Maybe I have had a past life?

jar of pearsI’ve said many times I have no knowledge of any past life. I believe in them. I have no doubt my husband has been ’round before but I’ve never seriously thought I was an old soul or anything. In fact, I’m positively childish.

But then a few years ago, I got a book of poems I am pretty sure my husband wrote in one of his past lives. There was a poem about a woman in there…they did not marry and he was quite pissed at her. He curses her in the poem and it reminds be of our separation when we were teenagers.

When we separated, my husband wrote a poem about me, in which he cursed me. But what really got my attention in the book of poems, is the woman in question and I have the same name. So that’s weird. But I am definitely a doubting person.  This is just not enough to convince me…

But now I’ve moved. I’m completely alone in his huge house with land to take care of, a garden to mind, fruit trees and what not. I’ve got to meet the neighbors, figure out what kind of critter just bit me and basically find my way in a culture that’s foreign to me.

Well…I’m doing it. And I’m doing it pretty well.  But what prompted me to write this is those pears I canned.

Someone suggested I was “going back” to canning, like I grew up canning or something. I did not. I taught myself to can about four years ago. I was terrified. In fact, I think I bought a pressure canner and let it sit for a year before I got my nerve up. So I have three years of experience, but really only two. Because last year I didn’t can anything. We were getting ready to move.

pearsSo I decided to can the pears on a tree we have, though I was told by the owner of the house the pears were no good. I tried to take her at her word but they sure looked good to me…so I canned them. Two days later, I canned some more and this is when it hit me.

It hit me, I knew how to do this because I’ve done it before.  I have never made jam in my life, yet I have…

I remember when I was a kid, I tried to make cactus jelly. It didn’t work out at all, I think I may have been six or seven. But anyway, it’s the peeling of the pear that’s so familiar. This morning I peeled about 100 of them, singing, “Ave Maria”, if you can believe that. At four in the morning, no less! I mean I sang it non-stop, with gusto.

What’s this got to do with the Internet age, hmm?

I don’t wish to be a weirdo. And I don’t know what your canned pears look like but I don’t worry about a little peel being left on here or there. Why, I don’t know. But they sure look familiar.

Do you think you’ve had a past life?

51 thoughts on “Maybe I have had a past life?”

  1. Yes! I’ve had lots of memories of past lives but specifically one related to kitchen work was more than once when I was kneading dough of some kind (by hand of course) and I might have drumming music on or something like that, and I would be transported into a trance like state, connected to the hundreds of millions of people all over the planet and throughout time who have kneaded balls of dough, the feeling of the springy dough under your hands and the flour (or corn meal or whatever powder) on the board….it just gave me an incredibly connected feeling to the human experience. Not exactly a past life memory perhaps (I’ve had those too!) but related.

    1. Yeah, it’s too familiar. And I’m compelled too. People say I’ve done enough or whatever, but I just can’t NOT can the pears. Why would I let them fall from the tree and rot? It’s like that would be crazy. Of course I’m going to can then. How hard is this?

      We’ll it’s hard if you’re used to watching tv with a remote, but if you work on a farm, it’s just normal. This is waaaaay too normal.

      Where’s my culture shock? What culture shock? I think the culture is shocked by how well I fit in, in my own way.

      I gotta get a tractor. I can’t wait for my husband to get here. We need a tractor!

  2. I actually have always felt a very strong affinity for the civil war era. I feel that I was the daughter of a plantation owner. Could be real, could be fantasy.

  3. Elsa, hand on my heart, my 80-something year old neighbor in Bavaria would can her garden pears in her lovely little whitewashed, antique-filled canning and working cottage that stood behind her big regular house. She would sing Ave Maria. My cat would wander over and lay under the bench where her husband sat smiling as she canned and sang. On a still summer afternoon I could hear her lovely voice in my house too. Her 90-year-old husband (active, strong and looked EXACTLY like a 60-year-old Bob Hope) told me his mother and her sisters sang the same way as they “put the fruits to sleep” when he was small.

