As I was writing this post, I suddenly became reminded that one of my favorite tracks by Dead Can Dance came from their album, Spiritchaser, released on the 4AD label in 1996. Track 2, “Song of the Stars” immediately spoke to me in a spiritual and shamanic way. This is the song of the week.
And so the quest continues. With each astral journey to a distant land, with each vision, with each tug at my heart, I learn something new about myself, my spiritual ancestors, and where I will ultimately end up.
This quasi-vision quest that I am on is a significant one. My 30-year life in Vermont is ending soon and my new life elsewhere is fast approaching. This journey is not about connecting or understanding my genealogical ancestors. This journey is about connecting with my spiritual ancestors who fill me with purpose, meaning, and curiosity. It begins circa 1943 during the last seconds of life as a middle aged German woman who was about to die in an air raid bombing during World War 2. This death is an event I vicariously relive again and again through tragic events that unfold in this life.
Indirect Reminders of the Past: Fireworks, the Lockerbie Bombing, and 9/11
It started innocently enough. I was outside on the balcony with my parents in their penthouse apartment in South America. I was four years old and was about to witness fireworks for the first time. Without warning and devoid of any sort of logical frame of reference, the spectacle reminded me of bombs exploding. I remember watching in horror and crying, not only because they terrified me, but because deep in the layers of a pent-up memory that had somehow become dislodged through the process of reincarnation, the colorful explosions in the night sky felt alarmingly familiar.
Fast forward to 1988, to the air disaster of Pan Am flight103 over Lockerbie (or as I call it, the Lockerbie Bombing). This tragic event is when I started to unravel, sensing a strange familiarity as I viewed the aftermath on television. I felt connected to the victims on the ground and their crushed and annihilated houses caused by the fiery plane parts that fell like bombs.
Like the fireworks of my childhood, a visceral and sickening sensation ensued. Every cell in my body responded to this event as if I understood precisely what it was like to die in this way. From that day forward, I came to associate the sound of airplanes flying overhead as potential missiles that could fall on me at any given moment. The experience was so debilitating, I started seeing a psychiatrist. I was 14 years old. The psychiatrist, guided by the DSM and a medical mind, labeled my fear as an irrational phobia. He prescribed a night light, and sent me on my way.
Decades later, the events of 9/11 ushered in more inexplicable trauma, sensing yet again a familiar awareness that I could not shake. I became obsessed with the technicalities of how the World Trade Center collapsed, watching the skyscrapers fall again and again, trying to desensitize myself as I tried to figure out why I was so morbidly obsessed. It was a puzzle I could not solve.
Remembering the Past
"Unterglieschness" poem written, performed and executed by Lavavoth Stuart, 2020. This poem captures a moment when I was 11 years old and vacationing in Sarasota, Florida with my family. I had a sudden download of my past life in Germany through a made up word. I realized years later that I was primarily a melding of two German words: Unter (below; under) and gliech (same) combined with the English suffix "-ness" to mean "Under the sameness," as in the homogenization and oppression of the Nazi Regime. At this point in my life, I had had no exposure to German culture or its language.
It was not until 2010 that Hans guided me through several past life recall sessions via altered states of consciousness through dance and shamanic journeying, making me aware of why these aforementioned events shook me to my core in ways that seemed pathological.
The past life recall events revealed that I was a middle aged German woman living in an urban area in Nazi Germany. I was a civilian who, like so many Germans, was swept up in the twisted darkness of the Third Reich. The Nazi piece was not apparent in my visions. Rather, I inherently understood it to be a part of her identity as if I could telepathically extrapolate the information.
I have written about this life countless times in multiple blog posts, which have helped me to process the person I had been and how I had died. Making peace with the darkness of that time period is still challenging, and despite all the writing, it is still something that is difficult to share.
In my vision during my recall, I was in my flat when I heard a siren go off in the distance, indicating that allied bombers were on fast approach. For reasons unknown to me, I remained in my flat, which was on the fourth or fifth floor. What was I doing there and why didn’t I run down to the bomb shelter? I saw myself hide under a table in a spartan kitchen. A bomb struck my building and although the vision cut out then, I know that I was crushed and burned to death. It feels incendiary. I don’t know where I was when I died. Hans refuses to reveal the location, but Hamburg always comes to mind.
And Then There was Surfside
When the Surfside condo collapsed in Florida, I unraveled again. I went into the abyss, feeling what it was like to feel the pain of dying in this way, only this time it was heavier and more insidious. Just like the World Trade Center collapse, I watched the Surfside condo collapse hundreds of times, often in slow motion. With each view, I tried to uncover a wayward piece of my DNA, of the person I had been, and how I want to heal this trauma above all trauma that I have experienced in this life.
Spiritual Ancestry
To me, the term ancestry means a lineage or descent that is not necessarily connected to this life or this reality. To me, ancestry is not about the genealogy of this life, but of the lineage of spirits that I share a past life with and those connected to certain lands. The term ancestor means a person from whom one is descended. Like the term ancestry, I hold a slightly different definition for ancestor to include spiritual ancestors of past lives and deities. Keziah (2022) further elaborates that
a spiritual ancestor is someone connected to you, your practice, or your religion in some way who is not necessarily connected to you in a genetic sense. This can be a deity or spirit that you worship or have a link to. It can be a practitioner whose work inspired or impacted your own craft. It can be a spirit, notable person, or folkloric figure that is tied to your culture or to the land on which you live or the land of your ancestors. It can be someone to whom you’ve always felt a strong connection or who personally inspires you in some way (Para. 6) [2].
In this way, I honor my ancestral connection. Being drawn to the land, particularly the woods, and to the spirits from a past connection, such as Hans, I am able to explore my spiritual lineage of what it means to partake in an ancestral migration toward a new land with new spiritual ancestors I have yet to uncover and honor.
Summer Goals and Northern Michigan Journey
So, for this summer, as I search for a home far away from Vermont, my goal is to write a post each week about my land and house-hunting journey and to start traveling to these places and filming the land.
Next week, unless it goes under contract first, I will be traveling to northern Michigan, an hour south of the Upper Peninsula, to view a midcentury split level home that comes with a 10-acre parcel of land. The house needs at least $50,000 worth of repairs, but once those repairs are made, the house will be virtually maintenance free for most of my life. If all goes well, and if Hans gives me his blessing [1], I will make an offer.
If it all goes well, this will be my second estate sale purchase. Three houses before this one, I purchased a Presbyterian Manse–a neglected historical Victorian farmhouse full of ghosts and full of stories. I prefer fixer-uppers that I can renovate to my liking. I like the challenge of bringing a house back to life–and houses (or rather their spirit occupants) call to me.
This house in Michigan is now haunting my dreams. It is difficult to describe the siren-like call from the house and the land when it becomes a conduit to my heart. With this house in Michigan, the realtor representing the buyers, is located in Detroit and is doing a favor for someone by listing the house. He has no desire to drive 180 miles north to meet me for the viewing. Instead, he said he will give me the lockbox code so I can let myself in and explore to my delight. If it all goes according to plan, I will perform a dance ritual in the house and in the woods to engage with its energy and to sense if it truly wants me there as its next caretaker.
Notes
[1] which he did last night after doing a Tarot reading when he moved my hand to the down-facing Ace of Wands card
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