just finished an interesting book, You and I Together, which deals with reincarnation. in brief, two souls keep reappearing together, as man and woman, in love but separated violently and dramatically, repeatedly. Finally in this current life they find each other. The psychologist is vexed; he's spent a lifetime convincing people that "regression therapy" is good for dealing with your own subconscious, not your past lives. But he too has to admit that it appears to be real.

the book was a page-turner, and that's why i went through it so quickly, but it left me with lots of questions. for the record i believe in reincarnation, and i'll also buy the theory that the five or six people we deal with most closely in this life, have been with us in different forms in other lives. we could recognize each other, if we weren't programmed not to. we could unravel a tangled web of relationships, but we have conveniently forgotten everything about the previous one.

which brings me to the first question: is it possible that there are people out there who don't forget everything about the previous one? who can, for some reason, remember all the details of a house they've never set foot in? who can identify, in another person, someone who they have known "forever?" I think it's at least possible though i won't get sidetracked into proving it, or trying.

but then, why would life make you a woman every single time, and make the same frustrating and deeply wounding experience, time after time, with the same guy? that, it seems to me, is not how it works. or, it hits you six times, separating man and woman, then voila lets you be together and have love win. that also, is not how it works. not in my opinion. it seems to me it would only come out ok if you did something karmically regenerating in the next-to-last life, and also, the only reason you would have gotten punished or tortured so severely in five lives in a row would be something very karmic, very demonstrable, something with a reason for it.

i like the idea that love can carry over from one era's circumstances to another, so that, basically, the two people have the same connection, an enduring one. damaged yes but still there. five stars for all "love wins" books. as jimi hendrix says, meet you in the next life, don't be late.

pouring down rain here. it's landing on piles of unraked leaves, muddy paths, places where the dog's been digging. it's gray, cold, wet, dismal. i'm glad to be inside, dry and warm. may i stay that way.