    So my hair is standing up – maybe one of your past lives took place in the garden spot in Bavaria that I lived in.

    1. oh PS and the “must can the pears!” would be pretty German too – they canned every thing and I would help my neighbors gather everything up and even sort the windfalls for them. I was a hero for showing them all how to make green tomato chutney and fried green tomatoes one year when weather left everyone with piles of green. We had a huge three-day cooking party with every village lady and girl in my little house, oh it was fun! I am told they still have Green Tomato Party day! God I miss them. But nothing went to waste, unheard of. Once I literally had 21 lettuce delivered to me by neighbors every other day for about a week, everyone was making every sort of lettuce thing for the bumper crop, determined to make sure they wasted nothing. I delighted them with a lettuce soup I learned to make in Boston.

      Ha yes, I think in one life you lived in my lovely village.

  4. anonymoushermit

    I once joked in the ElsaElsa forums that I was a very young soul, like a level 2 out of 10, or whatever.

    I’d say I’m more of a 6 or 7. No way I’m a young soul, I was joking.

    I don’t have dreams or anything like that but I feel like I was a woman in my previous life, like I had a lot of men then, promiscuous.

  5. The fruit would fall off cactus and rot. It was obscene. But there was no one there to teach me and no internet, or even a phone. So it was just frustrating. Irked me.

    All this has been buried deep inside me. I can thank my husband for liberating Mr.

  6. I do. The same familiarity thing hit me when I started getting into Catholicism last year. I’ve been Catholic before, I’m positive of it.

    1. Avatar
      Warped by Wuthering Heights

      For many years I wanted to attend a service at a synagogue. I finally did about 15 years ago, walked in the door, picked up a book, sat down in the nearest seat, opened the book, and it all felt so familiar, like I’d done it before, over and over countless times, in another life. Later I took a course taught by a rabbi who’d written many books including one about reincarnation. I bought a copy and he inscribed it, “To and old soul.”

      1. Amazing. Yes, it’s just a feeling you get- like, I’ve done this before many times. And it’s something I always loved.

  7. I don’t resonate with tasks as much as places. I lived somewhere once where I could see myself living there a few hundred years earlier in what was traditional clothing of that time period. And then there are certain cultures/time periods I am drawn to which lead me to believe I was alive then. I do believe we reincarnate with a group of people from life to life to learn our lessons.

    1. Avatar
      Warped by Wuthering Heights

      I also resonate more with places than tasks, have always been drawn to England, but wonder if it’s just the effect of countless books and films in childhood, or even genetic — my English and Scottish colonist ancestors. Many places I explored there felt familiar, as do places that resemble them here. It feels like I’ve been searching all my life to return to somewhere I simply cannot attain in the present.
      Also scents transport me — wood smoke, or even the woodsy aroma of red wine, takes me into the deep woods — a feeling of early primitive times. I had some native American ancestors too. And music — a certain passage of Gershwin, but it could be an early memory. The most amazing though — people, instantly familiar people — or do they again just resemble early memories?
      If I have to come back again, let me be a butterfly!

    2. Same here. I went to Gdansk, Poland for just three days and it felt so profoundly like home it was ridiculous. I’ve never felt like that anywhere else.

      I’ve felt it occassionally with people too. I get hit with a “hey its you again!” feeling when I first meet them haha. I havent had long lasting relationships with any of those people though. Unlesss I had the same feeling with my childhood friends, and just don’t remember.

      I’ve been really into past lives ever since Pluto entered my 9th about 3 years ago.

      1. I can relate. My past life vestiges are triggered by languages and music. There was the time I was learning Polish and “remembered” the formula for past tense. There was the time I was learning Slovak and I had a light bulb moment regarding lengthened vowels. There was always Romanian, why did I always feel feverish when I saw the Romanian language written? And Serbian has *always* sounded familiar, the language and the music. I’m sure not all my past lives were in Europe, just the ones that relate to this particular life. I also had a dream about being a woman in what looked like Turkey and getting shoved out a window high up.

