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Somewhere Over the Rainbow: A Soul's Journey Home A metaphysical novel about the reality of reincarnation that offers a lighthearted look into the ups and downs of being spiritual in a physical world.  Amanda is a free spirit who somehow manages to get herself stuck in the energy vibration of a physical body. Of course she did it on purpose; nothing happens by accident. She just doesn’t feel like herself and is more than a little embarrassed to find herself on earth again. She wonders how she ended up here when she vowed she’d never reincarnate again.
Lavender thinks she’s Amanda’s parallel self and is trying to remember something she’s forgotten about her true spiritual nature so she registers for school in the universe and begins classes in Time and Space, Energy and Matter, and Reality Awareness. She’s a bit concerned about the whole idea of synchronicity and the simultaneous time/space concept; she’s not sure if she can handle everything at once.
Rainbow is Amanda’s higher self and Lavender’s teacher who tries to help them see the light within themselves. Being true to her universal nature, she tends to appear when the sun sparkles through misty images. But Rainbow is really more than she appears to be at first, or even second, glance.
Amanda’s life lessons and Lavender’s spiritual studies prove to be very mind-stretching. Along the way they meet some interesting characters and come across a few rather unusual circumstances. Amanda finds an imaginary friend named Adam in the broccoli garden who floats in and out of her life, next appearing as a throat specialist when she develops tonsillitis because she’s afraid to speak about her past-life experiences in Egypt when she suffered horribly for sharing secret knowledge. Her broccoli buddy later reappears as a shaman in Africa and Amanda knows he’s real this time because her birthday wish finally came true, but he’s also Lavender’s friend from many lifetimes who took her to a silent movie called “Thoughts are Tangible Things.”
After Amanda gets fired from her job as a secretary because she refuses to wear shoes in the office, she joins the Peace Corps with her best friend, Judy, and they go to Africa where Amanda gets bitten by a mosquito and contracts malaria. Lavender feels just sick about this and tries to help Amanda heal herself but she’s unconscious and in a coma, and everything is getting dark because the shadows of a past-life memory keep surrounding her soul. Lavender is afraid she’s dying, but Amanda seems very alive right now, reaching for Lavender through the shadows and leading her into a magical garden where there’s a beautiful rainbow.
Amanda’s father, Jim, has a life-long dream about going on an archeological expedition to Egypt to look for buried treasure. When he goes to Africa to be with Amanda at her deathbed, he meets Adam and remembers him as the throat specialist. It appears to be a small world until he also remembers him as a shaman from somewhere, a long time ago. He has a hard time believing that reincarnation really happens, but it’s the only explanation that makes sense.
After seeing Amanda, he and Adam take her out of the hospital to a Garden of Harmony, where she magically heals the sickness that has plagued her soul for centuries. By then, Jim has remembered another lifetime with Amanda in Egypt and they go there to explore their shared memories. By some amazing coincidence, there’s an excavation going on at the Temple of Luxor and he’s able to join the crew. Amanda has an awful fear of going inside the temple because she died there before.
Long before this ever occurs, Lavender attends a sunrise seminar on the spiritual perspectives of living in a physical body at Rainbow’s request because she feels that Lavender needs some help in this area and Amanda wakes up sunburned. She tries to explain to her mother that it happened in a dream.
Her mother, Beth, doesn’t believe her because she’s determined to keep her grip on reality, even though Amanda tried to teach her how to fly after Lavender took her on a guided tour of the universe. Beth wonders about some of the things that happened when Amanda was a baby and knows she couldn’t possibly have changed her diapers in her sleep or fed her the bottle in bed, but it was always there at two o’clock in the morning. Maybe it was her hormones getting back to normal, like the doctor said. She still has her doubts, especially after Amanda explains the facts of life to her by telling her about her soon-to-be-born brother, Gary.
He doesn’t make life any easier for Beth. As he grows up, he insists that he was an Indian in his past life and that his purpose in this life is to save the earth and to preserve the ecological balance. He has this annoying little habit of wearing his full Indian headdress all the time. He also makes a practice of planting trees at school and holding peaceful pow-wows for his teachers and the other students.
