October 15th, 2009:

For the first time in five years, I got together with Marilyn, my past life regression hypnotist, and had a session on Wednesday. We both wondered if the amount of meds in my body would make it difficult for me to be hypnotized and to let the memories come through in my current voice. Turned out, there was one brief time when I became anxious to find my way to the place and time that I would report about, but after telling myself to chill, I realized that I was hovering over the North part of Paris near the road to St. Denis.

Briefly, I spent an hour recalling my life as a furniture maker--specialty was fine chairs--in the late Seventeenth Century. We used to say in our craft, "The rich always need more chairs." I was well-trained and became prosperous, innovative and well-regarded. My wife worked in a store that sold compotes, jams and other foods that had long been produced only in private homes. Although the concept received considerable derision--who needed to buy another person's recipes?--the truth was that most families had little or no access to the exotic fruits and produce needed to make these treats. Although people didn't brag about shopping in her store, it was quietly popular and very successful. It was a life of the senses. Friends and family would talk for hours about aromas, essences, flavors, nuances of food and wood. My hands were incredibly sensitive: I could read wood grains by running my palms over lumber. I loved the workshop's stenches of varnish, lacquer, paints, wood.

When my life was ending, I became very depressed. In spite of my enthusiasm for the church's pageantry and splendid architecture, I did not believe that I would survive death. All the people I had known and loved would be lost to me. When my time came to leave my body, my mother and father appeared and so did my best friend from childhood long past, and my three children who had not survived infancy. Additionally, one of my favorite patrons who had deeply believed in my artistry was there, and he said, "As you rise up, reach out your arm. I'll link the crook of my arm with you. Your mother will hold the other side. We'll all join together. We can move upward together." This startled me because I assumed that my arms would stay with my body which was still on the bed. I looked back and yes, there were my arms, there was my body lying on the bed. But what I felt was a wonderful jolt of living current moving from my companions through me. I understood in that second that no one is ever lost in the universe. You can have solitary time, but there is always a return to others. We are never alone for long. My deepest fears of dying and loosing others was erased by the experience of feeling connected. And then, in a long line, we flew forward into the after death experience.

Before I came out of my trance, Marilyn asked, "Why did you have this particular past life reveal itself today?" Well, I knew the answers to that question. "First, to remind me of a highly sensory, happy life full of productivity, and enthusiasm at a time when I am about to leave this life which has similar features. The other reason is that in writing my blog, I've reached the point where I want to start talking about dying and the after death experience. When I was a french furniture maker, I doubted the enduring relationships between people that connected them across lives. At my death, I had the experience of literally being joined with people I loved. I felt the human connections in my soul as I moved away from my body. By retrieving this memory, I can write about something in the blog that I've experienced rather than just present a speculation about what I imagine to be true."