Next thing you know I am flying through the sky again with no idea of where I am going to land. When I first arrive, sometimes my soul wants to go home and so I cry and cry yet no one can understand me. I have so much I want to say yet I have forgotten all the language in which to communicate it. In a few years I will become familiar with my new family and learn what my life will be like. I will learn which language I need to start with and then I will remember that experiencing the humans is the best part of all these cycles. While my soul misses home sometimes, a body can only survive on this planet.
We don’t get to choose where we travel, that’s left up to the Universes. They are extremely picky when it comes to placement. There’s so many of them, it would be ultimately impossible for us to know which one to communicate with to ask where we are going next. Most of us enjoy where we are when we are there, and then do the same the next time our souls are dropped. It is much easier to accept life the second time around. The anxiety of the unknown and depression that comes with the fear of not accomplishing all that you wish to be, dissipates more and more with each reincarnation. I have been around many dining room tables where humans will ask each other if they would “want to live forever.” Some say they would love it, and some say they would hate watching their loved ones die while they lived on, and some say they would get tired of life, and be left with nothing to do after many cycles. My joie de vivre has not diminished, not even in the slightest.
Sometimes I experience the same life twice, but ever so differently. It is too hard to remember the name of every single universe so we gave them one unanimous name, ‘Multiverse.’ I actually prefer being dropped into a parallel universe because I get to see how the other choices I could have made change my path in different ways. This is what keeps me alive so to speak.
We spend our afterlives conversing about what we did and where we went. Some of us go to a nearby planet called Earth and some of us go to the further away ones like Arion or Magar. We begin and finish as stars.
A lot of humans I have met on Earth seem to think that the shining lights they see in the sky are what they believe to be stars, but those are actually us. Our souls are brightest when we first come into existence and slowly dim as we travel to planets and experience whatever life form is native to where we land. The lights in the sky that humans see from earth dim gradually over time because time moves for them at a much slower pace than it does for us. We usually experience the normal life span of a human, but with the view from earth, it looks as though we are dimming in millenniums.
Not all humans have souls. In fact, majority of them don’t. Thus they are always so concerned with what they consider ‘time.’ They never seem to think they have enough of it, yet spend so much of it regretting what has already happened. Another strange concept to me.
Most of them don’t know that they have complete control over their futures. There are a few people down there that meditate daily, do yoga, and drink a green liquid called matcha. Those are the ones who think they know what the souls know, but are usually preoccupied with trying to know that they forgot the answers are already inside of them.
I find that the people on earth who are most likely to become a soul in their afterlife are the ones who almost die. Most humans have this underlying fear of death and when they come so close to it, they realize that most of the things that seemed grand to them before, are actually quite petite.
Not all humans have souls, but all souls will experience a human form at some point. It’s like this mathematical rule I learned a few lifetimes ago. A triangle can always fit into a square, but a square will never be able to fit into a triangle. If a human manages to enlighten a few levels during their life time, they will usually enter the afterlife. This is where we all meet and talk about everything together. The first timers are always in awe when they first arrive among the stars. They have to unlearn everything they were taught in their human forms and adjust to life as a soul.
The humans who don’t enlighten during their human form, really do die. Their hearts cease to beat and their brains cease to fire. A soul can always live on without the human organs, however you must learn this before your human body dies or else the soul won’t know where to go.
My first life was 2,421 years ago. I’ve been around since long before Herod tried to kill one of my friends. One night at a going away dinner party, my friend managed to make us all wine from a simple glass of water leaving Herod in disbelief. He claimed my friend was an evil sorcerer using magic to turn water into alcohol and tried to kill him. Making water from wine is a normal concept here at home for the souls, therefore I knew it was Herod’s first time on earth.
Among my era, I made a friend by the name of Socrates and he was the first soul I met. He is the one who inspired me to enlighten. He would always go on about grand topics of life and the meaning of it. It wasn’t until I tried to have these same conversations with other people that I realized not everyone can understand the depth of certain topics. I began surrounding myself with like-minded people and we all had a laugh later on when we transcended into stars together.
