Friends, soul writers, mystics, and lovers of prayer,

Does the word reincarnation scare you? Creep you out? Bore you? It’s not a word I like. I rarely if ever use it. Probably because Christianity made it such a big bad no-no. According to the dominant religion, we get one shot and we better not blow it. Or else.

This “one life, one shot” idea is probably the number one lie we’ve been fed. Along with woman being responsible for the “fall” and committing the first sin. These two horror stories are so interwoven, they can’t be untangled.

It’s essential—and wildly freeing—to realize they are lies. Lies created for a specific reason: to control us.

All western patriarchal religions shove the one life-one shot lie down our throats. And the eastern religions don’t help much either. Although they acknowledge reincarnation, they make it something you are supposed to work hard to avoid. After all, life on earth is hard and full of suffering so why would you want to be here.

But if you didn’t achieve nirvana, if you didn’t free yourself from all those sticky attachments while you were here, then, guess what, you’re coming back. And your return will be burdened with the weight of all that not-so-good karma you accumulated. Those mistakes you made in this lifetime (and in a gazillion others) make it necessary for you to return in a harder human life or even a “lesser” lifeform, like maybe an insect. Oh thanks. I never use the word karma. To me it feels like just another word for judgment and sin.

And sin is a lie. Judgment is a lie. Nobody is coming to “judge the living and the dead.”

We are accumulating quite a list of lies here, aren’t we!

• one life
• one shot
• original sin (woman's fault, of course)
• the fall from the garden
• karma
• judgment

Mind you, I grew up believing all those lies. They were laid out for me in no uncertain terms in a prayer we had to say every day: The Apostles Creed.

Thankfully all these lies blew up in my face when I went through an intense 40 day initiation into the Sacred Feminine at the end of 2014.

Sophia, the Sacred Feminine, landed full force in my life. And in my body. And in a flash, She cleared away all the lies I’d been fed. Overnight, my life became holy. And my body? That body that Christianity told me was dirty and sinful? My body, Her body, was transmuted to the holy of holies.

I watched in awe as all those lies, five thousand years of lies, began to circle the drain.

And a long sweet adventure to awaken to who I really am—and who we all are—began. An adventure that deepens every day. If karma is real, then, you know what, I’m thrilled to carry the sweet sweet song of the Sacred Feminine, the Mother, the Queen of the Aeon into the next lifetime. And the next. And the next.

But meanwhile, I’m here.

And suddenly I really really want to know about reincarnation. If there is no one life, if you and I have been here countless times before, wouldn’t it be wise—and great fun—to get a sense for all those previous adventures.

A few questions tickling me right now are:

• Who have I been before?
• Where have I lived?
• Who have I loved?
• What have I explored?
• What joys and sorrows have I carried?

And big ones for me as a prayer artist:

• How have I prayed?
• What was prayer like before patriarchy squeezed the juice out of it?
• What truth do I carry at a bone and blood level about original sacred ecstatic prayer?

And even bigger ones for me as a mystic witch:

• How many times have I been a witch?
• What does it really mean to be a witch?
• What magic did I know then—and know now—about the sacred calling of being a witch?

When you ponder reincarnation, what questions surface for you?

Wouldn’t you like to know a bit about your past lives?

The surprising news is you can. And it’s not that hard. The clues are right there. Right in front of your face. You just have to know where to look.

And to help us know where to look, we have the guidance of the great magician of the dead, Perdita Finn. I’ve been blessed to host Perdita in three previous prayer intensives, each one more magical than the one before.

On Tuesday, March 22, while we’re still under the mystical energy of the Vernal Equinox, we will gather in the Theatre of the Miraculous to begin Perdita’s brand-new adventure to find clues to the long story of our souls.

I’ve been meeting with Perdita to prepare, and thanks to her questions and stories and enticements, I am beginning to see a few clues in my own life. And with each discovery, I fall more and more in love with my life, my sacred purpose, my holy work, and the precious members of the communities who gather to explore these mysteries with me. In other words—you!

Here is a taste of some of the clues Perdita will help us recognize and interpret:

names

• your soul chose your name, so what secrets and clues are woven into your names, especially your middle name
• what numeric wisdom is woven into the letters (turns out Gematria isn’t a lost art)

childhood

• what did you love to do as a kid, what were your favorite stories, toys, books, obsessions
• what did you want to be when you grew up
• what magical powers did you know you had
• what secrets did you keep from adults
• what strange things did you or your children or grandchildren say that prove they remember past lives

recurring patterns

• what’s the pattern in the addresses, cities, and streets—all the places your feet have loved
• what symbols or shapes or doodles keep showing up
• what’s the pattern in your birthday and other important dates or numbers

strange attractors

• why do you love certain music, art, foods, colors...
• why did you study what you studied
• what compels you in the literature you read
• why do you love to travel to certain places and not others
• why do you meet someone and feel instant attraction or repulsion
• why do you keep returning to a particular idea or problem

fears

• why does your body refuse to go somewhere or be with someone
• what irrational fears seem to surface out of nowhere
• what irrational feelings of shame do you carry

mysteries

• why do you burst into tears hearing a song, reading a story, looking at a picture…
• what do you feel compelled to do even when it makes no sense
• what messages are you receiving that you don’t understand, and even try to avoid
• what are your dreams trying to tell you
• what ideas and people come “out of the blue”

if you knew you were coming back

• how would your life change right now
• what would you do to create a world you want to return to

Those questions are just a wee taste of the truly magical mystical adventure Perdita is creating for us in The Long Story of Our Souls.

An adventure that will sweep away any vestiges of fear you might have about death and rebirth.

We open next Tuesday, March 22, and meet for 4 Tuesdays (Wednesdays for the UK Watch Party) and close with a sacred celebration under a full moon on Sunday, April 16.

Come and play. It'll be such a joy to share our soul's clues with one another.

The Long Story of Our Souls 

to picking up the clues to the long long stories our souls have been telling 

Janet

PS: I think it's not an accident that this is week 12. Twelve is the hanged man in tarot. Knowing the holy truth about death and rebirth truly does invert everything patriarchy has told us!

PSS: The Sacred Feminine gave me a perfect "hanged man" replacement for the apostles' creed: The Queen's Love. I'll bring it to all our gatherings.

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