        I’ve had “hey it’s you again” moments, primarily with dudes with whom I subsequently had sh!tty or failed romances. It’s like I’m just not going to learn this time around (Venus opp. Pluto doesn’t help) and I have to make the same mistake over and over until I’m dead.

  8. Yes… On past lives… The South Node in your natal chart and the house it is in points to
    Past life experiences.
    The North Node to what we are learning in this life.
    I wrote a book on past lives
    “The Distance To Here”
    By Linda (Sujata) Holliday
    On Amazon.
    Love your astro chats and stories✨
    Sujata?

  9. I was not close to my maternal great-grandmother. She wounded me with her resentment. First decan Sagittarius so her sun must have been conjunct my Neptune. Regardless. I respected her. When my son was five months old I took him on a road trip to Acuna, Mexico. We stayed across the border in Del Rio. My great-grandmother lived there in the 1960s with her second husband. I got the address from my mom and went there. My ex-husband took a photograph of me standing in front of the house, our son on my hip. I was wearing a Frida Kahlo t-shirt and a pink bandana fashioned into a kerchief on my head. I wasn’t smiling. I looked grim, the way women looked in old photographs. Fast forward to 2013. I am living with a man I deeply love. I feel like I am home, finally. A woman, finally. I fry chicken for my man. I read to him in bed. I feel whole when massaging his beautiful brown back. I think…I’m like Mamaw now. If she could see me now she would respect and love me. She loved owls. One of the sweetest moments of my life: my man and I awoke late at night and marveled over the hooting of the owls in our beloved cypress tree.

  10. I’m not sure if I believe in past lives. But I have always felt tremendous affinity with pirates and sailors. I think of a boat on the sea. No electricity. Stars. The moon. Im agined mermaids. HOME. Cancer south node, lots of moon contacts in my chart. Progressed moon in Pisces.

  11. I just realized why I like you so much, Miss Elsa. you remind me of one of my favorite authors; have you read Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver? her writing has amazing imagery. your writing voice, and stories about growing up in the desert remind me of that.
    haha so random, but a light bulb just flashed on & I wanted to share. reincarnation is awesome too 🙂 and maybe related to déjà vu? the best déjà vu is when you seem to be reliving a recent dream…

  12. yes – I´ve had dreams and feelings about different times and cultures, like I´ve lived there. I think we incarnate with people to solve karma (like you and your husband)

  13. I most definitly believe in past lives, proof too numerous to recount in my own experience. I believe we reincarnate in soul groups so we are reincarnating with same souls different bodies and a different placement in each others lives each time around. When my mother died I study reincarnation extensively and my research confirmed what I enstinctively knew to be true. We carry trait and talents and idiosycracies with us each time around.

  14. I believe but I don’t know about any of mine. I wish I did. Years ago when I was a kid I had a serious affinity for a certain place during a certain war. Maybe that was something.

    That feeling you got when you realized you knew how to can the pears – really cool. Must have felt a little like being part of something bigger, or something like that. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)

  15. I do believe in past lives. I have been told I was a Native American healer once, and also an English doctor. I know I have been a man more than once, too! So much so, because at times I feel being a female to be utterly impossible and confusing. I have to wonder who the hell did I piss off to reincarnate like this, lol.

    Like others, I am drawn to places, but I haven’t been hardly anywhere. Mostly up and down the east coast. A cruise once in the Caribbean. That’s it.

    I am very much drawn to Europe, Russia, China, Japan. I would love visiting the Middle East and those places, but let’s face it…I’m a Caucasian female and would be persona non grata there. I’m not trying to get beheaded or anything.

