Dream Trip

I finally have been contacted by the AIA about the dream trip that I have wanted to take for so many years.  It may eventually happen that I will be able to go to Iran, but I do not think that it will happen this fall.  It hit me pretty hard once I began to learn all that it takes to go to Iran.

I have begun a book about Alexander the Great which is in progress.  One of my first proofs about a theory that I  had learned about him is the Persian city called Persepolis.  This was the home of many of the Persian Kings who ruled that part of the world when Alexander conquered it.

In 1974 I was taking a travel agent course in Los Angeles under the auspices of TWA, and at that time, the Shah of Iran was still in power.  I had found the story of his first wife very fascinating to read as he had had to divorce her to marry another woman to bear him children. Princess Soraya was a very beautiful woman but she seemed to be infertile, unable to carry a child.

That was about all that I knew about Iran but most people considered the Shah a puppet of the United States. In fact, the USA was keeping his regime intact as each appeared to need one another.  As we well know now, he was forced to leave Iran as the Ayatollah Khomeini took over and the fundamentalists of Iran gained power in the government and country.

I knew absolutely nothing about Alexander the Great then, Darius, Xerxes, or Artaxerxes, and nothing of Persepolis.  I frankly learned of their history only in recent times.  So who would ever expect that someday I might want to venture there to view some old architectural sites.

But in one of my attempts at learning about lives in times past, I found myself in the city of Persepolis, and I found it so fascinating and so beautiful that I then went to the internet to learn what it had been, and what it had meant to me.  But I saw it as it had looked in 4BC, not as it looks today.  I saw it fully developed, each palace intact, and found myself walking its corridors, entering its massive doors, and finding myself even sitting on the throne which was elevated to such a great high in one of the many palaces that are situated there.

It was a most memorable memory for me.  I saw the manner in which the people who dwelled there dressed, and I could see exactly how I was dressed as I made my way through that great and awesome place. It is something by which I know that I could prove many things to myself, so that I have wanted to go there to see it firsthand for myself. I do have dvd's with pictures of it and I am always entranced by the architecture and the reliefs that are carved in the walls and stairs.  They made an impact on me in my spiritual journey and they impact me whenever I see them.

So naturally, I would do most anything to go there, and am contemplating how and when to do it.

If I can muster up the nerve as well as the money, for I will be traveling solo, I will somehow or other possibly pull it off.  However, all of a sudden, many obstructions are coming up to make me reconsider the wisdom of this decision.

These are the problems: 1. Major expense.  One night extra at a hotel will be $245.  To me, that is excessive.  The round trip plane ticket to Iran is not quite so bad even though the quote that she gave me is much higher by some $300 than a flight which I checked myself at IranKhomein travel group.

The itinerary for the tour is good except that one part which I am strongly interested in seeing is listed as available to see only if we have time for it.  That is the gravesite of Cyrus the Great and that is a major interest for me to see. I am not sure that I like it relegated to a visit if we have time for it.

So I am rethinking this through.  It is a dreadfully long flight which I had already done to go to Paris and I promised myself that I would never do that to myself again.  I franklybelieve that is reason alone to say no to this as I had promised myself that I would take short hops with layovers if necessary just to be kind to msyelf. I do not need these extra long marathon flights.

I finally realized after watching videos of Persepolis again in which I once again had the ability to find myself back in the city sitting with a group of soldiers discussing their booty that they had acquired that I should be satisfied with that much.  If I can get to Iran, and there are many other reasons that I think about this...one is that the American hostages were taken during my trip to Washington, DC when Carter was president, and that still has a very strong impact on me....and I wonder if I think it wise to press my luck on attitudes about Americans in that region now.

So I am thinking it through.  Learning about reincarnation is a luxury that few ever really get to enjoy as I have done.  It has opened up new worlds to me that were otherwise unknown to me, and I am satisfied that I have knowledge about times past that even a trip to the present site would not reveal so well to me as those experiences in which I found myself there some 3,000 years ago.

Don't ask me how I do it...I asked and I found, and it is as simple as that. I have since been learning all I can about the time period and the people involved, and have arrived at my own conclusions. I often wonder if what happened to me and my years in the East Coast in which I was held hostage as well in that time period has anything to do with Alexander or not.  I don't like to think so but one never knows for sure, does one?  Eventually, I did get myself out of my predicament, and for the most part, it has always been associated with the presidents and the popes...who knew that Iran would have something to do with it too?

So there are many mysteries here.  I am trying to do what is best for myself.  I may or may not go. I will continue to sleep on it, and to look at other possibilities. At least, I now know what it takes to get a visa, and how much it is likely to cost me in both time and dollars.  It is a hefty price but I then think of what it cost Alexander to make his trek to Persepolis and how all that happened.  Amazing.  I think  that I may learn a few lessons yet.