Then there’s Newton-Einstein, a soul who has already flunked two lifetimes and is now taking classes with Lavender, trying to understand what time and space are all about and what everything is relative to. Lavender doesn’t like him at all and thinks that when the apple fell on his head, it knocked the spiritual sense right out of him. He’s almost ready for the final exam on earth to fulfill his destiny—to bring scientific and spiritual thought together by discovering a theory called Metamorpheus Light Synergy. Lavender thinks he’s going to have a problem maneuvering through time and taking quantum leaps through space because he’s always late for class.
His terrible attitude doesn’t help things; he acts so stuffy and scholarly, like he knows it all. She decides to give him a few helpful tips and some not-so-friendly advice about the way things really work and how to tell time. It becomes obvious that she doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does, but the eraser on her pencil is missing and she can’t undo her mistake because she broke one of the cosmic commandments.
Somewhere inside all these experiences—in the beginning, the middle, and the end—a rainbow whispers to Amanda, “Follow your dream.” Lavender seriously wonders if she’s ever going to wake up, but she has her own set of problems and challenges to deal with in relation to time and space, and everything else for that matter. She feels as if she’s getting nowhere; Rainbow explains that no-where is really now-here and that people mispronounce it all the time, then suggests that perhaps if Lavender would look clearly into her experiences and be here now, she just might find the answers she wants.
Lavender has a warped sense of time and an uncanny knack for misunderstanding and misapplying universal vibrations of energy. She just can’t seem to get the hang of it and sometimes feels as if she’s stuck somewhere between the earth and the universe. To make matters worse, Amanda has a terrible tendency to believe that time is linear and thinks that the world is exactly what it appears to be.
Lavender’s destiny is to rediscover the Scroll of Knowledge she wrote in Egypt and to share the teachings with Amanda, and with anyone else who is looking for mystical knowledge. This isn’t easy for her because she’s reluctant to remember her experiences as a philosopher and has turned off her spiritual awareness. She’s decided to be a writer in her next lifetime but doesn’t want to give up the energy-form of her physical pencil for a cosmic computer.
Amanda’s most down-to-earth task is to see through the misty illusions of things for herself and to remember her true spiritual nature. In the course of events, she gets sidetracked by what everyone says is real life. But she’s not sure what’s real anymore. She’s been having a lot of dreams about rainbows lately and now she’s beginning to wonder if her life is really a dream she’s having. She decides to find out, once and for all, who she really is and what life is all about.
While Amanda is learning through her earth experiences, Lavender is learning through her studies at the School of Spirituality. The requirements for graduation are to unearth the mysteries of the universe and to blend her spirituality into Amanda’s experiences by applying knowledge in realities that are worlds apart. One of the things Lavender has to master is that the two separate worlds are really the same. Rainbow has assigned that topic to her master’s thesis.
Graduating her soul into higher levels of awareness is often hampered by the fact that she’s physical and spiritual at the same time but for one reason or another, she can’t seem to see the whole picture at once and more often than not, feels as if she’s coming apart at the seems. When she comes down with a cloudy mind cold, there’s a bit of trouble trying to revibrate her energies.
For a special project—a past-life research report—in the Reality Awareness class, Lavender has to help Amanda remember who she really is. In the process, she finds herself in quite a few un-soul-like situations and becomes more involved with earth energies than she’d like to be, but she’s sure the illusions aren’t real. Well, almost. At least they don’t seem to be.
When Amanda begins her search to find the truth about her soul, and to discover her nearly-forgotten spiritual knowledge, Lavender trips through time and loses her straight-line perspectives of space, matter, and motion. This causes some serious repercussions in the form of past-life experiences popping up out of nowhere in the present. At just about the same time, Amanda gets lost somewhere in space and wanders through multi-dimensional realms of the universe in search of herself.
As Rainbow comes to the rescue—higher selves and universal light teachers tend to do that from time to time—she transcends their shared experiences, illuminating the key to knowledge that’s hidden just beyond the spectrum of the sunrise; the key that Amanda placed inside a rainbow right after she was born, the same key that an old philosopher in Egypt gave Lavender just before he died.
The book engages you in the magical world of your imagination as it presents you with an oppor-tunity and an avenue to rediscover your true spiritual nature. It offers you a look into higher realms and realities of awareness and shows you the spiritual side of everyday experiences. The story encourages you to wonder about, and to recognize, the meaning of Amanda’s and Lavender’s experiences; it lets you understand the meaning in your own way.
