Today I am back at my ‘station’, as we used to say at work, but being retired this station is now of my own choosing and making. Yesterday I returned home from my visit to Fairmont, where I spent six days with Thomas and Gabriella. That was an enjoyable visit with friends, complemented by good weather, fine cooking, pleasant company and the unmitigated sense experience of nature in this ‘camping’ setting.

I put the single quotes around the camping, since I was staying in a large fifth wheel trailer. But, at seventy seven (77) the pup tent is in permanent storage and its style camping has become a thing of the past, enjoyable though it always was in good weather!

Unfortunately for my friends, they’ll have to move by the end of this season, after a six year stay at this site! I was invited there the first year and twice more, besides this year’s visit, so I am smarting too.

I also experienced this visit as a parting since it was forty (40) years ago that we, as a family, were introduced to the Windermere and its valley during the July long weekend. This was on the generous invitation of my late colleague Harry to use his cottage, since he felt that we, with two small boys, should not be confined to the thirtieth floor of Concord Place then.

That first weekend gave us our first taste of hot springs, the heat of that valley and the charms of its natural beauty. This experience was supplemented with a second stay, now with my late parents who were over from Holland that summer. We rented that same cottage for that occasion in either late July or early August.

The trip through Kootenay park yesterday made me recall the very first one of the many that were to follow, mostly summer trips but also fall and winter. We, my former wife Ina and I, even spent a sky weekend at Fairmont one winter as a couple, where we watched young girls make angels in the snow as we had dinner (inside:))!

Traveling yesterday as I made my way back to Calgary for the ‘umpteenth’ time, it was that many memories passed the stage as I rolled along number 93 highway.

These latter recollection taken together with the former of the kind of good bye that I made in Fairmont at my friends’ campsite earlier, made me ask: ‘What am I doing here with all these recalled scenes and experiences?’

“Integrating”, was the intuited reply that came to me. I am integrating my experiences then, by re-experiencing the emotions of that time as I recall the events from so many years ago; that was the conclusion that formed in me.

Later yesterday evening, as I was getting ready for bed, a second aspect of this process surfaced into my awareness as follows. First, from earlier insights I knew that with memories come the associated emotions most of the time, but not always, as I have noted. This time the emotions were definitely present.

I now combined this earlier insight of mine about memories and their associated emotions, with the previous - Tuesday - night’s discussion between Thomas and I regarding reincarnation.

We agreed that reincarnation was the most reasonable explanation of prodigy type talent, such as Thomas was recalling as an instance of special talent. He referred to the case of a six year old Chinese-Canadian child playing Franz List’s piano works with the Calgary Philharmonic. We both agreed that without prior acquired ability, a regular six year old just would not have had enough time to learn such skills.

Continuing with my thoughts of last evening, it is for many years now that I accept reincarnation as a given for a number of reasons and accumulated evidence.

I have a number of explanation for the fact that we do not recall our previous life time experiences. The main reason for this relates to the fact that experience results in memories with associated emotions, as I explained above in the Diary section, but that these memories remain blocked due unprocessed emotive energies - free radical type energies.

For a prodigy or as psychologist like to say ‘innate’ type ability, my insight of last night was the following. The person with innate ability recalls the skills, but not the associated emotions. That kind of separation also occurs in the training of athletes or specialist. Traumatic experiences also show incidences of separation - repression - between emotion and recall.

My conclusion then, is that we can access learned skills without having to also deal with previous life emotions This is possible as in the above noted instances, because acquired skills can become separated from the learning experience and its history of memories and relating emotions.

However, in order to recall my own previous life experience as a person, I need to go through the process of integrating memories and emotions within the life as I live that. That is the integration process as was experiencing as I said good bye to the Windermere valley and I recalled the experiences dating back to 1973, travelling back to Calgary through Kootenay park yesterday afternoon.

This observation fosters also an explanation for the continuing development in culture and technology over time in our collective human experience. Technology and skills yes, but improvements in dealing with emotional issues is lagging behind.

Our reluctance to integrate emotions and feeling values in a conscious way results in their uncontrollable expression in primitive and ill adapted forms. This lack of skilled adaptation is evident in the way we address conflicts between peoples defending old attitudes and identities, in our human past and our world of today.
<9:29am~