Although I have lived a twenty four lives thus far, they have all been just as exciting as the previous one, if not more. I have seen many inventions of the finest people, and many failures as well. With each century we are able to travel further and faster. We are able to see more and more of this earth and we learn more and more about where we came from and where we are going. The three questions we have yet to answer is where we all originated from, how we all got here, and why some of us continue to return as stars. I have yet to meet someone who holds the truth or answer these questions.
During my first life, I frequently visited the the local drinking palaces. There was a dark brown liquid made from wheat that Socrates and I would drink. It would spark these kinds of conversations. Wine was very popular in Greece at the time because it was easiest for the vineyard men to make, but him and I preferred what is now known as beer. It became our ritual him and I, to write down as much as we could before our hands could not write any more. We would then read over all that we had written the day after, and do it all over again. Within thirty sun cycles I had written my first book and named it The Republic in honor of what him and I disapproved of.
Socrates and I would visit the bath houses after our writing was over and filled our lonely nights with the presence of Athenian women, but none struck a love in my heart until the night I met my wife. I remember that night quite clearly despite all that we drank. Him and I philosophized often about the existence of love, and at the time we believed it not to be true. I soon learned that the more you know the more you know that you don’t know. We entered the bathing chambers and were greeted by two beautiful women. At the time, it was my first experience as a human so to me, everyone was beautiful. It helped that Athens adored women, almost more than the wine. I learned to love both equally.
“Follow me παρακαλώ” the girl on the left told us. She had dark emerald eyes with burgundy hair that fell just below her bum. Her skin was as white as the Plumeria flower she had tucked behind her ear and she had freckles that extended out and downwards of her eyebrows, making it look like she was always happy. After many life times, I have yet to find someone to compare to the beauty of Athena. Although the two of us have experienced many different lives and have had many different human families, our souls always find each other when we ascend back home and we cherish our reunion until we are sent back down again. Sometimes we are sent to the same place and we are able to experience another human life together. I find those to be the best lives.
___
Socrates and I followed her into the bathroom and he indulged in everything that came with it. I, on the other hand, indulged in Athena’s presence. I felt honored to be in the company of a woman so at ease, calm, and glorious. She sashayed like there was not but one problem in the world.
“Hey Athena, how about a massage pretty lady?” Laughed one of the bathers.
“In your dreams Achillles, happy Tuesday,” she rebutted effortlessly, her walk continuing in a perfect slow motion.
“Happy Tuesday Athena,” the rest of the bathers yelled in unison.
“I have never seen you here before,” I muttered.
“Is that a question or a statement?” She asked me.
“Oh, I just-”
“I am kidding, I am new. I got here last week. It’s my first time.”
Looking back on our introduction I realize that for both of us, it was our first time in Athens, our first time on Earth, our first time as humans. We didn’t know it then, but it would soon be our first time in love as well.
I visited the bath house every day from then on out. Each coin I gave to her to visit the house and talk, was one less encounter with a man she needed to have. I had enough to spare thanks to my uncle Achilles. There was a great war between our people and her people, my uncle being the leader. He won many gold coins. Athena was a slave to Heracules. It was the only way she could pay him back the coins he paid for her to escape Troy. She managed to get to Athens rather than be killed on the condition she owe Heracules twice the amount of time it took us to win the war.
Athena was unlike anyone I had ever met. She was always right about everything. Somehow she would know exactly who would walk into the bath house and when. She knew when it was expected to rain, or when it would snow in Delphi. She was able to cure my mother of the terrible hot flashes she was having in the middle of the night for years. She had names for all of the stars and attached them meaning as to when we were born. She told me I am a Sagittarius and if I look closely I can see the Centaur shooting an arrow toward The Parthenon. We had no clue of what our purpose was or why we were on earth. We would debate for hours if there was any purpose at all. I told her there was no such thing as the universe she spoke so highly of, and she told me that was the only thing we could be sure of.
