Around the time I started this blog I attended a group session for past life regression led by a certified regressionist at the Life Path Fellowship in Jaffrey NH, an event I knew about because they had posted it on their FaceBook page. I have always been severely curious about these things but I was hesitant to share my experience publically for the fear of it being seen as “a little out there.” I know what you’re thinking – three years later I am making plans to track Bigfoot on summer camping adventures while searching for UFOs and glowing mushrooms in the dark. I am a little out there. I’m an odd combination of scientific and spiritual. I don’t always 100% believe in these things but I keep my mind and eyes open just in case. And since I am now comfortable just being me here I have decided it was time to finally share what went down. It was an intense personal experience, one which I wrote about with more gravity than my other entries. Reading it now feels like a punch to the gut so take it as what it is – if you’re curious, by all means, go on and read. I apologize that I was unable to take any photos of the actual event so visually this is a pretty boring entry. Either way, enjoy!
That morning I was already running late and I was SUPER nervous about attending. I had no idea what to expect but generally speaking I am not one who usually enjoys participating in group activities. Add hypnosis and I was even more anxious but there was something driving me to do this. When I drove in the parking lot was empty. Greeeeeat. A moment of doubt. I still got out and made my way into the building where I was warmly welcomed. There were two other women there burbling to each other, they were cheerful and funny. I smiled and a minute later another woman showed up – an audience of four. Okaaay, little smaller than expected but too late to back out now. I settled in and just listened. The woman hosting this little event had a calming soft voice and explained the whole process of hypnosis and how it’s still a conscious and voluntary experience and can be backed out of at any point. Then she passed out yoga matts and pillows and told us all to spread out and make ourselves comfortable lying on the floor. I pondered if I would fall asleep. It’d been an early morning.. I settled in under the sun coming through the window. Another fucking gorgeous day!
I closed my eyes and relaxed. She brought us through the usual relaxation procedure for hypnosis, taking note of every muscle and feeling it all turn to melted butter. This took what seemed ages and I tried not to fall asleep. She then told us to imagine a garden so I did…. It was a big very planted garden behind a stone wall to one side, trees and a mountain to the others. In the center an old marble fountain, a stone bench, all sorts of strange and colorful plants and little imaginary creatures skittering about like rats. Oddly I think most of them I plagiarized from Hieronymus Bosch. Amusing…. Sure, helpful, probably not. I was sitting there wondering what the point of this exercise was and how silly it seemed when she asked for us to reach out in our garden and touch something there. Fine…. I picked up a weird alien flowery cactus-y kind of thing. It was squishy and weird, sort of like those gel beads but with far less form and perhaps a little warmer. Gross. My subconscious has a sense of humor. She then asked us to imagine our garden bathed in light, bathed in the essence of existence, alive with the energy of the creative force, a place of peace, serenity, and safety. OK, can do. We were instructed to return to the garden whenever we pleased. OK… that sounded slightly alarming but hey, another happy place isn’t always a bad thing.
