I had always wanted to go to Japan. It could be described as a soul longing, even though I didn’t know it when I was younger and it could easily be mistaken for something else. After all, I was a child of the nineties, and grew up with elements of Japanese pop culture all around me. Not only anime, but also manga and video games, all of which I loved.
After years that felt like an eternity, I finally had my desire fulfilled when I got to study in Japan for nine months during my junior year of college. After I finished my master's degree, Japan kept calling me back. The call eventually became so loud that I applied to be an English teacher through the JET Programme. The two years that I spent living in Minamata, on the island of Kyushu, were not without difficulties but were also some of the happiest and most healing of my life. I can easily say that Japan feels more like home than any other place I've been.
Earlier this year, an important element of my connection to Japan was revealed to me. My husband Ish and I were hosting a three-week Ascension meditation retreat. Having had the chance to do a meditation teacher training last year, I was happy to be in service cooking, cleaning, shopping for food, and occasionally dispensing mantras. I was still fortunate enough to get about five hours of closed-eye meditation each day.
Some days into the retreat, I noticed that I was shivering a lot. I felt cold all the way down to my bones, no matter how many blankets I covered myself with. The shivering soon gave way to a shaking that became more pronounced as the days passed. I’d be meditating and my right hand would just be shaking uncontrollably. Soon my legs would start shaking too, and then, my abdomen.
The culmination of this energy took place on the night of Mahashivaratri, a night that is of great importance to many yogis. This was the night I had my greatest emotional release to this point. As I shook and cried, I purged much sorrow from my chest and belly. Just when I felt I had exhausted all the trauma from this life, I suddenly felt a voice behind my voice. For a split second, there was a thought that said “oh, no… I don’t wanna go there” and just as quickly, a knowing that there was nothing I could do but surrender and let this voice come through.
It was then that it happened. I leapt from the chair I was sitting on to the floor and I was in two places at once. Physically, I was there on the retreat in the Algarve. However, my spirit was also elsewhere. I found myself as a Japanese woman walking outside. Suddenly, I saw the brightest flash of light I had ever seen in my life before being plunged into the most excruciating pain. I wailed and wailed. I was dying without knowing what had happened to me nor why. My heart whispered the answer.
As I was being soothed and held in this pain, many things fell into place. I also experienced a wave of love and release. I remember the following day, curiously realizing that my smartwatch had given me a heart alert. It had detected an abnormally high heartbeat that coincided with the exact time when this episode had happened.
Today, I was sitting at my desk writing poetry, when I noticed that my right hand was shaking a little. At first, I didn’t pay much attention to it and kept writing. But it was persistent, and eventually I stopped what I was doing. It was then that it started to shake uncontrollably just like it had been on the retreat. I went and lied down on the bed and meditated. This prompted a conversation with what I might call my spirit guides, who told me to “tell the story.” I knew right away which story they meant. I was a little reluctant, but I understood that they were right, that it would bring me further healing. You see, I had been waiting to write this story, wanting to make sure to give it justice. But as so many writers know, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
Eventually, I went back to my writing desk. When I told Ish about my hand, he asked me, “why now?” Why indeed? When I went to look it up, today was the day in 1945 that the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
Even to write and share this is such an intense experience that my heart is racing and my hand is shaking. I do not know whether this story will prove helpful to anyone but myself, but these synchronicitous events reveal that the soul wears many faces and that the events of other lives may echo through these lives asking to be healed and integrated.
Thanks for sharing such a personal, unusual experience from a realm many people find challenging. It's so brave and accepting of your truth.