I am afraid that this life I am not very good at wanting the things of this world that social media dangles in front of us as mattering most: conspicuous consumption and wealth and popularity and power. You see, last life I had a surfeit of them because last reward life, I decided before I was born that the reward I wanted was to be so successful and so loved that the entire world would know my face and see my soul's light. And it was a selfish desperate sort of choice, because I didn't want it for myself because I'd had those things before enough times in past lives I didn't want them for their own sake. But you see, I had got it into my head that the REASON our lives hadn't crossed paths in so many centuries must be because either he a) couldn't find me or b) he didn't want to find me.  So I decided to take the first one out of the equation and see if he would find me when all the world knew me and then I could fonce more keep my promise that I'd always choose him in any life our paths crossed and he wanted me. You see, I didn't consider any other options than those two, that our paths weren't crossing because either he couldn't find me or he no longer wanted me.... I didn't consider that he hadn't found me because of his guilt and feeling he didn't deserve me after what he did six centuries ago.... I didn't even consider that til he told me when we met again last life, in that short time before my last death. But you see. 600 years it had been. I spent all those centuries assuming he didn't find me any more because he didn't want me until I got the idea maybe it was just that he couldn't find me -- so last life I decided not to play it small with my life but to instead ask to live a life where it would be impossible for him (or anyone) NOT to find me.

And last life for me was the reflected diamond shiny with nothing real and it was a lonely sad life of being worshipped on a pedestal but feeling like most people never saw ME and coming to understand that to be idolized isn't at all the same thing as being loved. And that it's rather worthless to dazzle people into falling in love with the glamour of your shining when it blinds them from seeing the realness of you... 

So this reward life, I didn't ask for fame or money or power or success in the eyes of society and the world. I don't want that. I had it all last life and it just left me feeling the empty spaces that most people cover by pursuing those things. 

This reward life, the only thing I could think of that the world had to offer me that I wanted from it was a life of reunion after so long and to get to have the glow of that illuminating my life again. Only, you see, I have very strong opinions on the sanctity of free will and so I couldn't just ASK for him or ASK for reunion with him because to ASK the Universe for that isn't to earn it, it's to be a spoiled child demanding what you want with no care for what the other person wants or needs. So instead of asking for him to be with me this life, I asked for the circumstances that I believed would best enable him to choose that if it's what he wanted and what his lessons had him ready for. 

This life, what I asked for was: 

1) any soul seeking me be able to find me

2) that I live a life surrounded by love with those I love who could see me and love me for me qua me, just exactly as I am

3) for as long as those two conditions can be met, I'd like to grow old in this body because I've had so many young deaths these recent centuries

That's what I chose for this reward life and how I got to concluding that was the way to choose to give us the best opportunity to have a life where we come back together. Because he told me last life it wasn't for lack of wanting me he hadn't found me, he spent all those centuries wanting me just the same as the lifetimes where he crossed oceans to undiscovered lands guided by nothing but the pull of the bond telling him how to find me. It was that he hadn't felt he deserved me, not after being so involved in the way I died six centuries ago now -- and all my young deaths had been in part to help him learn that I would die regardless what he did or didn't do, even if he kept away from me thinking he didn't deserve me. 

So you see, it's a long time pattern in each of us needs healing when I say that I struggle with the demon of thinking I'm not what he wants and he struggles with the demon of thinking he doesn't deserve me.... It's not an EASY set of assumptions and premises for either of us to just chuck out with a shrug like, "well that was a shite idea." But, also, I said it last life and I still believe it this life: I do think the best and quickest healing for the both of us is in consciously choosing each other and letting the love of the other person heal the old scars of lessons we repeated to ourselves but weren't meant to have to learn like that. 

And, I do think we both shine brightest our truest best versions of ourselves and touch the world with our greatest capacity for goodness during the times we choose to nurture and feed the love between us rather than fighting or denying or thinking we don't deserve the bond between our souls. So let's dig out the six centuries of wrong headed assumptions of fear and self doubt and choose to love each other and let the brightness of that love heal us into the truest versions of ourselves doing the most good for all we touch with our lives that we can be in this lifetime. 

But all that said, in THIS life and in THIS body, you should not assume I am another version of me I was last life. I don't want fame for a role I put on or a curated image everyone falls in love with, I want to strip me down as bare honest as possible to be loved for the realness of me, not the image or the easy to love glamour. Which is why yeah sure, I have the genetics of curly hair with strands of copper and gold through it and curves like Jessica Rabbit and eyes that change the colors of the sea -- but I also have the unruly ungovernable curls with a mind of their own (and sometimes bits of sticks or feather stuck in them) and I don't wear makeup and I refuse to exercise as a have to but only for the joy of using my body in those activities. And I don't WANT or SEEK a fortune or status or to leave anything to posterity with this life -- I seek beauty and knowledge and joy and the intangible things that bring a soul brightness but which no amount of wealth and status and fame can get for you if you can't find it inside yourself. Even when I create, in words or dance or sketches or painting, it's for the joy in creating not because I care if the rest of the world ever knows what I made or I existed... 

