into. There was a moment in high school that I identify as my single regret in life when I chose not to go to the state track competition. I won regionals, districts and sectionals in the 400 intermediate hurdles. I was fast and had good form. I qualified for states, which were going to be held in Syracuse, NY. It was a huge honor and only a few members of the team qualified. One of the other qualifiers was Liz and I had a huge crush on her. Going to States meant not only competing on the highest level in NY, but a chance at getting to know Liz.

(me in blue and white about to win)

I chose not to go.

I don’t know why. I can’t recall why I did that. The chance was all there in front of me and yet, I decided I didn’t want to do it. My coach told me I would regret this decision and he was right. My parents were baffled. The members of my team were mad at me. But I recall being frozen with fear about what might happen. This is what I recently learned from Beekman. This was his choice—he created the dynamic. And it was such a potent dynamic that it “strummed” across lifetimes, all the way to this one.

So I made the same choice.

This is the best explanation yet for why I did what I did. Yes, everything is always for the best, but I can find no other explanation for denying myself a peak experience.

The image was of Beekman, alone, hiding from opportunity. I could feel the fear and shame as 32 year old Beekman, and the fear and shame as 17 year old David. It felt the same, so perhaps it was the same. Perhaps I integrated the two stories by creating a synapse: an image and feeling.

This makes way more sense to me than mere genetics or neurosis or chaos. Strings of narrative being strummed is the closest I’ve gotten to understanding how the world works, that is still consistent with my life as a storyteller.

Thank you—this was fun!