The wisdom of many lifetimes

This is a SoulCollage card I’ve been wanting to make ever since I made my first Soul Essence card, which represents the essence of your soul that’s consistent from lifetime to lifetime, regardless of your current personality, gender, ethnicity, occupation, and so on. When I thought about what the lives I’ve lived that I know about have in common, there honestly wasn’t much. But one of the things that stood out to me was the idea of mastery–something that’s important to me in this life, and seems to be a recurring theme in other lives as well. I wanted to represent this on my first Soul Essence card, but there just wasn’t room for it. Most Soul Essence cards are quite simple, and the first one I made was no exception. Soon after I made that card, I read my 6th-chakra owl totem card, and that reading expanded on what I’d been thinking:

I am one who is wise–like you. Many different kinds of wisdom is what you’re developing over many lifetimes. The wisdom of nature, the wisdom of technology, the wisdom of writing.

I found this last bit very intriguing, as I hadn’t thought of what I do for a living in terms of gathering the wisdom of technology before. This new Soul Essence card is about that ongoing gathering of wisdom across lifetimes.

As I was finishing this card, I noticed its colors are mostly dull, making it unique in my deck in that it doesn’t feature the vibrant color (or else black and white) that I typically use. I realized that’s because this card is about a larger, broader ‘me’ than the me of this lifetime who passionately loves color. I considered adding a reference to the “wisdom of technology,” but couldn’t find any images that worked. Technology–even a sleek laptop like my new HP Envy– is, I’m sorry to say, just so ugly in comparison with nature and beautiful hand-crafted objects! I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Here’s an excerpt from my reading of this new card (I’ve rearranged the sentences a bit so that it flows perhaps better than the original) …

The wisdom of many lifetimes is with you. All is well.

I am one who has lived many times, and learned something from each one of them.

I am one who loves the water. I am one who loves soaring cathedrals. I am one who builds them. I love the little lambs–so tender, so sweet. I am one who loves to write, who has much to share with the world. [You will share it.]

I am one who is wise beyond my years. It is always there for me to tap into–the wisdom of many lifetimes.

I am one who is developing–slowly, over time, like a pearl.

The waters are still, all is well. That is all.

Have you done any exploration of your past lives, and if so, what do you think are recurring themes for you?

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The essence of a soul

We are a living, breathing manifestation of this beautiful and generous planet. –Thich Nhat Hanh

In a SoulCollage deck, there are several Transpersonal cards–Source, Witness, and Soul Essence. I made a Source card some time ago, I haven’t found images for my Witness card yet–and here’s the Soul Essence card I made today. The Soul Essence card represents the maker’s eternal soul and its unique potential.

I found this card a challenge. It’s difficult to conceptualize your soul while you’re incarnated, or so it seems to me. A number of Soul Essence cards I’ve seen include images that reflect the maker’s current gender, but that didn’t feel right to me.

Thanks to various past-life explorations, I know that I’ve been Jacob, a shepherd in the Bronze Age; a master mason who worked on Rouen Cathedral and Canterbury Cathedral; and a stern, humorless, old-school English fisherman–none of whom shared my current gender.

I do see a couple of threads running consistently through these lives–one being strength, the other mastery. In my life as Jacob–a calm, peaceful, idyllic life–I was known for my wisdom about nature, and was a leader among the other shepherds. In my current life I have a tendency to become an expert on whatever I’m working on, almost without intending to. I have to say, I do not enjoy my own incompetence.

I am undeniably an incompetent bowler–unless we change the rules and gutter balls become a good thing–and I would much rather watch others who have grace and skill play, than play myself.

The other common thread is that, as far as I know, all of my incarnations (I’ve been told more than a hundred) have been on this planet. It makes me quite sad to think that due to our foolhardy destructiveness over a relatively short period of time (i.e., the Industrial Age), it might not be possible for me to finish my soul’s education here on planet Earth. I’ve read in several places that our little planet is generally considered a difficult school. Would it be the Harvard of the universe? Perhaps it’s more of an MIT, Penn, or Duke. All I know is that it’s been my home–or perhaps better, home away from home–for millennia. I hope enough of us wake up to reality and take action in time.

Long may we be nurtured by Mother Earth.