Past Life or Eerie Serendipity?

There is a chapter in my new book, CODA that begins the story of a woman named Lyydia. She is the shaman of her village near the Arctic Circle long ago. As I wrote I saw Lyydia as clearly as if I stood next to her.

For a brief time years back, in a flurry of activity, I made figures. 14 inch tall women. One of these figures was a fur-wrapped shaman. I'd never done this art before or since. She now lives next to a warrior figure in the home of a good friend.

In the 90s, I painted a trio of paintings with the primary figure an old woman with long, unruly gray hair. These three paintings went to live in the homes of three good friends.

No similarity dawned on me until one afternoon at Higher Ground with The Sweetgrass Writers. The night before I had been reading a book from the university library about Saami Shaman drums. I am a nut for Saami drums. I turned to page 89, and there was a shaman drum pointer. I felt odd and dizzy, and I got up, opened the one place the brooch could be, and there it was. Made in Finland. It's undoubtedly newer than the 11th century and was probably my great-grandmother's pin.

I brought the book and the brooch to our writers' meeting next day, and was telling the story, when the owner of the coffeehouse asked if she could show the book and the brooch to a friend who was seated at a table across the room.

We settled in at our table, glancing over at the further table as Vanna explained the story, and the woman held the brooch and closed her eyes. There was a whispered discussion. Vanna said, "No, really, she'll want to know. I know she will."

I said, "please tell us."

The woman, Aileen, came over, gave the brooch back, sat and told what she had seen from the brooch.

An old woman, with long knotted gray hair, wearing a fur, and leggings on a frozen terrain spotted with rocks and spindly pine trees. She is alone. She is the shaman of her tribe, but she (here Aileen grabbed her throat) cannot tell all she knows. Something prevents her.

One of our writers whispered, "Lyydia." Aileen smiled and said "is your name Lyydia?" I said, "no, it's Linda."

She said, "But the woman I saw was you. I recognized you."

To Beckie: In This Life or Any Other

My best friend Beckie and I met on August 12, 1995 at 8:30 a.m. Before lunch, I offered an introduction, as bold a move as anything I'd done since 3rd grade.

It was a bad day for me. It was a first day at a new job. I was grieving about my youngest niece starting day care, after being in my care for 3 years. I was close to tears all morning. It was a job I did not want, for a company I could not possibly like. My workspace was isolated, in a big room that was gray. It was hot and humid and I was miserable.

And there was Beckie. She had bronze hair, and purple-brown eyes. She was serene and glowing. She will laugh to read this, when she can read again, but I'm sticking to that word. She emanated. I walked right up to her and asked "Would you like to go have a cigarette?"

We meet people occasionally and wonder if we haven't met somewhere before. Years later, raising a glass of congratulations to each other on the anniversary of our meeting, we are bemused at how quickly the friendship formed, grew deeper.

Beckie and I didn't think about that in those early months. We enjoyed as much time in each other's company as we could. We ate lunch together, we finagled our workspaces to be together, and had breakfast on Sundays at Clairpointe. We shopped for shoes. We laughed.

We talked. Beckie has a functionally thoughtful, deeply grooved brain. If we have met before; if reincarnation is true, Beckie brought the previous brain with her each time she showed up on Earth again. Supernumerary brain. Her life view is ancient; her responses, fresh. Being in her company is like taking a sunlight shower, a moon bath. She is wise, reasoned, and soft-spoken.

She is a humanist, and an excellent human.

We are both women of strong opinion, and commonality of opinion makes our relationship satisfying, but we are unconditionally devoted to defending each other, whether we agree or not. People who choose to counter Beckie have both of us to face, and vice versa. Beckie has the better diplomatic skills and has physically stood between me and the object of my ire more than once. Where I am volatile, she is steady; my weakness is countered by her strength.

She has a scientific mind, analytical and crystalline. And a warm, accessible soul. She can multitask with each of her otherworldly brains separately, and in combination with her soul. With two young sons growing fast in her home, she could still focus on designing and laying out a college textbook on ancient Greek papyrii. In Greek.

Beckie is quietly accepting of my dabbling in metaphysics and general Piscean goofballiness.

Yet it was Beckie who wrote a note suggesting that perhaps we had met in another life, and more than once, and maybe I might want to write about that?

For two years after I was diagnosed with cancer, Beckie carried my consciousness for me; a sacred and profound oath of friendship, to be there in the world for me while I was not capable.

I love her unconditionally. Fiercely. Eternally.

Beckie is our Mother Earth; majestic, mysterious, magical. She is the rock that will take on the hard place if someone she loves is in between.

I wonder if the ancients may have assigned to their deity of choice the qualities Beckie embodies in her human form.

She causes me to want to be the best possible person I can be.

Two years ago she survived an aortic dissection, and another valve replacement (she had heart surgery when she was four) and she has stoically dealt with the medications, the body weakness and sleeplessness she has endured coming back from those surgeries.

Today, in the surgical intensive care unit, she has just been taken off dialysis for the day, and we are profoundly grateful for this good news. She is still entubated, struggling with pancreatitis, quietly fighting to control her body once again. She has been there for three weeks.

Without asking her permission, I will carry her consciousness for her, when she is unable during this journey. Hopefully, we will raise our water glasses to each other in August, when the anniversary of the day we met again arrives.

As she has taught me, I will focus on being stronger, accepting, and radiating hope; abandoning anxiety, false control and rage. If I've stuck one hesitant toe in the waters of heavenly energy before, now I will immerse all and summon the light to be at her bedside with love.