This is a ghost story about the powerful thread of love through lives. I heard it from from one of Percy's friends, some years after he died. It made my eyes water when I heard it, so I know it's true.
Percy was born in 1901 in a small cabin in Nevada, 100 miles away from the nearest white family, as people put it in those days. He remembered the moment of his birth: he looked down at his tiny clutched fist and thought, "Oh no, not again."
His life was hard, even from before he was born. His father and his father's mother were cruel people, and bickering filled the household with tension. In fact, Percy was born early because his paternal grandmother punched his mother in the stomach late in pregnancy. Percy could see and talk to spirits, but his family were atheists and scornfully discouraged spiritual talk and thinking of any kind.
When he was small, he could remember living where people loved each other. At this time, he was just learning the sounds and names of animals. He would pound on the knees of his family members saying, "You're not people, you're a horse. Say neigh! neigh!" Or, "You're not people, you're a pig! Say snort! snort!" He knew that there were another kind of "people," somewhere, but not in this unhappy home.
Percy grew up and fell in with a group of "spiritualists" in the 1930s. These folks explored and exploited spiritual power, what is called "black magic" and "satanism." He knew that this was not a good way to live, but they were the only people he ever met who knew about spirits and lives and beings beyond this mortal one.
The group wanted him to marry a certain woman, so he did. He was unhappy in the marriage, and the woman was cruel and jealous.
One day, Percy walked sadly along a river bank, wishing his life were different, and thinking of who the perfect woman would be. Who would he want to love? He sat down, and felt his soul lift out of his body. His spirit floated high above California and began drifting east. He floated over the Rockies, over the Great Plains, over the East Coast, and out over the Atlantic Ocean. He floated over France toward a hill, and floated down, down, down, right into the center of the hill.
Inside the French hill was a druid tomb. A woman's body, still wrapped in a blue dress, lay on a granite slab in the tomb. Percy's spirit floated next to the woman's body and the spirit sat up, embraced him and said, "Daddy I've been waiting for you."
Now, you don't have to believe in "reincarnation" or "past life experience" to imagine, in your heart, the kind of joy this reunion caused in the heart of Percy. Even if you must suppose that he was a crazy old man who entertained his friends with fantastic stories, you can understand how people create peace and happiness in their own lives. If a person has a "fantasy" of this kind, where he or she reunites with one's true love, in a place and time beyond place and time, well, this is a a good vibe for the world. May we all have such life-loving fantasies.
It wasn't a fantasy for Percy. He and the spirit of his druid daughter lifted out of the French hillside and floated back to California, where Percy went back into his body.
So Percy found his heart's desire. He had wished for the perfect woman, and found her. Percy and his daughter were happily reunited in a spirit way, in a love that knows no blood relationships or bodies or sexual love. However, Percy knew that the spirit of his daughter couldn't come to his house, because his jealous (and psychic) wife would see her, and tear her to pieces. So she stayed at a friend's house, who could also see spirits, until something was done.
(As it happened, when Percy came home his wife said, "You've been with another women! Who is she? I'll tear her to pieces.?)
To remedy the situation, Percy's daughter told him, "I'm coming back in as your daughter." Percy thought that was a terrible idea. "It's the middle of the depression, I can't get work, and worse, my wife will be your mother." But his daughter's spirit was obstinant, and couldn't be persuaded otherwise. In the end, Percy was happy, and ready to welcome her back into the world.
Percy's daughter said, "Yes, I'm coming back into the world and when I'm born I want in the room a mother cat with five grey kittens." Percy said that might be a bit hard to manage. His daughter said, "Okay, I'll take care of it."
And sure enough, a few days before her birth, a pregnant cat came to Percy's house and had five grey kittens just before his daughter, Lila, was born.
He loved his daughter mightily, even though she couldn't remember anything about being a druid, or knowing her father before her birth. But Lila and her father spoke of spiritual things, and the family encouraged her psychic experiences. Percy never told her about her life with him in ancient times, because their lives had ended tragically:
Percy knew that and his daughter had first lived together in ancient Gaul. Until she was about 14 years old, they lived with their people close to the Land and changing seasons, worshipping the Goddess and the God, and spending their days happy and sane. Then Julius Ceasar came, sold thousands of women into slavery, and otherwise romanized Gaul.