If you look somewhere over the rainbow, you’ll probably see a lot of things about yourself that you knew all the time, but temporarily forgot somewhere in your earth experiences. And if you look for the light within yourself, you might remember who you really are, and you might see a universal path of knowledge that all souls must travel to find the way home.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow …
“Lavender, what are you going to name yourself this time?”
“I’ll call myself Amanda. I like the energy vibration of the name.” Looking at the misty images in her mind, she saw that Amanda’s parents, Beth and Jim Millenum, were anxiously awaiting her arrival but she kept procrastinating, trying to find a good excuse not to be born. Time was running out and she knew she’d have to make her entrance soon.
“On second thought, do I really have to experience the reality of reincarnation on earth again?” she asked. Rephrasing her words, she said, “I’d rather go to school in the universe. There are a few more things I’d like to know about my true spiritual nature.”
“You chose another lifetime on earth to evolve your soul and you’ve agreed to be born now,” Rainbow said. “Besides, you’ve just opened up a separate space for a parallel vibration of energy and you have to put it somewhere. Amanda will need your help as she learns how to apply her spiritual knowledge in the physical world.” Rainbow shimmered in the sunlight. “Then there are the experiences in Egypt you said you’d take care of.”
A foreboding sense of fear began to slowly surround Lavender as shadowy images loomed in her thoughts and wove silently through her mind. “I thought Egypt was scheduled for another lifetime,” she whispered, hoping to postpone it.
“It’s scheduled for right now but you think it’s later. When you’re done with your doubts about remembering Egypt and your second thoughts about experiencing life as Amanda, I’ll meet you over at the school. You can register for classes as soon as Amanda decides to be born. You don’t have much more time to play around with,” Rainbow said pointedly.
“Time … ?” Lavender repeated suspiciously, stretching the word and watching it bounce into what seemed like a never-ending vibration of energy as she listened to it echo through the space of all eternity. “You’re not going to try to teach me how to synchronize time and space again, are you?”
Rainbow smiled. “You’ll learn about time and space for yourself in your earth experiences and through your nearly-remembered knowledge. When you clear up your thought perspectives, and see the light within yourself, you’ll see the truth about your spiritual nature. Then you’ll know who you really are and you’ll be able to find the way home.” With those words, she disappeared into a misty cloud somewhere above herself.
Watching the ethereal mist in the universe circle around Rainbow, Lavender knew she hadn’t really disappeared. It only looked that way. Even though she knew that, she felt a sinking sensation in her soul and thought she’d somehow lost touch with her.
How do I get myself into these predicaments? she wondered, feeling as if she was falling through time and space somewhere between the universe and the earth. She began to think Amanda’s earth experiences weren’t going to be any fun at all. Understanding your true spiritual nature sounded serious.
Chapter Four. Down to Earth Lavender watched Amanda fall backwards through the rainbow. Swirling, spiraling forms of energy spun all around her as she catapulted without rhythm and harmony through colors of light, doomed to crash into whatever awaited her. Misty memories and shadowy images rushed past her awareness as she plummeted toward earth.
Lavender breathed a deep sigh of despair. Looking into her energies, she saw that her thoughts were cloudy, her images were scattered, and everything seemed to be out of sync. Lightning flashed somewhere in the universe, illuminating a rainbow and Lavender floated above herself.
Amanda felt totally disconnected. It must be an accident, she thought. I must have fallen. A misty image of a lavender sphere of light floated through her mind. She sensed that someone had tripped her at the top of a rainbow. Who? she wondered. And more importantly, why?
Feeling lost, she looked around trying to see where she was; everything was foggy and seemed unreal. Thunder rolled through the clouds as lightning flashed across the universe. With a shock that reverberated through her soul, she realized she was stuck in the energy vibration of a physical body. “Let me out of here,” she screamed.
Someone else must be masterminding my fate, she thought. I wouldn’t do this to myself. I vowed I’d never reincarnate again, not after what happened in Egypt. The memory flashed through her awareness, then disappeared into darkness as if she’d turned off a light somewhere in her soul. She shivered with a foreboding sense of fear, somehow managing to free herself from the restrictive energies of a physical form. How on earth did I get myself into this predicament? she wondered.
“Perspectives,” Rainbow said. “You tripped on your thought perspectives.”
