Berserker!

Brad Harrison @ freeimages.com

I recently felt inspired to revisit some email discussions I'd had with a psychic, specifically about a list of my past-lives.  One of them was about a soldier:

Around 300-500 A.D. you were born to a family in Germany and later on you had become part of the Anglo- Saxon army that was recruited to defend Britain. Other than invasion during this time, it was not unusual for many of the Anglo-Saxon warriors to inscribe their weapons with their rank and plans to attack. The language was newly introduced and to this day, many of the weapons you specifically used have been retrieved for study. One weapon and 2 items of your armory are actually sitting in a museum, I was told in meditation. The language you inscribed on the weapons is known and used in Runes. It might be interesting to get a hold of the language of Runes to see if you are able to sense or read the language. You had died in battle as a soldier in war. I was not able to pick up much other than this information on this past life. One significance about this life that stood out to me was that you had a high rank. This is typical for old souls to experience in their lives, high rank in military or spiritually. One other thing too is that you brought forth many leadership abilities in your current life from this past life as well as some others. It would be interesting if you could read Runes or if you felt anything holding and looking at Runes. I have no idea how to read them but I have heard they are one of the more difficult types of divination.

Since "my" weapons were in a museum, I wondered if I would be able to do a web-search and find them!  Yes, I knew it was a long-shot, and no, I did not find them (I laugh at myself - as if I would find *my* weapons nearly two millennia later...and yes, a small cynical voice adds "if it were true" but that just ruins a great story...)

Anyhow, I start wondering what a Germanic soldier at this time looks like - so a few image searches and I get the idea of flat round shields, dome helmets and nose-bars, but nothing really resonates with me until this:

Just what is going on with that wolf pelt, buddy?

I click on the crazy weirdo with the wolf-head helmet, and find out about the berserkers (bear-shirts, or úlfheðnar - wolf-hides) who were an elite group of shamanic (or psychopathic) soldiers that "became" the wolf or bear whose pelt they wore.  

I consult my pendulum - "was that me?" - yes.  "Was I on drugs?" - yes.  I got an insight into rites before battle that included chanting into a state of war-fury and taking drugs that would help "become" the animal that would proceed to massacre villages, armies etc.  While people may not believe a person could be capable of the atrocities, people could believe an animal would.  I also suspect that the the wolf-pelt soldiers were the cause of the were-wolf myth.  If I think of taking drugs and going on a rampage, then "coming down" three days later with blood on my hands and no real memory of what I did, then I can understand what these people went through.  I can imagine they were cranky for their next fix (to stave off flashbacks, PTSD, nightmares) which would only perpetuate their actions.  These were people who were truly feared by society but celebrated by their rulers, as they did the dirty work of getting rid of the King's threats.

Now, in this life, I was in the army a short time (special forces incidentally, only a support role, and funnily enough they gave me a medallion when I left), am left-handed (these do very well in violent societies because right-handers "don't see it coming"), for a long time had a deep paranoia of psychopaths, am quite anti-drugs, and my totem animal is the wolf.  These similarities are just off-the-top-of-my-head stuff that seems to fit.  There are other things going on in my life that also fit into the experience of this past life (such as not-wanting-to-be-myself-when-I-teach), but I won't go into them now.

But why is all this relevant?  One of the things I believe is that what we think or feel at the moment of death continues into the next life - so we have to try to come to peace with whatever we are or do in this life, in order to be free for the next life (just my opinion).  Which is why personally I think watching your children die as you die must be one of the worst deaths ever, because that is not a peaceful way to die - there is never enough time to process that horror before you die.  

I believe that when this soldier died, he clearly had come to feel responsibility for "his men" in the group and seeing them all devolve into people who were living hell on earth mentally and emotionally.  What might have been a huge rush at the start (parkour through the woods on a high with a wolf-pelt and and an axe might have been fun once, probably as a teen), resulting in  both reverence and marginalisation that became confusing and soul-destroying, as well as drug addiction, and drug-pushing.  All that glitters is NOT gold.  And to have new men come into the group wanting him to teach them to become him, knowing that this was only a path to hell! Society would never let you forget and the King would never let you go.  I think that the only way he felt he could escape was in death.  And in death, I believe his last thoughts were about joy in embracing freedom, and also having a deep sense of responsibility for the lives he'd ruined - the lives of victims and also of fellow soldiers and recruits.

I think that sense of responsibility is the cause of an overblown sense of wanting to help people.  Now I am 40ish, an age that most people begin to take stock of their lives and turn toward something more spiritually satisfying, I wonder if this was also the age that the soldier died, for it to come through now. 

So what does this have to do with astrology?  Well, I decided to use the pendulum to find out the past life astrology.  

I basically narrowed the birth date down to 1 December, 150AD, between midnight and 1201am.

