A lot of life in one, that’s the great chance I had. A lot of life and many deaths too. The important thing is not to die, but to know how to resurrect. I did not know. My second big chance: it came by itself.
I was 12 years old in my parents’ garden when I came out of my body. All of a sudden, I saw everything, I knew everything. It did not move me too much. Since it happened to me, since I was fine, why worry? For a moment, eternity has opened. I floated fifteen meters above the ground while my body continued to hoe weeds. His sight made me uncomfortable. I looked elsewhere.
I saw, I heard, I smelled, I vibrated, I felt as if I had my body around me. But he was not there. I understood what I already knew: I am not my body. I live in it, I share its sufferings and its pleasures, but I am not this body. The proof: I’m out, but I’m not dead.
Then I went back to my body. I do not have a comment, but it was done. And I’m still alive. This is my third great chance. The collection of great opportunities in my life has never stopped since then. I met Micha, we got married. Fourth big chance. With her, I composed and recorded a rock opera. And lots of songs. Fifth great luck, none of them have been published. I keep them for my kin. We made the trip to Turkey, China, India, Carribean, Africa. How lucky still!
Micha gave me two boys, how lovable. I love them more than my life. Than my lives, with all their chances. I wrote lots of novels. None has been published. Lucky, they were very bad. I had lots of jobs, never I felt I was working. Journalist, author, translator, screenwriter, advertiser, communicator, as much luck for one man is abuse. I’m ashamed.
For any favor there is a price to pay. Since my first body outing, I received gifts. Healer. Seer. Time traveler. Especially that. I love to travel on the timeline. This is handy for someone who is rewriting human’s history. When I need an info on this or that time, I go and see on the spot. The chance I have, for pagan’s sake!
The warrior who travels all along his timeline is a wall-pass that shows us the way to go. (Lao Surlam)
You may ask: “What is the price to pay?” Forgetfulness. Oblivion. I forget my life in whole sections. I’m just jumping from one life to another. Between two lives, my memory is like a glacier. A slice of life collapses into the sea, where it will melt and dissolve. That’s why, since childhood, I note everything that happens to me in notebooks.
I was very lucky to meet Castaneda too. Not the man, but the work. I put my footsteps in his. And I discovered better than a guide. A voice that gives clues. An echo of what I experienced. A sum of landmarks, hours of fun. Forty years later, I still love him so much. I read it again with a happy heart. Too few books talk about those things that make up the fabric of our lives.
I have never met the man. Besides, does it exist? Did he exist? We have very little certainty about it. I know several shamelessly who say they have met him. They adorn themselves with the feathers of the peacock to amaze the pigeons. These affabulators are worse than thieves. A thief deprives us only of material goods. But these lyers! It is the spirit they steal from us.
The price to pay is forgetting. Since this body outing at age 12, I am what is called a watch. But not all the time. I did not want to feel different. During my prime, I put the blindfold on my third eye and plunged into the sleep of men. There is this phrase that I adore, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci – we only lend to the rich: “I woke up to see that all were still sleeping, so I went back to sleep.”
That’s what I did. Ordinary life laughs at dreamers, chiefly conscious ones. Society is wary of the awake. I did not grow up like Carlito in the chaparral of Mexico, but in the jungle of Paris. Difficult to develop an interior life in a big city. So I threw myself headlong into writing, painting, music. And the girls. With all that, I forgot who I really was. I melted into the mass. It kept me warm. Lucky enough.
All the holidays of my childhood, I spent them at Erquy. There I found sensations, memories, jolly parts of the dream. My first happiness, my first love, my first adventures, I had in this small spot of Britanny, where I have the chance to live still. Why did I receive so many gifts? I do not know. Do we only know something? What remains of all these lives? When I turned 60, I started writing to stop forgetting.
I have written since without stopping. It’s been ten years. The most beautiful years of my life. I lived alone for twenty years, I gave my heart very often, I died of love more than once, but as you see, I’m still here. And I will always be there for you, near you. Even when I will not be here anymore. In the sound of silence, on the sparkling sea, in the brightness of your eyes, on the flower of your blood, on your sensitive skin, in your loving heart, I will always be present.
One day, in your turn, you will leave. Wherever you go, I’ll be there. We will meet each other again. My best luck is you.
