A vast ocean of lives and legacies

The more I look at my past and the insides of my being, the more comes up.

The shadow self. The programming. The inner child. Versions of my younger self. Passing comments that became wounds. Praise that became levels of achievement that must always be hit. Versions of self that were locked up. Core memories that became scars. Happy moments that have become muddled and combined. Vague and clear all at once.

Through it all, I am reminded of the sum of the parts that make me up. Known and unknown. Puzzle pieces slowly becoming more and more visible.

I keep finding myself returning to the notion of a past self. A version of me that once existed and lived a whole life. And all we share is the soul that has moved from one body costume to another. Enter stage right, exit stage left.

But is the soul all that we share? Or is there more?

What about vows that were made to others and not kept?
Promises that were held and became legacy?
Curses that were flung and imprinted beyond the body?
Wishes that became prayers? Hopes that became reality?

I see a man standing on the edge of the sea, vowing never to return. Forced into a marriage to a woman he cared nothing for, wanting to break free of the shackles of this arrangement. He stares out at the sea, praying to the gods above and below to help him run away. To escape from what was torment. To him anyway.

It wasn't caste or skin or class alone that made his life hell. It was this woman he was married to. It was the responsibility of being an adult, a father, a husband. He was never ready, he never wanted this. And yet he said yes because his family dictated it and here he was trapped in a prison of his own volition.

And so he ran. From his obligations, from his country, from his family. He would lie, he would pretend, he would hide. For years and years. Never fulfilled but always happy to be free. To not have to answer to anyone but himself. And so he vowed to never love again. To never marry. To never put himself in such a position.

Love was too risky, too much of a gamble. What if he found her again, this controlling figure of a wife in another body? In another avatar or form.

No. It was better to run and to never love again. He locked his heart in all the ways he could. Hardened himself to emotion and feeling the way other men do. And so he carried his vow to never love again in his heart all the way to the unmarked grave he found himself in.

His wife? She cursed him with all the strength she didn't even know she had. Her tongue powerful enough to cause harm, her heart pained enough to wish ill and her mind shattered enough from grief and heartache. Wished for him to never feel the light of love and joy and affection in all his lives to come. Binding in all the ways that curses could be.

The sad thing though was that even when death came for her by her own choice, she never forgot him. The man she loved. The husband she married. The father to her sons. He stayed in her heart, even if she was never in his. And when her heart stopped, he was the last face she saw.

But the universe has a funny way of working in cycles and circles. And so I believe I became their great grandchild.

I wish I could tell her how sorry I was. How sorry I AM. I wish I could tell her that she deserved better. And that hopefully, I am a better man now.

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P.S. In case you are interested, I am running a series of performance and theatre workshops from November to December 2024 and I have also started running Tarot Reading + Coaching sessions.