Many Lives (4 page)

Ron's Guide described a tall and gaunt woman living in Roman times in the latter years of her life. She had a high social status and had lived well and comfortably. Coming to the end of her days, her entire life had been dedicated to worshipping various gods. But a deep sense of regret pervaded her spirit because she'd realized that her life's dedication had been to false gods.

I have no doubt that Ron's Guide described a past incarnation of mine; one that the second half of the incarnation I'm in now will resolve. The message I received was that this half of my life would be about my finding my own belief system. It didn't contradict anything that I'd been told before; it just affirmed what I was doing. It wasn't as if there were mixed messages coming from the other side so it made me feel good. It made me realize that I have spiritual purpose – I just don't have spiritual form. After that I was able to put my jackdaw's approach into a context that went beyond this life, and I stopped worrying about it.

I'm a spiritual bungee jumper. A jackdaw, collecting brightly coloured stones in a deep, medieval suede bag. It's my way.

My best friend Colin and I have accepted that we've been in and out of each other's lives so many times that we don't bother to think about it any more. It's just a given. In one life or other we've been in every relationship possible. Like with the man who was in my vision of the trenches, when I met Colin I felt no attraction towards him whatsoever on an intimate level; and he the same towards me. Unlike the other man, with Colin the connection wasn't immediate. Different recipes require a different setting on the cooking timer.

I'd already been living in California for a few years when I met Colin – set up on a blind date with him by mutual friends. We were both free and single and, when our friends put two and two together, on paper at least we seemed to be the ideal match. But we were instantaneously apathetic towards each other. There was no way I was even vaguely interested, and I'm sure he felt the same. My daughters Phoebe and Chloe, however, were very keen on the idea of Colin, especially Chloe, since she'd heard that he kept horses. To her, the fact that he had 17 of them made him the most eligible man on the planet.

‘Go on three dates with him at least, and after that if you can't do kissing you can start seeing other people, but you have to have three proper dates first,' they insisted. ‘With lipstick on, Mummy!'

So Colin and I went out three times but there was no kissing and, rather than dating Colin, I started seeing the seemingly unsuitable young man I'd met in the studio parking lot. Our lives are the way they're meant to be.

Similar to the way Colin and I have cropped up in each other's lives across many incarnations, I know it's been the same with my grandson Jude. There was a time when I really wondered what my relationship with Jude should be. I loved him so deeply, as I'm sure every grandmother loves their grandchild, but he was also in a precarious situation because my daughter Phoebe and his father were divorcing. I wanted to know what my position should be in the midst of it all.

During a past-life regression I got that I was standing outside a tepee. My feet were hurt; I'd been on burnt ground. I was Native American and there was an attack coming. Everybody had to leave, but I was an old woman with damaged feet and I knew that I couldn't go as I would have held the others up.

One of the young warriors rode up and acknowledged me. ‘You have done good work,' he said. ‘You are a good person. I see you. I appreciate you.' It was enough for me. The young warrior was Jude. He had seen me and that is all I am meant to do for Jude in this life: see him and make sure he feels acknowledged and recognized for who he is. Maybe that's all a grandmother is meant to do anyway.

My life and Jude's have intersected in other incarnations, but this is the most important realization for our lives now. All I have to do is make sure he knows he is truly seen as himself, that he also knows he is truly loved, and that I'm always here for him.

During this past-life regression, I also experienced the old woman's death:

I get a wound in my side. The others have left and there are people, other Native Americans, attacking. Some are wearing
navy blue cavalry uniform dress coats; maybe there are white men, too, but I can't see any. I'm aware of charred ground, a battle, blood, a wound in my side, a spear; I'm in pain, it's awful, then I can no longer feel any pain.

I'm rising up like a figure in a painting by Chagall; being drawn back inside the tepee I'd been standing outside but rising up towards its apex. I rise through the top of the tepee and pass Buffalo, Fox and Wolf and all the totem animals, and then further up through something that's like a chimney. I'm no longer old. I'm just hanging in space and young. Then upwards again, and I'm in a flawless scene: two black-and-white pinto ponies are peacefully grazing on lush green grass close to a perfect wigwam. Above me, puffy white clouds hang in a blue crystal sky. I look down at my immaculate moccasins. I have black plaits with beads. My partner is on the horizon. I realize I'm in the Happy Hunting Ground because I've died the death that I would have expected, being that person, and gone where she would have expected to go. As soon as I realize this, the scene begins to dissolve.

And it's OK that it melts away. It's lovely but we don't need that. Now I'm simply in the Presence. There is great belief: perfection that no words can really describe.

And there's golden light, but solid like a huge curtain. Every single cell is shining and shimmering and being renewed. Every bit of light is individual but all in the same mass. You might see it as sinewy, or like a cape made up of strands of really soft, pure gold thread – each like the double helix of DNA, with energy of golden light secured to it.

It's the soul bank, where our spirits return after passing for cleansing, renewing and restoring: a total meltdown of everything;
yet it's not a meltdown. I can't tell you what it is. Little wonder gold has deep spiritual significance: refined gold ore as the earthly representation of the heavenly golden light.

Then I think: there's so much free will in life, I thought it was going to be limited by
rules
. In answer a Pegasus – a white horse with enormous white wings – appears before me and tells me:

I wrap you in the blanket of love

But I will not bind you with the comfort or constraints of obligation.

You might be glad to begin a task but the real truth is you don't have to do anything,

And you are allowed to choose.

