** Edit // Relevant Posts ***
This is the 3rd post in a series about Past Lives, Senachwine, Lake Thunderbird and Magical Places.
1. On Magical Places (pt. one)
2. On Magical Places (pt. two)
4. Pilgrimage
Today I cried in my car twice. First because I crossed paths with a little one-eyed chipmunk. He sat still as I approached my car and I noticed right away he seemed odd. Not so much because he was acting funny or looked unusual – he looked like any ordinary chipmunk at first glance. I felt that he was different and stopped to examine him while he was vibing me out, assessing my level of threat. His right eye was missing, scarred over in light gray fur. He scampered away and seemed to be quite fine and I briefly marveled at the resiliency of animals before I was filled with anger and grief.
Who did this to you, little baby?! Who can I punish? Fiery anger subsided to grief and I was sorrowful for him. Such a sweet, innocent and harmless creature… Surely he endured great pain and I was mournful on his behalf.
Moments later, as I turned the engine of my car, I watched a Mama duck and her 5 babies toddle through the parking lot on the way to the lake. It’s June 26th – much too late for ducklings. I worried that they wouldn’t grow up strong and healthy. I worried that there wasn’t enough time for them to fatten up and become wise before the first wave of winter. But what could I do?
I sniffled and wiped the tears from my cheeks, thinking that I was so emotional and being dramatic because my menstrual cycle started today. I shrugged off the heaviness like rolling a boulder from my conscience and then I remembered a “quarantine conversation” between my husband and I.
We wondered if it could be possible to be a ~something else~ in a past life.
Not human, not an animal, but a spirit. It’s something we’ve pondered together, and it’s an idea that strikes a chord rooted somewhere within my chest, resonating deeply like a far-away thunder. It sits in my stomach like the shadow of an ache, a dark and empty feeling that speaks of a truth that is too old and ancient, sunken under ages of earth, a living fossil too tired and forgotten to come to light. It’s a feeling most abstract and hard to fathom.
Can you be a guardian angel in a past life? Would that qualify as a “life”? Could you have lived, died, and roamed the earth as a lost soul for so long that that very afterlife became a memory of another lifetime of its own? What about mythical spirits – could someone have a past life as a god or some other deity or totem?
While I was wiping my silly tears away, the thought stirred my belly and I said aloud, “A protector… I want to protect them. And I will never be able to do enough.”
In this human life, we replicate experiences that bring us joy. For me, it is being in the woods. Being quiet in the forest. Seeing the happy critters. I have formative memories involving The Forest, especially the trees in particular. I have written about my fondness of birds. I find direction in land formations – not street signs. I am connected to the earth and the plants and the animals. Grounded. Rooted. Green and yellow and blue.
Perhaps I was a Protector.
In a past life (and I think probably my only past life) I was a guardian spirit. An old Sentinel of the land. Custodian of the sacred woodlands, I kept the land wild and healthy and in balance. I blanketed the forest in love and light. I respected the indigenous peoples who respected me. I was likely fascinated by them. I brought the rain that replenished the earth. I fed the worms, the birds, the bats, the flowering trees and the deer who marked their antlers against them. I was the Heartbeat, the invisible Divine force charged with ensuring balance of the lush ecosystem. I watched. (Echoing the prophecy of my husband, “You saw it.“) I felt proud of it’s perfect purity.
In real life, I am a 5 year old girl, galloping around the yard pretending to be a fawn. I am an 8 year old watching Pocahontas, excited by Grandmother Willow and the spirits moving on the wind. I am a 10 year old, running through the brambles and labeling animal paw prints in the clay dirt. I am a 12 year old, writing fantasy about growing up alone in the woods. I am a 16 year old, driving, driving, as far out as I could until finally there were no buildings and the Broccoli Trees were all I could see in the distance, welcoming me in a warm-fuzzy sigh of relief. I am an 18 year old, sitting in an idle car, trying to be cool with my friends at a local decrepit “haunted house” or abandoned hospital, instead secretly admiring the way that nature inevitably reclaims the earth through vines and tree branches – slow natural destruction. A take-back of power. I am a 20-something, lost in thought wondering why I love the forest so much when everyone else wants to vacation at the beach. I am a 30-something, finally putting the pieces together with an open mind.
***
I watch The Dead Files pretty religiously. It features Amy Allan, a proclaimed medium who can see and speak to the Dead. She investigates property that is supposedly haunted. I tend to think she is honest and has a gift. In many episodes, she tells home-owners that the land is “sick” or “gone bad.” She speaks of old, ancient beings – not ghosts – who inhabit the land and have been there since the earth was formed. They are described as huge, black masses, as tall and as thick as trees that often lurk on the edge of the property lines. She frequently attributes these spirits to the Native peoples who lived there before the White Man came. Native Americans blessed the land, and the land blessed them. Now the land is “bad”, the land is angry, the Protectors are actively working to restore nature’s balance (hence, the hauntings, they say). I wonder… is this me? Was that me? If so, will I get to be that again?
I wonder if I gave up my duties because, as time went on, protecting the land and the innocent creatures within it became futile. Man encroaches, destroys, manipulates, abuses the land and its resources. We litter, pollute, without a second thought. I wonder if, after so many years of watching, I said — Fuck it. I wonder if I failed. Perhaps this is why I grieve needlessly for little chipmunks or get weepy and incensed by the sight of roadkill. Perhaps this is why I pause to admire and praise the old, fat trees whose roots disrupt the foundation of my own home. Perhaps this is why I am driven to research Senachwine and the forested Illinois Valley. Perhaps I abandoned my post and am now living a life of a destructive human. Maybe I wanted to understand the other side.
Maybe.
Margot Velvet 