    But I dream in different languages; I dream of different places speaking foreign languages. I hope some day I can see them. I have a fantastic and deep imagination, and I have traveled far and wide in my fantasies.

  16. Italian cooking at its best IMO – fresh, simple, delicious.
    Marcella Hazan’s Pear Cake
    ½ cup breadcrumbs, fine and dry
    2 large eggs
    ¼ cup whole milk
    1 cup sugar
    Pinch salt
    1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
    2 pounds pears
    2 tablespoons unsalted butter

    Place a rack on the upper third of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a 9-inch cake pan, add the bread crumbs to the pan and swirl it to distribute the crumbs evenly. Give it a little shake and turn upside down to release the extra loose crumbs.

    In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and milk. Add the sugar and salt. Beat until well combined. Add the flour and mix well.

    Peel the pears, and then slice them in half. Remove and discard the seeds. Cut the pear halves into thin slices, and then add them to the bowl. Mix well. (The batter will be quite thick.)

    Now, pour the batter into the pan. Make sure it’s evenly spread. Dot the surface of the batter with the butter. Bake for 45 minutes. The top will be golden brown. Cool slightly and then remove from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

  17. I definitely believe and almost felt sometimes that I was doing something that someone did in a past life before, it’s like deja vu but not.

  18. Yes I have had past lives and I have delved into them. My goal was to learn life lessons. The previous life in 15th century Venice is very relevant to this life. I did not know how to read them and guess what? I got my Masters in Library Studies and am surrounded by books! There is a lot more but it would be inappropriate to discuss here.

  19. anonymoushermit

    Isn’t a person’s 12th house what they were in the previous life, before this current one? Like literally the one before?

    1. Actually the 8th house shows where you lived, the 12th house shows the area of unfinished work and the 4th house shows your environment and your peers

        1. Actually it was an American astrologer in Iowa who shared with me the info about looking for connections into past lives.

  20. My experience is different. I think my body won’t let me do what it did in my previous life. I definitely was a performing artist then, and I’ve come to conclude I was a dancer, quite possibly a classically trained one, too. I dreamed of becoming a ballerina as a child, I know it isn’t an uncommon dream, but I feel I truly had dance in me. Just that when I finally got to ballet lessons I realized my physique was all wrong for it. That was a big disappointment.

  21. I don’t want to be a weirdo either, but reincarnation just makes sense to me. I’ve had several moments of clarity where I’ve known I was a female slave in a past life. I’ve seen the place I lived and I think I lost a small son. I’m a white female. My south node is conjunct my jupiter/uranus conjunction in libra. I’ve worked in civil rights and human rights and feel very strongly about these issues.

  22. Your peaches look so good.

    I’ve been with the same pod for centuries. We grow oranges, limes, lemons All on the same bush; and peaches, plums and nectarines on the same tree. Seeds vs pits. We graft so one bush and one tree have multiple fruit. We can grow anything – except in Las Vegas, where nothing grows for shit.

    I enjoy your new adventure.

  23. Avatar
    wonderingheights

    Interesting that Jupiter is in Virgo…the idea of “reaping” and “not wanting to waste” goes with it

  24. Are those the “gritty” kind of pears? I love making pear honey with them. Isn’t nice that canning came back for you?

  25. Lately I have been feeling the veil of solid reality being thin. That been here before sense. The world being so tipsy turvy it somehow makes sense.

  26. Well time doesn’t really exist so “past” life is not a term I’m super comfortable with. There are other planes of existence and parallel realities where another part of my awareness might be. I’ve had visions of “future” lives. (Heaven basically) and a “past” life. But I was just peeping into a portal, if that makes sense.

    The past life Ive been clued into has to do with the killing fields in Cambodia. I saw the movie about it when I was a kid and I knew that many people I loved had died there.

    I think I may have been drowned in another one too. As a form of persecution.

    1. anonymoushermit

      I had a past live regression once. I was a shoemaker in the 1890’s. Lived a normal, boring life.

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