A Cosmic Trip Down Memory Lane

It took me years to figure out that not everyone wants to talk about what happens when you die. Come to find out – most people would prefer having a root canal. 

Personally, I’ve always been fascinated by cosmology – curious about the big picture. For as long as I can remember, the esoteric has pulled at me like the tide. In fact, I’ve found that I’m much more at home talking about the nature of reality than I am the weather. And so when I was called to be of service in the shamanic tradition, I felt right at home. I not only had an outlet to indulge my passion for all things mysterious, but I could explore the ethers in an attempt to answer some of my burning cosmic questions.

Early in my shamanic explorations I had an experience that would have a profound impact on the way I view and live my life. During this particular dreamtime adventure I found myself in the upper realms of the spirit world in search of the Hall of Records, a library housing the Akashic archives. My goal:  To find my oversoul’s ‘lifebook.’ This book would contain a record of every lifetime my soul has ever lived or will live.

The Hall of Records appeared to me as a massive silvery, white Grecian-style library. Many stairs led to a large arched entryway. Once inside, my eyes followed the high marble walls up to a filigreed gold dome ceiling.

There were hundreds of spirits milling about. I tried to get the attention of one of the librarians – a tall and sinewy violet- colored spirit with an incredibly pointy nose. She kept giving me the “wait one minute” gesture.  When the librarian eventually glided over to me, I explained who I was and why I was there. Her eyes rolled and her head bobbed impatiently side to side as if to say, “Come on sweetheart, I don’t have all day.” As soon as I got to the reason for my visit, the librarian turned and led me down a long hallway. We passed two doors and entered the third. The room was immense and smelled of old books. There were aisles and aisles of floor to ceiling shelves holding thousands of thick and ancient tomes. The librarian told me to wait while she retrieved my lifebook. She returned quickly, placed my book on a thick wooden table, and left the room.

            I stared at my lifebook for awhile feeling a little apprehensive about discovering its contents. Taking a deep breath, I opened the book to the page marked by a thin red ribbon and saw a picture of myself looking at a large book. The image came to life and popped off the page like a three dimensional hologram. I was awestruck when I realized I was seeing a miniature version of myself - at that very moment - looking at my lifebook in the Hall of Records. It was surreal. To think that I could flip forward a few pages to see what my future held made my head spin. Perhaps an adventure for another time . . .

            Instead, I flipped back to an earlier time in my current life. I stopped on the day of my first wedding. Again, the image popped off the page and became three dimensional. I looked down on the small wedding ceremony held in my father’s back yard in Tucson as if I were observing a colony of ants. My gaze stopped on the tiny version of myself standing in front of my husband-to-be, and suddenly, I was inside her, looking out of her eyes. I saw and felt everything she was experiencing at that moment. I felt her attempts to drown out her doubt and appear happy on her big day. Her panicked thoughts and justifications raced through my mind taking me instantly back to that anguished day. “What am I doing? I don’t feel anything for him anymore. He’s a decent guy. Maybe it won’t be so bad.” I pulled my attention away from her and was outside the scene again looking down on it.

This time I focused on my future sister-in-law and my perspective changed again. As before, I found myself inside my sister-in-law, perceiving everything she was experiencing at that moment. It was the ultimate experience of empathy. I understood how truly happy she was to welcome me into her family, and then I winced as I realized how disappointed she would be in 10 months when I ended the marriage and severed all ties with her family.

My spirit teacher appeared, pulling my focus back into the library room. She explained that this process is used to review our lives after we die. We not only get to re-experience every moment of our lives, but we get to experience the impact that our actions, words, thoughts and feelings had on everyone and everything around us. My teacher told me that we will literally feel what it was like to be on the receiving end of us. It’s during our life review that we take complete responsibility for the way we lived our lives when we were alive. “There’s no judgment passed on you for the way you chose to relate to others and your environment. The only judgment you’ll experience is the judgment you pass on yourself,” my teacher explained. “Humbling yourself in this way creates deep awareness and invites immense healing. This is how your soul evolves.”

This preview of my life review really drove home the notion that what I ‘do’ while I’m human isn’t nearly as important as how I decide to ‘be.’ I’m certainly not a saint, but since my lifebook experience I seem to have a more heightened awareness of how my words and actions might be affecting those around me, and it’s my hope that this awareness is helping me to make wiser, more responsible decisions.

Additionally, I’ve found that I’m more at ease when I believe someone is refusing to acknowledge that his or her unkind words or unsavory behavior has wounded me in some way. I trust that acknowledgement will come – it just may not happen while the person is alive.

With some of my cosmic curiosity satisfied, I can now spend my free mental time wondering what the world would be like if everyone had the opportunity to sample the life review process while still alive – to be “Ebenezer Scrooged” a la Charles Dickens. I think it would be good medicine . . . perhaps even better than a root canal !