Visiting Old Friends and Places

     A friend, I’m calling Jennifer, died a few weeks ago, and though we had only known each other for a few years, in another sense we had known each other for who knows how many countless ages.

     Meeting her was one of those deja vu experiences that we all have and wonder over.   It’s seems foolish to say, but we knew  each other as soon as we met.   It was like meeting an old school friend, and our conversation, right from the start,  was as if we had last spoken only a few days before,  and with no ‘catching up’, we just began talking.

     Deja vu is a French phrase that means ‘already seen’.  It happens in many ways. There are those who, on some vacation tour, have entered an ancient building and knew it so well they could have been the Tour Guide.  And perhaps a better one, too.

     I was in a Study Group once, right here in Salt Lake, where such ideas were being explored, and a man who had traveled to most of the world business centers, told of when he was in Greece, saw the remains of an ancient stone building and there right amongst many people, he suddenly began sobbing, emotionally torn to pieces, because he knew the place.

     Long ago he had walked between those columns and he continued to cry  as he mourned at how much, so dear to him, had been destroyed by time, and, at the same time, cried that so much of what he knew so well, still remained.

     And then, getting right down to the nitty-gritty, past or present, he wondered, and asked, if the Rest Rooms today, were where they had been long ago.  They weren’t. 

     Well, that is how Jennifer and I were.  And it was not a buried memory of this life, or a movie or story, for she had been born and raised a member of another culture and on another continent,  yet, we, and it sounds so foolish to keep repeating it, but it’s just the truth.  We simply knew each other, and that was that.

     Of course, it’s easy for me to accept, for I believe in reincarnation and that everyone of us has lived many other lives, and when we have such ‘already seen’ moments, it’s because we are meeting someone, or seeing some place, we knew closely in one of those other lives.  Centuries or more ago. 

     There are experts who think these occurrences happen because our brain cells get ‘screwed’ up and make us visualize or recall some scene we’ve read about or seen in some movie.  Or, others, just as expert,  think that we have some kind of seizure that does things to our brain, making us see or think that we know the scene or person in front of us.

     Or, there are  millions, like me, who think we’ve lived many lives and that we’re meeting today, in today’s life, someone or some place, that was important to us at some other time.  And nothing to do with brain cells getting stuck or going off their track.

     We all have our own ideas, but Jennifer and I felt the same. We laughed and  it was a glorious ‘coming together’.   What did it matter where or when ???  We were here and now, and it was a good.

     I am using a different name, culture and continent for her birth, and I’ve left out many of the happenings we both shared, because she has a family that might not understand my words.  

     However, my family is long accustomed to my way of thinking and so I tell my tales openly and happily.  And they openly and happily accept and love me.  Life is good, and why Jennifer and I met again for a few short years is something neither of us could know. Nothing momentous happened, but it was good. 

     Books by the score have been written around  deja vu.  Songs , movies and TV shows all have been centered upon this ordinary, yet odd happening.  I am not alone . . . and neither was Jennifer.  Or you ? ? ?

     And I don’t think it has anything to do with wild brains cells.  Instead, it just might be that our brains are in touch with reality. And I mean, real reality.