When I saw the movie On A Clear Day You Can See Forever I appreciated the story but did not buy into it entirely. I had read stories of reincarnation but had not known that one could easily slip back into time at the drop of a hat as Barbra Streisand seemed to do in this film. Little did I know until I find that I can do that myself now.
I have talked of my experiences in times past very often on a variety of discussion groups. As time passes, I realize that I was a bit too overly optimistic, that I should have listened to my mother more often than not, but despite that I did share some of my experiences with others. I often have wished that I had not been so forthright, but I was for the most part in the belief that there would be people receptive to my stories.
Because I just had another one of those encounters, I am reconsidering the wisdom of share and tell all that I know about these experiences in which I find myself in a different time period than the present. Each time they seem to me to be as vibrant and alive as when I am in the present. There is that little difference between living in the current century and somehow or other being transported into a past century.
I will explain so that I can make the right decisions in future times as to whether I will or will not turn this into a chapter in my book.
One, when reading a history book, one reads about the people. The authors most likely did not ever encounter these people at all so that anything said about them is handed down from one generation to another accounts that people told and retold. How many times can we describe any of our generals or presidents accurately and well? To say that Nixon had a big nose, beady eyes, a churlish voice pattern, and hunched over back does not really tell a thing about Nixon. Yet I met a woman who had been his secretary who liked and admired him. Her account of Nixon would be totally different than any that I might make had I ever met up with him. My account is strictly superficial. Hers is closeup and personal. While I never met or even observed Nixon from a distance except through television and movie versions, I did meet up with and observe John F. Kennedy when he was running for office. I have only an impression of him seen firsthand and halfway up close. But again through television and movies, I have an idea of how he looked, appeared, and sounded. The one time that I may have met up with him close and personal is such that I have only a narrow glimpse into the personal life of the man. Even at that, I cannot be sure that it was him or his double. Since this man used a different name than that of JFK. Yet it is possible that it was Kennedy using an alias so that nobody would take notice of him and his behaviour. I took notice because I was his serving waitress at the country club where he appeared for a short brief time.
So when I go back in time to actually view, and more than observe, but find myself as a person in that time period, it is a totally lifelike and living situation. I can feel the warmth of the person who I amnear such as happened this last time. I found myself amidst a group of Macedonian soldiers. Whoever the person is that I am listening to is next to me, so close as to be crowding into me, and I can hear and feel everything that is happening in this gathering of men discussing their successful spoils of war after having taken over the city of Persepolis. I had been watching videos of Persepolis when all of a sudden like the actress in the movie On A Clear Day I was back in time sitting and mingling with these soldiers whose appearance I noted, whose size and girth impacted me, and whose stories actually made me understand the hearts and minds of these men. Because it was highly erotic, I recognized the truth of the way the men felt about the women that they had captured in the city. I have considered whether to share and tell this in a story form or to let it be so that it is just my sudden insight into what did actually happen there.
I am writing this now because I am trying to decide how to handle this. When one is in a situation, whether it be that of those boys in Steubenville who thought that they were so cute and smart when having sexually abused the rights of a teenager, or when one is in Persepolis, listening to the Macedonians who are likewise discussing their booty that they had won when overpowering the city, one wonders what one should make of it.
Should I as an author discuss this because it has been something that I now have insight into it? Can I do it justice? Can I make it readable? Salable is not the issue. That is obvious that it would be salable but the real problem is should I tackle it at all? It hit me hard. I realized a lot of things about ATG that I had not considered until this moment. He had unleashed his men onto that city because he knew that he could no longer restrain them. They were hungry for power, victory, and women, and food. I really have to think about this.
The past does live. I know it for I have experienced it. Just what should I do about it? Keep it to myself as my mother suggested, or share and tell. That is the question.
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