Has my Soul group failed in its vision?
[Soulful Experiences] Holding space for healing; seeing this historical time in the scope of the longer Soul Journey
An unintended entry into Soul memory territory
The first of a longer series of personal healing processes, digging into past Soul imprints, happened unintentionally and led me to moving soul revelations.
I didn’t quite know what I was getting into when, during a stay of a few days in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in the 1980s, I signed up for a workshop on healing perinatal experiences. I was expecting that this intensive would be a course, but the American therapist facilitating the event (I did not write down his name) took us straight into a series of guided journeys that caught me by surprise.
Not really prepared for something experiential and so deeply moving, I was touched and I welcomed what unfolded for both myself and other participants.
A place that enraptured me with joy and nostalgia
This was, I think, my second time (of numerous) in the Netherlands. The first time I landed there for research related to my work as a designer, I had no idea that being there would trigger meaningful recollections of my soul’s memories and eventually change my life direction towards the path of the flowers.
Landing from a long flight, and after a night’s sleep, I started walking the streets of that city and was flooded with a sense of joy mixed with nostalgia. I had a feeling that I had liked this place so very much, and that it was painful to leave.
I felt such a bond with that place, a unique blend of joy mixed with deep loss. Later, I found that over the years I had unknowingly collected magazine pictures and even children’s book illustrations (that I framed) of those same narrow streets and canals that I now could not get enough of. Further glimpses into these strands of my soul memory continued to be revealed in the following years.
Echoes of the Holocaust truly terrified me
The other thing I remember was that, during that time, there was a TV series, originally called Secret Army, that I felt so disturbed by that I had to cover my eyes and ears under the blankets to try not to see while my husband, at the time, would watch it all. In Portuguese, the title was translated as “The Underground Network of Freedom.” This series depicted underground networks during World War II that helped protect and return Allied airmen. All echoes of that historical time terrified me.
I encourage you to play this for the sake of the music and atmosphere. Artists do have the gift of transporting us to times and places in such vivid ways…. Overall, I could never watch movies, even the best ones, that covered that historical time.
A Journey to the womb took me to times before this life
The guided regression into the time in the womb before birth, in an unintended and spontaneous way, took me to a space and time before conception. I experienced these perceptions as being from a recent past life. In the same journey, I also gained a sense (without details) of the ending of that life and of my soul in the space in between lives.
There, I was gently held and moved through a reflection on how I could now integrate it all in a healing way. Through a touching process of speaking with my soul guidance, I was shown that I had now recreated all that had been so dramatically lost: I now had a family, I had children, I now had a life and all had been rebuilt.
All of this unfolded during that workshop, in which a circle of people were guided to listen to what was being shown to them from memories held deep within. A few experienced life in the womb, while others shared touching and meaningful insights into past lives and interdimensional transitions.
As for me, I was shown how the dramatic end of that life during the Holocaust was over and that this was a new one. That I was alive!
I felt comforted and cried many tears that washed and relieved burdens in my soul.
Beyond the Ashes
In the following years, further pivotal healing moments got me closer to how strained these strands of soul memory were that I had been harboring in my psyche. My quest to integrate these evocations led to crucial moments of holding myself in gentle warmth and self-care while releasing soul trauma, grief, and pain.
Ultimately, I embraced the awareness of having witnessed a spectrum of the worst and most degrading aspects of the human journey. I knew I had felt a resolute determination to come back.
This was the late eighties. For some time, I searched for validation. I read about stories of people who saw themselves as having lived during the Holocaust and of having come back soon after. There was even a book called “Beyond the Ashes” (in reference to the concentration camps in soul memories people shared) written by a Rabbi who had individuals contact him, bringing dreams and insights: he became the receptor of many stories. I have not searched on this again since then.
At one point, I had a vision of being in between lives as part of a Soul Group coming into this life. We all shared a similar vow and intention: never again.
This solitary experience still feels very meaningful
For me, this has been a solitary experience, one I never shared in this kind of public way until now. Deep within, all of this continues to feel very meaningful.
I wonder how you as a reader feel about this. Any of you resonate with this experience? Have you had feelings of having lived through significant times that marked you as a soul? How did you experience this?
Retrieving the baby from the bathwater
For almost two decades now I have come to question numerous tenets of “New Age” thinking I had hoped were true, retaining only that which resonates deeply with a core sense of what feels right. In this process, I have let go of “certainties”, of formulaic predictions, and I continue to review the foundations of all beliefs.
Emerging from this questioning, I hold even more strongly a perspective on the scope of the journey of the Soul, that resonates with all fibers of my being.
I feel I am a soul embodied in form and I hold a strong sense of having had past lives. This comes from what I have personally experienced, as well as from what I have observed in other humans that I live or work with.
I also feel we are part of Soul Groups, that share innermost purpose and commitment.
Has my Soul group failed in its vision?
Some new age tenets that I had hoped were true said we were inevitably moving towards a loving era. I do not see assurance that we are inevitably ascending.
For more than five years now, I have been deeply concerned about the unfolding of events. As you learned from many of my posts, including this one, I know and recognize the signature of authoritarianism. I stay informed, study the present, and read history, and in the last years, I have identified alarming signs of what was being woven that eventually brought us to where we are now.
But truly, I never imagined I would be living to see this fast of a takeover of fascism. The pace of this is unprecedented, traumatic, and hard to bear.
You can now understand the choice of the title I gave to this piece. I hold this as an open question. I don’t know. How does this feel to you?
Caring for those who care
As a reader here, I assume that, like me, you are determined to be part of the healing.
Each one of us has a calling, and for me, at this time, I feel the best I can do is inspire and care for those who care. These are very hard times, and we certainly need as much soul support and soul nurturing as we can get.
I will keep doing the best I can, as always, carrying on through all of this.
But it is hard.
May the flowers continue to be loyal companions as we move through these times.
………………………………
I began writing this post in January 2025, on Martin Luther King’s day. On that day, someone posted this MLK quote:
“We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”
You are not alone my comrade. I too recall the holocaust and persecution as Native American chief leading my tribe off a cliff to avoid slaughter. We are many, armed with the wisdom of the flowers, to heal these memories in the collective. Spiritual warriors who heal souls. Thank you for arming me with the Scotch Broom to have the courage to fight at your side.
I'm not sure what to think about these times. They seem unsettled and strange. Yet I find these pockets of community where I talk about the strangeness and something settles. The wisdom of the forest pulls me deeper into the mystery, and I find myself craving further adventures, farther out. The flowers that are waking up have some of the answers, if only we have the space and courage to listen.