The only absolute is that love comes to you, and is the only motivator

If it's not motivated by love – what's the point?

Everybody comes to the same conclusion – there is only love. There is only love… or fear. At the end of your life you get the scene, images and people that mirror your background and expectations. We get the death we expect. Surely that's where heaven and hell come from. If you've been a bad person you'll have a terrible time. You create your own heaven or hell. We go to the energy we know. I know, because I died in this life… and then I came back. More about that later.

When we stop looking for the logic in things, we open the door to the fantastic and magical. Miracles will follow close behind.

W
hen I was 19 I had an epiphany, a profound experience that came completely out of the blue.

I was at RADA – the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art –
the
most prestigious place to study acting. Back then only one in 200 girls was accepted each term, and on top of that I was awarded a scholarship. The gods were already holding my hand.

RADA was vibrant, busy, demanding and thoroughly challenging. I knew I was really lucky – I'd found what I wanted to do with my life and I'd landed in the best place to do it. I was completely immersed. Mime, music, dance, speech, diction, fencing, studying playwrights – and balancing a budget. I could afford either a lipstick or cigarettes or lunch. On the days I chose lunch, to save time I used to pour soup on top of mashed potato on top of a salad, gobble it up and get back to studying. I never drank and I didn't know of the existence of drugs. My life was down to earth and full.

One day, hot, sweaty and in my leotard, having just finished a movement class, I went up to the roof for some fresh air before
voice class. It was an ordinary day of back-to-back classes, enjoyable but nothing special.

I was on the roof in the sunshine, when suddenly from nowhere I was overcome with the most overwhelming and all-encompassing sense of such sweetened joy and peace. It shimmered towards me as a wave. Everything around me became brilliant and beautiful. It was a feeling of such heightened intensity that it took my breath away. I was elated. I felt euphoric.

With this feeling of ultimate peace and joy came a sense of
knowing
. A deep understanding that everything was one, and that I was an intrinsic part of all that is. I was not separate from the world. I was not separate from the whole universe.

I had no sense of difference, no feeling of being apart from anything. The molecular form of my body and the molecular make-up of everything around me, and of the whole universe, was all the same. I was connected to everything and, in turn, everything was connected to me.

And there was life in
everything
: the ladders on the roof, my handbag, the ground I was standing on, the windows of the buildings I could see across the street – those supposedly inanimate objects were alive and I could
feel
their vibrancy. I could
feel
the molecules moving in my shoes.
Everything
around me vibrated with life.

As this wave of understanding washed over me I gave up the sense of my own self to a greater force. I was still present, I could still see and feel myself, but I was conscious that who
I
was, wasn't the body I was in; this vessel of blood and bones.
I
was the life that was within me. It flowed through my soul, and it reflected my soul everywhere and in everything.

I was one with the entire universe, and limitless. In that instant, I realized I wasn't a separate entity but part of the whole. I was important, but no more important than anyone or anything else. I was just a tiny speck in the vast totality of the universe, but deeply woven into its fabric, and I realized that my life had purpose.

I knew the mystery and miracle of life itself, of how everything was interconnected. The air that I breathed, the ground beneath me, the trees in the distance, the people on the street below; absolutely nothing existed in isolation – everything joined up.

The joy and the peace were
so
intense – so palpable. I just let it all flow through me and fill me up. I had been touched by a divine wand and I felt blessed – truly blessed. God, the
absolute
truth of the universe, blasted through my every cell. I saw a beauty in life that I had never seen before. I felt a sense of peace that I had never known before. My heart was filled with the greatest joy and I didn't want it to end.

In the miracle of that moment I saw perfection in all things. In that moment I was allowed to rest because I was part of that perfection. I'd arrived; the search was over. I felt a sense of total relief.

I can't say how long it lasted.

That experience had the most profound impact on me. Why had I been given this gift? Is the universe random in its munificence? Where had it come from? Ever since then, I have been left with a huge feeling of gratitude, and an unrelenting longing.

I had glimpsed the presence of God – I didn't make it to voice class.

Nearly 50 years later, the memory of that moment on the rooftop at RADA remains pure and intact. To me it is, and always
has been, completely moving, because it is
the
answer. It's what you search your whole life to understand: the
fabric
of everything is the same.

You can be told this, but you don't really believe it. Just as you don't really believe that the molecules that make up matter are moving. It's something you're told. You understand it as a concept, intellectually – but when you experience it, you're beyond words. For the first time I can see you as you are, because you are me and I am you. Suddenly I can touch you; I can feel all things, and all at once. There are no divisions between us.

Since then, I've understood emotionally that there is no contradiction between the findings of quantum physics and the Hindu Upanishads. For that short space of time, all was opened up to me. It was on the level of the soul bank of cleansing, renewing and restoring; of the golden threads of DNA. It was the tapestry of the universe, the essence of what we are beyond this mortal coil – pure spirit.

I believe a time will come when physicists are able to weigh the soul. Is the body a whisper lighter after its last breath; exited by a departing physicality that we don't understand? Like dark matter in the universe: totally unseen, yet its effects apparent. Like the neutrino, hurtling from the sun to pass undetected through our bodies and on through the Earth, observable only through the effects of its impact on other particles in cathedral-sized detectors. The soul is there in the geometry of the fractal-like golden matter of the universe; known but not always acknowledged.

Ever since, I've been a starer at sunsets and sunrises; wistful for that moment of knowing.

Sunset on the beach with Nutrina and Sienna