most likely a brief pulse of low wattage

A past life? More than possible. . . but requires a story. My best friend, an archaelogist with Chicago’s Oriental Institute, had “pull” to get into Iran a few years back. A first trip in great heat, she was nonetheless required to be covered in black from head to toe, making her almost invisible or so it would seem. (Her 2-page photo was in National Geographic in Iran). BUT why then, on her return, would she tell me that she felt drawn to the place and its people - as she put it - “like this had been my home”. Travelling to digs with her small group, this older woman found herself singled out over and over as they walked thru ancient towns. The others were not noticed. But with only her face showing, men would come out onto cobblestone roadways, politely handing her a single rose. Old women would come out of homes, and in Persian (Farsi) would take her arm, asking her to come in for tea. In several ancient towns, she would know the way - and yet she had no map. She said she recognized the place from something far back in her brain and longed to stay. The group of archaelogists with her noticed, commented, as only she had been singled out, only she could say “if we turn on this dirt road…” All had travelled the world in their quest for ancient ruins and new sites to dig. Nowhere else had she been singled out for notice. Nowhere else had she felt so at ease with the feeling that she might have been here before. My friend is renowned, brilliant, not known to make statements to make you roll your eyes. Not ever before. She, like I, do not try to understand, for we know that some things that happen in life are beyond our comprehension. But, at times, we do try to make some sense of it. Why would this American woman be offered that single rose with the beatific smile that told her she was special - and in more than one town - when other women were along? Why was the kind invitation offered as if she was a long-lost friend come back? Why could she identify places, roads, in certain ancient towns - and felt like she had “come home” again? That Iran may have been “home”. We want to be skeptical. And yet, this may not be the first time we have heard a similar story told. Perhaps - perhaps, you might be more open to this if you can hear this woman speak, see her eyes - eyes that look like they can see some far light that we can’t when she speaks of this - and realize that this is not “just a woman down the street” but a renowned woman that is not just taken in in life. She is far too smart. We will never know the truth. Not in this life. But, for the first time, like my archaelogist friend, I have pondered. The story has stirred my mind - as well as hers - more than a little. It has opened the tiniest crack in a door that had remained closed before this. . for this is a story that has no answer but lets a bit of light, questionable or not, in on the question.

Briliant people from Einstein to Teilhard de Chardin were fascinated with the juncture of science and spirituality and wanted to reconcile the two. Einstein spent the last 40 years of his life on his ‘theory of everything’ which today is what String Physics, in part, attempts to do. The fact is that we are electromagnetic light, the strongest of the four physics forces, which never dies but changes forms. Coupled with believing that St. Joan of Arc was the most outstanding human that ever existed, and having read all of her trial transcipts/experiences/beliefs, makes it easy for me to believe that we exist in other ways. I’ve always felt I had another existence in some form and in France because that is where I feel most at home and most myself. BTW: This is very interesting by Mark Twain on Joan of Arc…esp further down. http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/stj05003.htm