6-13-2012
So I had a revelation of what could very possibly be about a past life, karma and my quest for love. I put a number of pieces of the puzzle together from various aspects of my life.
When I was a teenage girl, my friend and ex lover, gave me a deck of tarot cards, which I still have today. About a month ago, my friend was giving me a reading using these cards. She was very interested by the Princess of Cups card which was represented by Elaine, a character from the Arthurian legends. She advised me to look up her story.
About a year ago, she did a reading with me for the first time. I was going through a difficult time emotionally as I was grieving the death of a friend’s daughter and at the same time my current relationship was falling apart. During this reading a couple of key points I recall were about past lives. She saw two. One was that of a powerful warrior. She suggested this was me in another life, but them she also saw a woman. This woman had something happen to her which consequently has carried into this life as a fear of my own power. She suggested I may have been persecuted as a witch. I shared with her an experience I had several years ago. I was at an overnight spiritual retreat with my mother and some of her friends. The lady who was leading the group was a hypnosis-therapist. She put us through a past life meditation in which I had a vision that I was a young woman, wearing a long robe, walking toward a small boat on a river. It was foggy, at the break of dawn.
As for my present life, she saw that I had potential to be a great teacher and healer. She saw that traveling was important to me for fulfillment of my desires and my personal development. As for my soul mate, she saw him coming, in this lifetime.
So I look up this Elaine character. The first thing I find online is a painting of her entitled The Lady of Shallott” by John William Waterhouse. Immediately, I recognized it. I used to have this print. It is a young maiden sitting in a small boat.
Elaine was the only daughter of Bernard of Astolat. In Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Lancelot and Elaine" from The Idylls of the King (1859), she is an unassuming and humble woman. Lancelot, a famous knight of King Arthur's court, traveled to Astolat ,incognito, to compete in a tournament. Elaine falls deeply in love with him. She asks Lancelot to wear a token of hers in the tournament. It was her scarlet sleeve, emblazoned with pearls. He does indeed wear the token because it would add to his disguise. Lancelot is hurt during the tournament by a lance belonging to Bors, and falls ill. In Sydney Fowler Wright's "The Ballad of Elaine", Elaine sat by him day and night, nursing him back to health. For this, he did appreciate her and love her, but not in the way she loved him. When he was well, he announced that he would be leaving. Elaine begs him to marry her, but he finds that his love for Guinevere, wife of King Arthur, is too strong for him to be in love with Elaine. Lancelot does leave Astolat, and Elaine dies of a broken heart. Her family placed Elaine's body in a barge, and sets it adrift on the Thames River. The barge floats to Camelot.
In another of Tennyson's writings, The Lady of Shalott (original version, 1833; revised version, 1842), also includes a barge. But in this story, she is cursed to never look out her window. She is allowed to view the world only by looking into her mirror. She spends her days weaving the images she sees in her mirror, her "shadows of the world". One day, the handsome Lancelot passes by the window, and she forgets the curse and looks out her window to try and catch a glimpse of him. Her mirror cracks, and the curse is upon her. The Lady of Shalott goes down to the river, finds a boat, unties it and lays down. Her blood freezes and she dies. Her boat floats towards Camelot, and people come out to see this sight. In the crowd is Lancelot, and he looks down at her and says, "She has a lovely face: God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott".
So my theory is that I was Elaine, the Lady of Shalott. I’ve always been drawn to Druidic, pagan history, ritual and spirituality. I’ve also been drawn to the Arthurian legends. My daughter gets her name, Morgan from the Mists of Avalon. Those times were so magical, so mystical, it is not even considered to be history, more like legend. I am reading” Lancelot and Elaine” now. This story is of course about their tragic love. Tennyson describes her as a young girl, while Lancelot was three times her age. When he did not return her love, she grew very depressed. According to the curse, she felt she had nothing to live for without him. One version of the story said that she got on the boat to follow him to Camelot and died on the way. It does not speak of a curse. I will have to continue researching to find out more about this curse, who put it on her and why.
I think that this story could be pointing to my karma and the lessons I am here to learn in this life. Elaine may have died young, tragically. All mythology aside, I could see her a young girl, in love but naive. Perhaps she did get on the boat to Camelot, unprepared for the elements and froze along the way, hypothermia. As for Lancelot, I think he did carry a burden of feeling responsible for her death.
Perhaps I am still chasing after my knight in shining armor, but I promise not to die in that pursuit in this life. I am becoming more powerful, more self assured all the time. I am whole and complete in myself. I have become much stronger in the last few years, proving to myself that I can provide for myself and my children. I do not have a man to take care of and my life is not over.