It was a pitiful scene as Percy the Barbarian's daughter was carted away, screaming, "Daddy, daddy, save me, don't let them take me!" And Percy, calling out, "I'll find you again, my dear one. Don't lose hope. Watch for me."
Percy lived up to his promise. He walked all the way to Rome, having many strange and dangerous adventures along the way. When he got to Rome, he searched the docks and slave markets for his daughter, always listening to his intuition, tuning in to a beam of love between them.
He learned that his daughter had been bought by a wealthy Roman matron, who was raising the daughter as her own. He went to this matron's house, and spoke to her. She was a kindly woman, and said that of course he could come and talk to his daughter. He was shown a garden where his daughter sat talking with all the other Roman teenagers of the neighborhood. There she was, vivacious and lovely, but changed. She had adopted quickly to Roman ways, and become quite sophisticated. She thought she was "accepted" in her new land, with her new friends, in spite of her barbarian heritage.
Percy the barbarian stood in the doorway, his heart so full of love he couldn't say a word. Finally, her head turned and she saw him there. Her barbarian father, large, hairy, and dressed in rough-tanned animal skins. Her heart ran cold. She tossed her nose in the air and turned her head back to her new Roman friends.
Percy, heartbroken, stormed out of the house without saying a word. He was several blocks away when a messenger from the house came to him saying there had been a mistake, that his daughter really did want to see him. But he said it was too late, and he didn't go back.
Because it would be too painful return home, Percy booked a passage to Crete to visit shrines there. The ship he sailed caught plague, and he died at sea.
His daughter never learned this, but returned to Gaul, only to die herself of a broken heart when her search for her father came to nothing. And there she waited, haunting her tomb, until 1932.
This is why Percy never told Lila about their lives together before her birth. But one day, while Percy and his daughter were talking of spiritual matters, a large number of beautiful Beings came into the room. Percy saw them, but didn't say a word; he wasn't sure if Lila could see them too. But she looked around and said to him, "Daddy, who are all these beautiful people?? She sat listening for a moment, then cried into his embrace, sobbing, "Oh, I'm so sorry." The group of spirits had brought back her entire history.
Of course Percy had already forgiven Lila for that long ago betrayal of their love. They lived happily together for many years, united again, in this lifetime.
This story has two postscripts. Some years after Percy?s daughter remembered their past life together, Percy met the spirit of the kindly Roman Matron. She was a African-American woman living in Oakland who also remembers Percy coming to her house in Rome, the repudiation of his daughter, and her frantic, but fruitless search for him. She, like Percy and his daughter, remembers every detail, including the cityfied dress worn by the daughter as she sat talking with her teenager friends.
And sadly, when Lila grew up, she repeated history, as people often do as we go around and around the wheel of life. She married a "sophisticated" Catholic man against Percy?s wishes, who turned her away from her father. In this lifetime though, Percy didn't turn away from her, and they were reconciled before he died.
Percy married again in his old age to a woman much younger
than himself. They were very, very much in love until the day of his death.
Percy's friends think that his cycle of lifetimes
ended; that this time, he was probably going into the Light. His last words
were, "love" and
"yes."
And finally, the friend of Percy who told me this story died
of a brain tumor when she was in her early forties. At one time we had been
close, even lovers for a while, but drifted apart because of political differences
and other stupid stuff. The day after she died, I was driving my truck and
stopped at the light at Mission and Laurel. I wasn't thinking of her, but
suddenly I had a brief vision of her "dancing on the light at the edge of
the horizon." I put it in quotes because I know it is silly to try to describe
things like that because that is not what my vision was at all but the best
I can do. Anyway, I heard her voice for the last time say "This is delightful"
just as she used to when we were doing ordinary things like walking through
a garden or eating rice together. I am so thankful she was able to say goodbye
that way.
* I have no reason to believe that Percy, or my source, made this story up. I've changed the names because I may have changed details or characterized living people inaccurately. That happens in folk stories.