Welcome to the first Samhain issue. This is going to be a long one but I hope you enjoy it. Sheila Webpage: Subscription & unsubscription information: Submissions: Zeliziw@n... ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ The Knoll By The Raven Again I stand on the knoll the breezes tugging at my skirts the isolation, desolation, the pain. Death has once again reached out touched those that I love. Pulling them home they say. This is home I rage. Here, now, this place. Why do you leave. What pull has this place this plot of ground have that I cannot give you. My arms are warm my heart beats strong. and you choose this? I curse this land these places where the dead repose flower dying rotten unappreciated. You will not let me join you. stone and dirt keep us apart Me here you there. You have chosen I have lost. I stand alone on the knoll. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Child of the Night By The Raven It is in the darkness of night I find the inner most thoughts of my mind. there in that stillness that embraces this place where I live. It is a place of solitude and quiet, when blanketed with the caress of the children of the night. Feel it take you in its warm gentle touch heightening your awarness of everything that you are A lover of such skill that no mortal can even come close. touching you in places that none can reach. I walk amongst the shadows hidden, protected, cherished. enveloped in its loving arms. Because I am a child of the night. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Past Life Meditation By Sheila K. Watkins By now some of you have used and I hope have found useful, the Creating Sacred Inner Space meditation that I wrote about last time. () This time we are going to go a step further and use the sacred space as a stepping stone to a past life. For this meditation you will need a partner to either be your guide or to be guided. Just make sure the one doing the guiding knows how to do the sacred space meditation and remembers to talk in a calm, soft voice with as little emotion as possible. (IE monotone. Think of a boring college professor and you have it.) The first thing you need to do, other than dressing in comfortable clothing, is to collect a paper, pencil or pen and, if you'd like to record the meditation, a tape recorder. Once you have them, the next step is for the one being guided to get comfortable while the one doing the guiding writes down a few basic questions: Who are you? Where are you? When is it? What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Can you see your reflection anywhere? If so, describe the person you see in the reflection. Are you male or female? Are you old or young? What race are you? How are you dressed? Prim and proper? Shabbily? When you are both set, it is time to turn on the tape recorder if you are using one. You start by guiding the person through the colors. Have the person being guided state when they see the color even if for a brief second. Guide them down the hall and down the nineteen steps and through the door. It is a good idea if the person has gone through this meditation a few times before so that she has already seen what the door and garden look like but if she hasn't then have her explore each as she encounters them. Have her look around until she finds a wall and have her study it. This wall represents the wall that separates this life from previous ones. Is it a stone wall? Is it grey like an old English manner wall or made of marble or fieldstone? Is it wood or is it a hedge? Have the person start walking along the wall. Eventually, she will reach a door. Have her examine the door. What does it look like? What is around it? When the person being guided is ready, have her open the door and step through. Be aware that the person is entering near her previous lifetime's death, so she might be scared, angry, or panicking. If she is, send her back five years by simply saying, "Go back five years." This is why you need a guide with you. I tried this without a guide my first time and walked right into a life where my life ended violently. I snapped out of the trance instantly but felt like I had been running a marathon and was terrified. All I could describe were flashes of dark and fear and until I went back and confronted it, my migraines that I suffered at the time became worse. It took me a long time before I could face that door again but I am glad I finally did. Returning to the meditation, have her describe her surroundings if she can and ask the questions you have written down. Make sure she knows that she is safe and this is in the past. Ask her if she is willing to face that lifetime's death. Sometimes the most distressing deaths do have effects on lifetimes after them so she might want to explore it but don't put pressure on her to do it. If she decides to recall that lifetime's death, have her go forward a year and then two years briefly describing things as she goes. Have her go to a few days before her death and then a few hours. Have her describe what is happening. Remind her as needed that this is not that lifetime. Remind her that this is in the past. Then have her go to a couple hours before, then a half hour before that life's death. Ask her: What is she doing? Why is she doing what she is doing? Where is she? Help her keep calm and describe that life's death. Remind her that it happened long ago and that she has this life to finish and then guide her out the door and back into the sacred space. Guide her to this lifetime and, finally, out of the trance. make sure there is something to eat and drink for both of you. As you eat and ground, go oveer what was said. Some things to remember. Don't go in expecting to go to a specific life but there are ways to narrow things down just a bit. If you feel like you have known someone before have your guide lead you to that life and the time when you first met this person. It doesn't always work. When I tried seeing if my husband and I had ever met before, there were no doors whatsoever. But for the best friend I have ever had, I saw us as married in a previous life. So it might work and it might not but if you use this method you are more likely not to end up entering a lifetime at the point of your death. There are some additional questions you can ask if you go this route: What sex is this person? (the one wanted to see) How are they dressed? How are they related to you? Friend? Lover? Sibling? Parent? Child? Spouse? Enemy? And, of course, what are you doing when you first meet? If you can arrange it, it is really cool to have the person you are certain you know from another life do this meditation about the same time as you but in a place where you can't compare notes until later. I have done that with a friend who lives in Washington state and it was amazing. There were differences in what we described but they were only slight. That makes sense because they were seen from two different perspectives. But the descriptions of each other, the descriptions of the area and the descriptions of the circumstances were close and in some instances exact. It might not happen this way for you but, if it does, it's definitely an amazing experience. Copyright (c) 2000 Sheila K. Watson. All Rights Reserved