We are in New Zealand! This is a place that stayed under my radar for a long time, alternating between being "so far away" in my mind and "not that interesting," at least not when compared to more exotic places like India.

I couldn't have been more wrong.  Oh, it's far away, all right.  But it's a gorgeous country with lots of spiritual significance and we've only as yet explored a wee bit of it.  Matthew has been perfecting his Kiwi accent while I am determined to sample every odd-sounding culinary delicacy (today was chicken-flavored potato chips).  I am convinced that you can best get to know a culture by eating its food!

We had the pleasure of going to a local new age event (a body, mind, and spirit expo), to connect with the local healing community.  There was a Maori couple there who were beautiful to watch, healers who worked as a team together in utter abandon.  I could see and feel some of the energy they were accessing—so old and so close to the Earth—but they both said they weren't really sure what they were dong, exactly.  Tears streamed down her face as she held her hands above their client's solar plexus, while he remained at the head, lost in some ancient energy and completely in the moment.  Beautiful.

We've had more rain than sun since we've been here, unusual for late summer like now, so when the sun comes out—as it is today—it dazzles and invites us to be outside, drinking it in.

I have taken to running to the end of our street, about a mile, where it ends just at the river.  I run right up to the river, sit on a sandy place in the sun and meditate facing the tall striated cliff opposite, and then run back home.  It's immensely satisfying.  It's a wide river sometimes, as evidenced by the expanse of dry riverbed that stretches far from the water's edge.  The cliff at the far side of the river sometimes crumbles a bit into the water, sand sliding down with a splash.

There is another cliff in my memory.  Boot Hill.

The grassy side of the hill was thought to have once been a burial place for rustlers (likely only in a child's imagination, but the thought persists for me), but the cliff towered above the arroyo that continued downstream and provided a maze of trails perfect for bike riding.  It was our summer play place, mine and my brother's, and I pedaled hard to keep up with him.

One day we climbed the cliff.  My brother scrambled up nimbly, easily placing his hands and feet here and there in tiny toeholds, then peered down at me from the top as I began my dizzying way up the steep slope.  About halfway up, I froze.  Down was an impossibility, certain death from a fall of that height, and up was just as impossible.  I couldn't move.  I would stay there forever, eventually my family forgetting about me in the bustle of their daily lives.  An empty place would stand at the table.  My pink-blanketed bed would remain neatly made, indefinitely.  I would simply dry up and become the dust of the cliff, the sand below.

My arms and legs were trembling, tired from trying to hold on.

My brother climbed down.  He was just above me.  "Put your hand there," he directed, pointing, "Then put your foot right there."  There was a lifeline.  I wouldn't fade into the cliff after all.  Once I moved a little, I found it was easier to move more.  I was safe again.

Sitting in meditation pose today, there in the sun and facing another cliff, I was brought back into that moment from so many years ago.  I could remember it vividly.  Sure, the cliff of my childhood was perhaps only a third as tall as the one I sat facing today, but in my memory it was taller.  I could feel my fear, and my relief.  I could almost hear the trickle of the water of the arroyo.

Memory is an interesting thing.

Polaris has told us—as others have as well—that time is simultaneous.  Therefore, what we experience as memory is actually occurring at that time.  This is why we are often so stirred by glimpses of our past when prodded from the present, because they are both happening in the Now.

If we like, we can use this ability.  We are giving ourselves gifts of remembrance like this all the time, little signs, tiny breadcrumbs that we leave along the trail as reminders to pay attention.  There was something for me today in my memory of climbing Boot Hill.  That's why the memory came in so sharply and distinctly; it was my gift to myself to simply pay attention.

You leave yourself these breadcrumbs as well.  So many different things help us evoke other times that are significant to us: scent, images, physical feelings, emotions.  We have many ways of accessing all the times that we are experiencing right now, and if we only begin to pay attention to those many breadcrumbs, then we are in closer connection to ourselves on a soul level.  Our souls do not experience time in linear fashion the way that we do as the aspect of a soul in human form; we need linearness in order to make sense of physical reality.  But allowing ourselves to open to our experience as we experience it on a soul level brings us that much closer into alignment with who we truly are.

Next time you remember an event from your past vividly, pay attention.  You are telling yourself something through that memory.  Allow it to unfold in your mind completely.  Allow yourself to feel all the associated emotions and physical sensations that the memory brings with it.  Allow yourself the possibility that doing so will reveal to you a part of yourself you hadn't known about before.

With practice, you'll be noticing memories from other lifetimes as well.  They are all being lived in the Now, just as your present lifetime is, and often there are important messages you send yourself from those experiences as well.  Dreams are another way of connecting with the inner you.  Remember that thoughts do not come to you randomly; you are creating your thoughts and with your thoughts you create your reality.  Write things down that seem significant, and above all trust that your process is what is right for you.

My memory of Boot Hill was about moving through fear.  It's easy to become stuck when we're frightened, and my tendency has been to simply stop when things feel overwhelming, but time and again, just like at Boot Hill, I find that once I get moving again things flow and the fear subsides.

What are your memories telling you today?

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