Then she said we’d be going back to a memory of our younger selves. OK. Which one? Oh fuck, I’m in the back of my mother’s shitty little red Nissan driving down that road between Cathedral and Fitzgerald. My brother is in the front seat. I’m five years old fidgeting with the seat belt which is cutting into my neck because I’m too short to wear it right. This isn’t a good memory…. My mother’s pulled over, hysterical, crying, but trying to hold it together. Oddly I can feel her emotions as well as my own, which is absolute confusion, and odder still my brother’s…. He seems….. He seems disconnected, intellectually knowing what the situation is, emotionally putting it away for later. My mother announces my aunt, whom we’d all been very close to, is dead. She’s not coming back. I’m five, I never knew her when she was healthy, hospital visits were just part of life. This death thing made no sense to me.Â
Back to the garden I’m told to relax. Clear my mind. Fine, just as well, that wasn’t pleasant.Â
Now I’m told I’m going to two weeks before I was born. Uhmmmmm, OK, darkness? What am I supposed to be seeing? My host’s soothing voice guides me through the experience of witnessing my own birth. Who is there? What are they feeling? Why are you there? Interesting questions with a shockingly clear answer that comes to me like being jolted by lightning. Because I am wanted here – attracted to my mother’s love. My mother is soooooo happy. My brother is here too, age seven, I can feel his emotions – chaos, just pure chaos. What is this shriveled wailing thing we’re bringing home? I feel Flo [a close family friend] too and am really struck by her vibe…… She’s proud, very proud of my mother for doing what she wanted (having another baby) even though it was extremely difficult in her situation. I am struck once again by the lack of a final presence……… My father isn’t here. I find the whole scene fascinating. Never thought about any of this…Â
Back to the garden. Breathe, take a moment. OK.Â
Now I am going back to another life. I’m asked to look down, what kind of shoes am I wearing? A utilitarian looking set of old cowboy boots…. What do my hands look like? Manly? Where am I? Out West somewhere, in a shitty little mining town. I try to see the distinguishing features of the buildings but they become blurry especially the more I try to fixate on them. Dammit. From here I was to go to a pivotal moment in this person’s life. OK. The scene changes. I’m on the beach now, the ocean to be exact. Angry waves, dunes, Californian looking plants. There’s a gathering of people here. We’re in out twenties, early twenties, maybe even younger, there seems to be alcohol involved. A woman stands in front of me, long dark hair, her energy is of pure chaos. She’s crying, trying to make sense of it. Who is this memory about? My best friend from childhood. He’s dead, this is an impromptu memorial of sorts. I’m asked why I am at this particular memory? Not sure but I think I am supposed to meet this woman again. Someday, somehow. And now I’m brought to this person’s scene of death. What has happened? Not sure. I feel dirt and gravel under my fingers and feel myself floating upward. Something has happened very suddenly. I do not realize I am dead. There’s a big gray car. Maybe I was hit by it. Maybe I crashed it and flew through the window. Who knows.Â
Back to the garden. Well, OK. Here I’m encouraged to meet my spirit guide. Things get weird. I wasn’t expecting a spirit guide buuut…. there’s a red Chinese dragon here. Why is my spirit guide a Chinese dragon? It answers it is not, it’s a mask. Cool. Can I see behind the mask? He takes the mask off, behind lies a red European styled dragon. Very funny. Not sure I believe in any of this spirit guide stuff but either way this is oddly hilarious. I’m told to ask any questions I need to know about my life, he will answer.  OK. My waking life was in utter chaos at the time so I asked a shitload all at once, the dragon breathes a deep sigh, has a look of impatience and says, “You’re not meant to know any of that yet.” Fiiiiiiiiine. Spirit guide or a reflection of my subconscious, either way I should have expected that.Â
Back to the garden, now I am told it’s time to wake up. I popped out of it. Felt my heavy body come back to life on the floor. Opened my eyes, looked at the ceiling fan, got up. OK, that was weird. We sat around and expressed what we had seen. All three other woman had done this before. One saw another dimension, another witnessed death of old age in a teepee, and I can’t remember what the last one came up with. I meandered back out to the car, still a bit woozy, struggling to hold back the urge to cry (not from sadness but from an unexpected joy.) This was an intense experience, completely unexpected, deeply personal. I left with such profound gratitude and love of life and the people in it. Each and every one.
When I got home I told my mother about a little of it. She said I looked like I was glowing and I really held back the urge to cry then. I am not someone who cries so this was a bit alarming for us both.
In the end I didn’t see what I thought I would see. I didn’t get any answers I sought. I don’t even have a belief one way or the other of whether this was a real vision or just my subconscious throwing up whatever but because it was so life affirming I stepped away from it changed somehow – in only the best of ways. When asked if I would recommend this to others – yes, I would, but with the caveat that you don’t know what you are going to get.
I tried to be good today and plan where I was going – but the Fates had other ideas. I was going to go conquer an old foe – Mount Monadnock. I even picked a trail, the Dublin Trailhead, but try as I may to find an address I just couldn’t get anything more specific than “Old Troy Road.” So off I went! I found Old Troy Road just fine but the farther I ambled down it the more signs popped up reading, “Private Way!” In previous travels I learned this usually means somewhere at the end is a pissed off dude with a shot gun. This is ‘Murica after all. So I turned around and decided to just drive around until I hit something else of use…. sort of like using the Prius as a dowsing rod for good hiking trails. It worked!