I would, in all sincerity, be happiest in a small cottage/cabin in the woods with a garden and the inside all full of light and music and books and beautiful things and plants and fur baby familiars and those who love us able to find us. I'd rather have that than anything else society or posterity or big tech can offer. I'd rather leave brightness in the hearts of those whose lives I touched and have my name and the story of this life lost to history. History and the world have had enough of my lives, it doesn't need this one. I don't even want a stone grave marker -- I want my body returned to the earth and a tree planted over it. An apple tree and a birch tree over the burial spot. 

But the thing is, I don't know if that's what he wants... I think the world and leaving his mark on it tempts him this life. And that's fine and isn't always an ego trap -- it can be noble to want to use your gifts to leave things better for the next generations as long as you keep your sights on the big goal of leaving the world better and brighter for your touch upon it. Just, know that in THIS life of mine, I don't seek and I'm not motivated or impressed by money or popularity or status or famous name or power or anything of the sort so I have no ambition or drive or competitive need to show off myself or what I can do. It's just not what my lessons this life are about.... My lessons are about the healing in accepting love for me qua me just exactly as I am. And the glow of basking in that feeling and knowing I am loved for the esse of me and for no other reason than that. 

And I dunno why I wanted to write all that out or even remember my point in it. I just felt while watching the snow falling peacefully and smiling upon the bright stillness of fresh snow in the witching hour that these were things I NEEDED to get crystal clear shaped into word forms for the sake of his healing and his choices. To help him choose how to guide his life path choices in the greatest fullness of knowledge. Because free will is sacrosanct, but all of us make different choices based on our best knowledge at the time of choosing, y'know? To give truths someone didn't have is to give the gift of clarity and illumination into the crucible of their present choices. 

And also. it's as important to forgive our past selves for what we didn't know and what we got wrong due to the limits of our past knowledge as it is to continuously strive to be better brighter truest versions of our own better self. That's as true for your past lives as it is for your past versions of yourself in this one life. You don't have to love all the things that your past self did and you should strive to choose better from now moving forward and to make amends where possible -- but also gift yourself the grace of loving who you were, mistakes and all, as a flawed human vessel for a soul's incarnating who did the best you could at the time with the knowledge you then had. Love your past self for the best you did with what you knew at the time, love yourself now for the best you're trying to do with what you now have and all you have learned thus far, and love your future self for all the brightness and beauty your life and soul can hold if you choose it for yourself. It's a grace nobody can take from you and a gift nobody can give you but your highest self. And you need it to choose what is in your own highest good, in this life and all lives.

I'm going to go put the kettle on to make a cuppa tea and tidy up some things while the water boils (this is part of how I gamify trick my ADHD to do chores, I do them in competitive against the clock game of finite length that would otherwise get frittered away on mindless scrolling while I wait on something, though I'm allowed to spend as much time finishing the task as I want just as long as I listen to the timer(s) like for steeping the tea so it won't over steep.) Once my tea is ready, back to reading some more until my 12hr alarm tells me it's time to give the dog her antibiotics with food (and both animals will get treats and love.) And eventually breakfast and laying a fire for the day and at 8ish starting the process of washing the linens throughout the day because I haven't done them since I got home from WA and it needs to be done. And I'll set the slow cooker to make for lunch a turkey soup from the thanksgiving leftovers in the freezer and fresh veggies need to be used up before the spoil. And I'll bank the fire close the glass to take the dog out whenever she asks and we two will frolic in the snow. And most of the day will be a crackling fire and piano music (it's the household favorite after all) and snuggling with the fur babies and lots of coffee/tea/hot cocoa and reading (interspersed with productivity of accomplishing light chores that are weighing on my conscience as needing to be done) and the sparkling joyous peace of snow falling all day. And then for dinner roast a squash cook up some steak that's been in the freezer long enough it should be eaten and open a bottle of red wine with dinner and then read and feed the fire until I'm ready to let the hearth fire burn down to embers that burn out so I can safely close the flue go to bed in fresh washed bedding. That's my hygge cozy plan for today tbh. A day to be gentle on myself and be a fool on the hill hermit ignoring the world while I bask in the beauty and peacefulness of simple joys and tasks done with reverent love in the doing of them and the good they add to my life.