My uncle hadn’t approved of our love and Hercules was bothered by the fact Athena had found a way around paying him off the way he preferred. We decided we would go with Socrates to Italy. He was also under mass scrutiny at the time for corrupting the youth of his philosophical ideas. It took much convincing to get Socrates to leave with us. He wanted to stay to prove he didn’t do anything wrong. He thought if he fled, he would be seen as guilty. We told him the only thing he would have died guilty of was depriving the rest of the world of his knowledge.
Socrates had a friend named Aristotle who was very skilled when it came to navigating Poseidon. The plan was to meet at the port of Piraeus and travel West to Catania at the dusk of dawn. The next morning when I arrived at the Parthenon’s descent to meet Athena, she was no where to be found. I looked in the bath house and saw the regulars, I checked the olive tree beside it where you might find a beggar receiving love gestures free of charge, I checked in the hut that her and the other goddesses rested in, but I couldn’t find her anywhere.
“Looking for Athena?” I heard a voice whisper behind me.
As I turned I was greeted by a woman who was yee high to my knees, “Yes, I am.”
“Follow me.”
I didn’t have time to be skeptical about following a gypsy down a darken path, I was more worried about Athena than myself. She led me toward the alley filled with stray cats, no one dared to walk down. We knew the cats were the protectors of the vineyards and we couldn’t pass unless they allowed us to. At the end of the road we were met with a large yellow curtain that she walked right under. The cats didn’t seem to mind my being there so I pulled it to the side and saw the most beautiful sunrise I have seen to this day. Fuchsia colored clouds and yellow tinted rainfall. A horizon splashed with Sapphire mixed into pistachio hues. There she was, in a dove white dress, plucking grapes amongst fallen Plumeria petals at her feet.
“Athena, what are you doing here?” I wondered, mixed with fear and a slight anger.
“We need wine for our trip do we not?” She smiled.
—
We were about a days worth into our journey when Poseidon got into a large argument with Amphitrite causing a hurricane of her tears to rip us off our path. The roars of their voices and energy of their anger could be heard and seen for miles. The mast of our ship was struck down and Aristotle lost control of the direction we were going.
“Athena! Plato! Get down!” He screamed at us. Water started to pool over our feet and we were sinking into the ocean in slow motion. I took some of the clay Athena used for her art sculptures out of her sack and began molding it to the side of the boat that was leaking. With only blackness visible ahead of us, it was impossible to know if we were still heading toward Italy or south into what is now known as Libya.
“We must throw our wine overboard! It is weighing us down!” Exclaimed Aristotle over the crackling of Amphitrite’s screams. It hurt our hearts, but one, two, then three barrels were tossed. Our boat began to float upward by centimeters and the tears falling from the sky began to fall less frequently. When Poseidon calmed, daybreak began to show and Eos welcomed us through the clouds and mist. Our boat struck sand and we drank our last barrel of wine to celebrate. Athena and I made love for the first time that night.
—
Athena grew more ill with each passing month and as her stomach began to grow, so did her sickness.
She died in my arms. We had chosen to name our baby Linosa should it be a girl, just like our island. Linosa deserved the world and with that I decided to try for Italy once more. Socrates and Aristotle had told me they had “lived a thousand lives” and opted to stay behind and watch over our island. Should we wish to return, it would always be there. And so, on Linosa’s first birthday we set sail and scattered a thousand plumerias behind our wake as we waded through the sea.
—
On my ninety ninth year on Earth I was sent to the stars for the first time. I had outlived everyone I held dear to me. I didn’t know what to expect from death, but I was never fearful. That was one thing I had learned from all of my time spent with the philosophers- death is not to fear for when you are alive it does not apply to you. And death is not to fear when you are dead, for it has already happened to you.
I believe this is the key to the afterlife- the lack of fear. To have lived such a fulfilled life that you welcome the end of it. When I reached the stars, I saw my mother and father. I saw my grandmother and grandfather. I saw all of our ancestors that came before us. I saw Socrates and Aristotle nod to me as I walked past. And then I saw Athena and Linosa. I ran to them faster than I have ever run before, and I was sure I was dreaming. They explained to me that life is but a dream, and only those who believe in their dreams become a star.