Somehow I found myself driving by Swamp Road, an old dirt road I never noticed before. A big sign read it was closed for winter and if there’s anything better than a dirt road to explore it’s one that’s so ill-used it’s closed for winter. Plus I have a fondness for swamps. I flicked on my directional and started to crawl into the woods at the usual 15 miles an hour, if that. There wasn’t a house anywhere in sight but there were a lot of trees! And then right after crossing a little bridge I noticed something odd. it was either a very long driveway or an unmarked trail. Turns out it was a trail that entered the Sharon Bog area. I parked, grabbed my camera, and headed in! Emboldened by a sign I found requesting no dirt bikes or off road vehicles.
The trail was pretty wide at most points and pretty obvious it was a trail but it wasn’t marked, or named, or even frequented, as far as I could tell. It was SO QUIET out there, not a soul in sight for miles, the perfect little escape for even the most ardent of introverts. I could hear a great horned owl in the distance asking, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?” And I was super happy to find a little salamander just living his little salamander life on the trail. He was pretty grumpy with me, didn’t want to turn his adorable little face towards the camera but I made due.
Eventually this path went into a field and I had to cross it halfway to see if it continued and from there I passed a number of different forks, again, completely unmarked. This was an adventure after all, though not one for people who need the reassurance of markers. I made it pretty far into the woods on that path before I was stopped, by a HUGE German Shorthaired Pointer. I stayed still. I knew that breed is known to be neurotic. It barked and barked, and backed off, and then came back to bark at me. Eventually it gained the courage to come sniff me. I stood still as I could and it seemed to go from a bit fearful to very playful, this time trying to run off with my macro lens. His owner and a MUCH older canine companion loitered behind. I had a brief chat with his owner, who said he was a dog of impeccably high energy that needed to be allowed to run like this EVERY day or he’d be too insane to handle. Made sense. Pointers aren’t pets. They’re working dogs… but in any event she was doing a great job with him (she even said she’d continued to walk him in the winter with a pair of snow shoes!) That’s hardcore, especially for a woman who looked like she was of retirement age. I bid her adieu and continued on. That’s when I came to a very obvious Y in the path. Did I keep going straight or should I turn? the turn looked more interesting but was also riskier being unmarked… plus I’d already been walking for at least a mile, maybe even two. I went straight and not long after that found myself at the end of a dirt road staring at two houses. HMMMM. I didn’t know where I was… so I turned around and went back to the car.
Eventually I’d meet up again with the dogs and their owner. This time since the dog recognized me he zipped around running full speed around me for maybe thirty laps. It was impressive! Besides this I didn’t see or hear any one else the entire time. And then when I got back to the car I decided to keep going and explore the rest of Swamp Road. I am glad I did! Because not far up ahead there was a GORGEOUS turn off where you could stand on the rocks and watch whooshing white water crash by you. I could feel the cool coming off the water and feel the noise engulf my being. I LOVE rivers! I took a few snaps before returning to the car feeling super happy about today’s little outing.
I was only going to stay in Maine for three days, really, but then my mother’s ride to the family reunion couldn’t get the day off so I ended up staying up here for two weeks, and then there was a death in family so I had to stay for the funeral, so another week passed, and then…. it was only a few days away from when a Viking ship was supposed to come into port, and you can’t expect me to pass up a Viking ship… So here I am!
We got out late this morning, my mother came with me, and drove the two or so hours to the coast. I wasn’t 100% certain where I was going because my GPS refused to recognize “Rockland Public Landing.” So I guess I can add public docks and piers to the many places which do not have an address to put in the GPS. I figured it couldn’t be that difficult, just go to Rockland and drive along the seaside until I find a Viking ship…. I’d pulled off similar stunts in the past. I was told there was a big jetty you could walk out onto that had a lighthouse at the end. That seemed hard to miss…. so where was it again?
