[russianpast_1904]

Originally Posted by Elfin

*sensing little snippets* I meant. ( I can't always work the "edit" thing!!... And I won't use a disclaimer to tell everyone I'm not really "gormless"... Because by now they know I am lol )...

Morning Elfin! I just woke up (I have work, 11 a.m. my time)

See it's funny because, I do feel that I had a life-time between France and Russia. I've had some paths but they didn't make sense to me. So I kind of just gave up haha. xD

Well, thankfully food takes away the nausea!

Ah, see... I wish I didn't remember things in such detail. I also wish I wasn't so wordy with my posts. I tend to do that, write with too many words and in too much detail. In the beginning replies of this thread I wrote that when I first started writing down memories, I was very imaginative and as a teenager I was filling in spots with my imagination and didn't know if it was true or not. All I knew were the basics. There were these large rooms, lots of flowers and pictures. There were "Mama" and "Papa" and lots of generals and soldiers. There were "My" sisters, and other "relatives." This was really early in my awareness and I didn't really understand.

My first inkling of Reincarnation came from being told about it by a college/uni professor who had the last name Bacon, but wasn't related to the famous actor Kevin And she was really nice, and we always had breathing exercises and she always talked about Krishna, Buddhism, Hinduism, reincarnating, and other spiritual topics despite the fact our class was an English one! I can still remember the breathing exercises. Anyways, I remember telling her that I couldn't really explain my fear of flying (I have a path that I used to think often about, and still think it's correct that I reincarnated during the early 1930's in Germany, and died very young in a fiery aeroplane crash with most of my family - and people say that you reincarnate within your family group - Well if my hunch is correct I did. He was related to Alexei, but never met Alexei as he was born years after he died). I have this distinct experience of being in high school, and dozing off while listening to my math teacher. I hate math. So much. Hahaha. Anyways, I was falling asleep and I did eventually and I woke up to the sound of my pencil case crashing to the floor. But what I heard was the noise of a plane's engine and the nose-dive sound of it crashing and I woke up very fast and was asking my classmates did they hear the plane crash. No one heard the plane crash. Years later, I decided to do some research and found this possible life-time - a little boy who died with his brother, parents, and grandmother - and he was related to Alexei but never met him. I try not to discuss or even mention facial similarities. I used to put much stock into them (still get freaked out when I do side-by-side comparisons of me and Alexei). But, I noticed this little boy looked an awful lot like Alexei when he was younger. There was a similar look in his eyes. I would get flashes and get really upset about it. I would hear disembodied explosions and crashing noises sometimes. I haven't thought about that possibility in a long time honestly. I still think it is a possibility. The 1930's and Germany, especially where he lived (Alexei visited there quite a bit as a small boy) - there's a bridge that clutches at my heart strings like no other. But, I think if he was one of my past lives, I've moved on from that. Though, I still am nervous when it comes to flying. I've flown, quite a few times - I just do not like it.

Anyways, back to the professor named Bacon, and that class. She was so open-minded. We lost quite a few students because of her open-mindedness. Normally a professor sticks to curriculum but she didn't always haha. I loved her class even though I struggled a bit given that she veered off topic a bit too much. I told her about my fear (overwhelming at the time) of flying, and that I'd flown but I didn't like it and it was like a fatal fear about it. She suggested that I may have died from being in a plane crash in one of my past lives.

I also mentioned the Romanovs (yep, back to that haha) and I remember she gave me a newspaper article on the rehabilitation of the Imperial Family (2007) to the Russian Orthodox Church. No, wait... sorry, it was about the discovery of a new burial site - new remains, believed to be those of Alexei and one of his sisters. Ironic that she'd give me an article on that particular bit of news?

Or, it was the rehabilitation... or both of those things. Now I'm confusing myself lol! However, I do remember writing down all the Imperial Family's names and the names of the servants and the family doctor who stayed with them and subsequently died with them as a result of their loyalty.

See, in high school, I would draw a lot of things. I remember drawing this series of sketches. There were quite a few and I probably threw them out or they are in my mum's garage or basement somewhere. I need to get back home, and go through my stuff to see what I want to take. Lol! Anyways, this series of sketches was done before I attended high school. I had an art teacher, who was awesome in 1st grade, and she let me have some books I really liked to look through (History ones, go figure) and so I always would read the passages pertaining to the Great War (1914-1918) and always would go back to the Russian Revolution, and also would re-read the few pages on the Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, the Duchess of Chotek. Something about them was faintly familiar. But the Russian Revolution part always got to me in a way I couldn't explain. There were some pictures of the Imperial Family (one or two), a picture of a tall bell tower which at the time I knew I'd seen before, but couldn't explain why. There was a photograph of a Fabergé egg which was given as an example of the Tsar's wealth. There were passages about the Revolution and what happened. The photograph of the Imperial Family was one of the first I'd ever seen. It was made in 1916 (I found out much later), and showed the Tsar, his five children and cossacks of the Imperial Guard at Stavka (Mogilev, G.H.Q.). At the time I couldn't explain how I knew them, and knew the man standing between the first two girls (Anastasia and Olga). I knew he was someone named "Grab." As a kid, I was spelling it wrong, as I later came to know the correct spelling as "Grabbe." But I knew who he was. I knew who they were. And the young boy in the photograph, I would get such weird feelings but didn't understand why.