Berserker past life horoscope

By the way Astrodienst.com was the only website I found that drew up a chart that far back in history - and I had to specify the calendar as "jul" for Julian date where I input the year e.g. "150jul".

But what blew my mind was when I translated the planet positions into the Sabian and the Bekian:

Berserker astronarrative

Now, when I created my own Bekian symbols for fun, I realised in application that they were my own projections onto the world.  This berserker past life astrology is opening my eyes to that principle even more.

Let's start with the big stand-out for me - Uranus on The Union Jack (or Competing Egos) - which is an energy I had an intense experience with recently (and clearly was this guy coming back to me).  As the psychic mentioned, the soldier left Germany (or whatever it was called at the time) to fight for Britain.  As a wolf-pelt wearing berserker person.  And as anyone who has ever been part of a small elite group would know, the egos are inverse-proportionally large to the size of the group.  

This group would also be the soldier's "family" - the only people who would understand his experiences, and having a shared culture.  Being in this group, performing acts most people would consider unacceptable, yet sanctioned by the King is highlighted by Pluto in Shades of Grey (or Sabian A Bridge Being Built Across A Gorge).  

The Sabian for Mars and Jupiter are especially "good" for a soldier (respectively: A Dark Archway And Ten Logs At The Bottom, A Mounted Indian With Scalp Locks) with the Bekian throwing insight into what might have been his views of them - the Net as a trap once he got into the dark-side, Challenging Soul Mates were the people around him continuing conflict (egos? or a culture of violence?).

Both the Sun and the North Node were at A Mother With Her Children On Stairs (Bekian: A Wreath).  While I don't understand the meaning of the Sabian for me in this or that life, the Wreath resonates because wreaths are used in celebration (Christmas) or death (funerals), which I believe were dominant aspects of the soldier's life.

Another aspect of the symbols that resonates strongly is (of course) Saturn - A Modern Pocahontas (Bekian: Sand Fusing Into Glass).  Both symbols resonate.  Clearly a block for this soldier was the idea of two cultures "marrying".  I take this further to mean that the soldier experienced intense disassociation within himself and a lack of clarity about himself and his life.  Sand can also mean our daily lives, or it can mean an element of irritation.  In effect, this soldier experienced life as disparate grains of sand, where little grows.

Other parts of the astronarrative that I speculate on (and don't necessarily resonate with) is the idea of this person's religious/ritual aspect of their life - Neptune on A Jewish Rabbi (Bekian: Crocodiles) and Ascendent (Bekian: A Blue Spiral - Kundalini? or with the Ornamental Handkerchief an indication that social niceties is how he moved up in rank?) even as it was the path to self-destruction; an attraction to a calming, creative (rather than destructive, or an element that gives you something to destroy?) aspect - Venus on A Sculptor (Bekian: Jets Cooling); and the Midheaven on the Sabian's A New Path Of Realism In Experience (drugs) which is the Bekian's A Photocopier (becoming the wolf? or a self-replicating teacher of violence?).  I'm wondering if Neptune and Midheaven indicate that this person administered the drugs as part of the transformation ritual, pre-massacre. 

So what is the point of all this?  

I know that I can look at that soldier's past life astrology and feel compassion for the "hand" they were dealt and the energy they had to deal with.  I can also see my own projections and understand where they came from.  And as someone who does explore my own past lives, the astronarrative gives a frame for that past life.  I don't have to see myself as a "bad" person, I can see myself as someone who had experienced a particular set of energies in a particular way.  I can access that person's experience consciously as a way of exploring my own reactions.   

In this life I have a belief that we choose some of our experiences before we are born (and having Pluto traverse across Capricorn 17-18 The Union Jack when I am in my forties could be part of that) and that my sense of responsibility for others needs to be released in order to heal and grow, such as feeling responsible for the recruits that wanted to join this soldier (this soldier may have been mentally/emotionally disassociated toward his victims though, as these people were not the same "tribe" as he and he was "a wolf" when he killed them, so they did not give him a sense of reality except as nightmares - ironically where he may feel victimised).  

I also understand the need to forget past lives - it really is a kindness not to remember.  It is a very emotional process to revisit a past life, and only when you are ready are you meant to know.  In this case, once I had processed the lessons of The Union Jack, did this life reveal itself.

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One lesson I am currently learning comes from Joseph Campbell, who says that worshipping God (or Odin or whoever) gets in the way of perceiving God in yourself because you believe God is external.  Maybe the soldier did feel his war-fury was a gift from Odin, but where is Odin when the soldier has to look victim's families in the face (A Mother With Her Children On The Stairs? A Woman The Father Of Her Own Child?), or watch resentful children grow up into grudging enemies, or deal with nightmares?  

In the end, it's just "you", and one must stand in one's own authority. 

I think I have helped this soldier through the gates of healing, and he did me a favour cleaning up my "house".

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