I pulled in what looked like some sort of dock or pier, and it was, and it was public, but it wasn’t the right one. But I thought I could see what looked like a Viking ship in the distance, near a lighthouse…. so I asked the GPS where I could find a lighthouse and it brought me to Owl’s Head Lighthouse…. three and a half miles from the first unnamed pier and out in some residential part of town. It seemed to have its own park, a little swimming area, and you could crawl into the lighthouse for a suggested donation of $3. By this time I was so overstimulated from trying to find the place I totally skipped on taking a photo of the actual lighthouse…. so for this one time only I have taken an image from Google. SORRY.
The lighthouse was tiny, enough to fit ten or so people in at a time. There was an old man at the door letting people in who asked us to sign the guestbook and leave a donation and I smiled and said I would. He seemed to be getting a kick out of me, I think it was my fading but still bright orange hair. I crawled up to the top with no problem and saw the big rotating light bulb. Apparently it’s getting ready to be retired. Pity! I looked out over the harbor… no viking ship in sight. Hmmm. My bid to get a better look from a high vantage point was doing me no favors. I asked the attendant about it. She had no idea but someone else who went into the lighthouse with us did. “OH! We JUST got in at the 10AM showing! It’s PACKED! It’s at the Harbor Park, you know where the Pearl Restaurant is…. but we parked at the Y!” “GREAT, THANK YOU!” I smiled again. See, sometimes unscheduled detours have their reasons, what was the chances of getting directions anywhere else??
So back I went up that same three mile stretch of “main street.” For anyone looking for the Rockland Public Landing let me help you out. Just type in The Pearl Restaurant. It sits in the parking lot. You could also type in the Rockland Yacht Club which is also right there. I drove in the parking lot and it was PACKED, a huge queue formed off the Yacht Club and just beyond it…. A VIKING BOAT! The next twenty minutes was me trying to find parking somewhere nearby and the twenty minutes after that was my phone being an ass and taking me a preposterously unnecessary long-cut to the boat. But there it was, the 
It seems people from all over were checking out this ship. She was stopped in Rockport Maine for a few days but she’s on a tour down the East Coast from there stopping in Massachusetts and Rhode Island before going farther south. When we boarded we were shuffled in like sardines and listened to one of three speakers tell us about the bow. It was ornately carved. Ropes were draped everywhere from where they had to hoist the sails. They spoke about the wood used to make the mast, apparently at one point it snapped in half and they realized they had used the wrong kind of tree…. a replacement Douglas Fir stood in the old one’s place.
After this we were filtered to the next part of the ship to listen to the next speaker who told us all how dangerous it was to hoist the masses. I took photos of rope like I’d never seen it before (and perhaps I hadn’t.) The boat began to churn a bit as the water became the tiniest bit rough. I got a bit queasy. I really wanted to come out here today but truth be told I’m literally phobic of the ocean and being on it. The only reason I was standing here was because I knew it was moored to the dock! If it were sailing somewhere I’d be tweaking… Mum got a bit dizzy from the gentle back and forth. A footprint carved into the floor was pointed out. It was a replica of a footprint they found carved out of an actual Viking ship but no one could say why it was there…. lucky omen? Sign of the Gods? Sign of boredom? Who knows! I took more photos but it was pretty dang crowded.
At the other end of the ship we learned all about life on it. Apparently if they were doing this Old School there would be around 100 oarsmen chugging along when the wind wasn’t going. The oars were not in place today, probably to allow people to squeeze through. I was horrified and amazed to learn there were no sleeping quarters below deck. As it turns out Vikings specialized in somewhat quick voyages, lasting 30-90 days, where they would sleep on deck in seal skin sleeping bags which fit two crewmen each. I admired more little artistic embellishments and my jaw probably hit the floor again when they said this ship could creep up rivers in as little as five feet of water when need be. And then it was off the ship I went, snapping more photos and taking a small stroll onto the pier. I wanted to walk out to the lighthouse which I suspected was at the end of it buuuut by now it was getting SUPER muggy and I was drenched in sweat and we kinda just wanted to go home. I’d even forgotten about my desire for a lobster roll. Oh well! It was an awesome day! And I am certain I will be back…
