Friday, September 9, 2016

Reincarnate



You’ve become an immortal being. Living throughout the ages you begin to notice that the souls of your companions or adversaries reincarnate and always seem to be drawn to you. After countless lifetimes someone remembers………
Someone remembers, someone besides me.
 
It has happened to all of us at one time or another. It happens at the least expected time. You’re walking through a crowd at the mall or down a city street filled with people. You look over the sea of faces as you dodge and weave your way through the mass of bodies and there’s a face that leaps out at you. For just a moment you know them, for just a second you’re are pulling up all the memories, all the faces stored in your head, then the moment is gone and so are they.
            Who was that you think as you scan the crowd? Do I know that person? Where did they go? You know that it’s not logical that they disappeared just like that. Maybe you think, maybe they kind of looked like someone I knew but on re-looking they were not the same person. You finally decide that you were mistaken all along. But the question lingers, I know I have seen that face before but where?
            I was on a camping trip with my wife and niece years ago. There were other family members that we met at the camp ground. Pictures everyone pictures was the call. Go stand by the water…OK smile.. click click click. When the pictures were looked at later there was something very startling to behold. Me… Picture one was me, my body, my clothing, my face. Beside me stood my wife and beside her my niece. Picture two. The same clothing, the same arrangement and the same people but with a very distinct difference, my face. It was my hair and my shape but it was not my face.
            I know what you’re thinking, photo shopped but you would be wrong. The pictures were shot on our digital camera and then it was returned to us as we stepped away from the “beautiful back drop” as one family member put it. Following those three photos that were shot in quick session were others we shot throughout the day as well as ones that were shot prior to the “stand by the water” picture.
            So back to the picture. When my wife downloaded the pictures to the computer later she was going through them remarking on this and that until she came to the series of three pictures of us standing back to the water. I still remember her startled comment; what the fuck is this, who the fuck is that?!  Her voice grabbed my attention more than her words. She was shaken!
            I rushed over and looked at the screen. There was a picture of the three of us smiling, arms around each other’s back standing on the rocks behind us the water, typical family outing picture poised and smiling. What, was my comment not seeing anything that would have caused the outburst that I had just heard. She looked up at me standing over her with fear and confusion on her face and touched the key board. The screen flashed and the second picture came up on the screen.
            Same picture, same rocks, same loud shirt and jeans. Her sun dress and the summer outfit on the little girl. At first I didn’t see it, missed it completely then BOOM it hit me. That was not my face! He had the same shape and hair color but nothing else resembled me. A chill went up my spine. Next one I said, let me see the next one. Click and there I was like the first picture.  Back to the second picture. Enlarge…zoom in… no it’s not a shadow, not a passing cloud changing the light. It was just not me.
            Did for just a moment, in the click of a shudder, some former me or future me step in? Why didn’t the photographer not see it and say something and why in an instant later I, me, we reverted back to the guy that was there before and after?
            Back to the face on the street or in the mall. Was my mind’s eye the photographer and I caught the other person in the body just for an instant? What if I had taken a series of pictures at the time I “saw” that face I knew, would I have been able to “see” the face I thought I saw like the picture by the water or something else?
            Reincarnation is an interesting thought. I am not convinced that it is the correct route that we take but I have to consider it for a few reasons. One, if you believed that we are based on energy and you understand that energy cannot be destroyed only changed then reincarnation makes sense. Two, If you believe that we come back to correct or to live out something that we are to learn before we are able to ascend to a higher plane then reincarnation makes sense. Or three, if you subscribe to the thought the life is a wheel and we move from spoke to spoke in our quest for perfection then again reincarnation is a possibility. Finally if you believe that there are multiple planes of time and space all happening at the same time then maybe reincarnations is nothing more than stepping from one plane to another.
            So… here’s a thought on the last premise. The face in the crowd, the face on me for that instants snap of the shudders movement was me or someone that I know just not here in this time and place. I was standing back to the water with my wife and niece in many time lines, each one just a bit different and just for a split second I crossed over to his line and he to mine. It’s a thought.
            Was he and his wife staring at a picture sitting on a computer screen in their time just as aghast as we were? Did the questions raised by her…who the fuck is that also come from her, then or there? Was it echoed across the time lines?
            Here is another question. Why when we meet people, some of them we become attracted to and some not. Some mildly and others strongly? Why is it when “Joe” walks into the room I like him without even knowing who he is but when “Pete” strolls in I take an instant dislike to him?  Why do some people “grow” on you and others never even make it to first base? Are friend and foe traveling together?
            Is there an entire group of souls that travel from life time to life time? Some of those souls attached by threads while others by stout ropes, maybe some by unbreakable bonds. Even though we don’t know them in this life time we feel like we do. Is one of the souls a lover this time but just a distance connection in the next? Why do we fall so deeply in love with someone only to fail and fall apart later? And yet in some cases there’re always part of us. Who or what is the connection that allows some people to be together for the total time that they are on this time line?
            Yes reincarnation is a very interesting thought.