So back to the sketches. I mentioned one of the sketches was the bell tower. This bell tower made such an impression on me that I included it in the series of drawings. I labeled them all. I also drew the double-headed eagle (the coat-of-arms of the Russian Empire). The others were of the Dowager Empress Maria (Alexei's grandmother) and the Imperial Family (the Tsar, Empress, and their children). The other one, that is always so clearly etched in my mind is the family's yacht. I had never heard the yacht's name, nor ever saw it in a book. I'd only seen a passing, brief image of it in the animated movie Anastasia and I remembered it so I drew it. It had two funnels, and I was very imaginative so I exaggerated on some things like the number of portholes but the shape was accurate to what I remembered. I labeled it "Starstant." Years later, I would come to know the name of the yacht. "Standart" or "Shtandart" which is how the Russians would call it. That still freaks me out a little how similar they sound, even if the letters are a bit off. God, I haven't thought about those drawings in forever!

Here's the photograph I mentioned above:



Count Grabbe is standing between (behind) the first two girls, (Anastasia and Olga). I instantly recognised him, first seeing this photograph (and it was small in that book. I wonder where that book is now haha. I remember now, thinking back there was also a photograph of the Tsar and his children during their imprisonment and forced exile. I didn't like that one. It made me very sad and I couldn't explain why. I had read the little blurb of what happened and shut the book. When I'd re-read that section of the book, I'd deliberately skip that passage and that photograph. I didn't want to look at it because I didn't like how it made me feel. Now, I know why it made me feel that way.

Another thing that creeps up from childhood (in this life) is the fact I had such a abnormal fear of falling. When I would fall, I would scream and pitch a fit. I'd cry and cry like it was the end of the World. I mean, it sounds normal. Kids cry when they fall. But I was bordering melodramatic when I did. I remember I fell once, down the front stairs of my mum's house and went face-forward and it knocked the wind out of me. These stairs were concrete so it hurt. It scared the living day lights out of me. But I'm still here so that's good haha.

When Alexei and his family were forced into exile (Siberia) and imprisoned at the Governor's Mansion in Tobolsk, just before the Tsar was told he had to go to Moscow (which didn't happen), Alexei had an accident which had him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life (up to his death). He couldn't walk after the accident. There were accounts of him taking a sledge down the stairs in the house because the guards (they changed after a while as the early ones grew too sentimental to the family) destroyed the mountain outside in the yard. (Russians call hills, "mountains" and it was ice and snow) and that's how he injured himself. It was written off as "dare-devil syndrome" and because he was a Haemophiliac, he had this tendency to be reckless. Yes I have memories of being reckless but it wasn't because of a destroyed mountain of ice and snow. It was a lot of things, including the loss of that mountain which was one of the few joys we had living there.

I don't talk about it much because I still feel guilt. I know I shouldn't because it happened over 100 years ago. But, I still feel guilt about it. I remember anger, a lot of boring days and having dark thoughts. About death and not living. I remember not wanting to live anymore and not wanting to burden them - my family. I felt like a burden. A Haemophiliac who had to be watched over constantly. Who was worried over so much, and prematurely aged his parents (though their jobs did that too). I remember taking the sledge to the stairs. I didn't feel anything. I remember going forward, and there was a rush of air and in me a rush of adrenaline. I remember the bumps of the sledge as it raced down the stairs and then I hit the wall. I don't remember a lot but there was numbing pain involved. I really didn't tell anyone this because I didn't know if it was true. I didn't want to upset anyone - why would Alexei want to kill himself? What good would that do? I thought it was all my imagination, so I just buried it in my mind - not a good idea. It creeped up often and still does.

Recently, I became very aware when I saw some photographs made of the Governor's Mansion (which recently was restored) and there's a section of original railing and flooring on that staircase. Everything else has been repainted but that spot. It's a virtual tour so you can move around. I froze at that spot, got so sick to my stomach and started to sob. I knew that was the spot I had hit, racing down the stairs. I had a vivid flashback of going down them. Of the air smacking my face. The sound of the metal treads? beneath screeching against the wood. I've not viewed that tour since. Everything in it, including that portion of floor and railing is too familiar to me. It's both painful and happy at the same time. We liked living there. We would have been happy had we been allowed to live there, but that wasn't meant to be. Alexei survived his attempt at suicide, and that's where I feel the guilt from. I tried to off myself, and yet it didn't work. I made the situation and stress my parents were in, all of us were in much, much worse. Papa was angry. I don't think at me, but the situation though I took his anger as directed at me, even though it wasn't. Alexei was a young boy. Just 13, about to be 14. That's a teenager, but still very young.

Anyways, I'm rambling on again. I do that (often).

Back to Vincent. Maybe I should watch a regression video, see if anything comes up? It makes sense he was between France and Russia. Do you get any country, language at all when you think about him?