What am I doing here? she wondered, oblivious to the rainbow energies vibrating all around her. And why am I here? Earth is the last place I ever wanted to be. Is this a test or am I here to learn something? Calming herself so she could think clearly, she looked into her thoughts and saw double images. The fall must have blurred my vision, she thought. “Is there a higher reason or purpose for being here?” she quietly asked herself. There didn’t seem to be anyone else to talk to.
Feeling a dense cloud surround her, she realized she was about to be born. Being this close to what appeared to be her inevitable birth, with no memory of why she was here or what she was going to do with her life, or even of choosing this incarnation for herself, she became frantic.
“Now wait just a minute here,” she said. “I have some serious doubts and second thoughts about this.” Time was running out and she knew she’d have to find some answers soon if she was going to save herself from experiencing another lifetime on earth. It was an awful thought.
She felt as if she was precariously balanced between knowing and unknowing. One wrong move now and she was sure she’d be sentenced here for a long time, doomed to an unknown destiny. Feeling quite shaky, she tried to hold on to her thoughts, but couldn’t tune into a clear picture. She sensed her frame of mind was a little out of sync, maybe even warped a bit by the turn of events, but couldn’t seem to collect her energies and get centered. Images were wavering in and out of her mind, her thoughts were spinning, and she felt dizzy and disoriented.
She knew the answers she was looking for were just out of reach, just beyond the grasp of her understanding. Focus, she told herself. Focus clearly into one thought at a time. A shadowy image of an old, bearded man floated into her mind, but the image wouldn’t stay in place; it kept fading away. As the image disappeared, she watched herself enter a parallel place somewhere between the earth and the universe—a duplicate dimension that was strangely familiar—and she heard an echo whisper her name in a sudden gust of wind that blew through her soul.
She knew she’d been here before—experienced this place before—but couldn’t remember where or when. The déjà vu feeling seemed unreal, as if she’d seen and felt the images in a dream or read them in a book. The place was filled with shadowy spaces and shapes of past events and future experiences that loomed silently through her thoughts; the feelings and images were interwoven with fear in a timeless frame of energy.
She’d always thought herself to be a brave soul, fearless enough to find the truth in all her experiences. Concentrating her attention and summoning every bit of her courage, she looked into the shadows and knew she’d chosen to find her spiritual knowledge from the past and place it in the present, but fear shrouded the rest of the memory in darkness.
As the recognition flowed through her awareness, Amanda sighed, practicing her breathing. I did it again, she thought. I slipped out of the vibration of my true spiritual nature for a split second in time. “It was those damn earth energies,” she muttered, wondering if there was any possible way out of the incarnation she’d created for herself, even though it looked like it was probably too late to do anything about it right now. Maybe the opportunity will present itself later, she thought.
Resignedly accepting her imminent birth, she hovered on the ceiling and watched the activities. Her new mother seemed to be in a lot of pain and was concerned because it was taking so long. Amanda debated whether to tell her she was late because she’d had second thoughts about reincarnating, but decided to keep it to herself. This was the first time she was meeting her mother in person and wanted to begin their relationship on a friendly note. Her mother didn’t seem to be listening anyway. She was concentrating all her attention on giving birth and was breathing strangely.
Amanda looked at her father and smiled at him. He didn’t look at all like the archaeologist she’d known in Africa. He was standing behind her mother, whispering words in her ear. “Pant, honey. Short, shallow breaths. That’s it. Now blow. You’re doing great. One more deep breath,” he breathed with her, “and now PUSH.”
Amanda was embarrassed at her entrance. Advanced souls were supposed to waft gently into their bodies, on currents of light and energy, with their awareness completely clear. She had landed very ungracefully on her derriere into her new lifetime on earth. She burst into tears.
“It’s a girl,” the doctor said, holding her upside down and slapping her. Waving her arms in every direction, she tried to slap him back. Maybe he knew I said a swear word, she thought. Feeling uncoordinated and out of balance, she took stock of the situation, noticing only her pride was hurt and her sense of harmony was a little out of sync. She began to hiccup. Trying to regain her composure, she took a few deep breaths.
The doctor placed Amanda in her mother’s arms. She snuggled into the warmth, feeling safe and secure. Her father put his arms around them both, kissing them, laughing and crying at the same time. “It’s so cute the way she was waving her arms and putting her hands into fists,” he said to the doctor. “It looked as if she was trying to punch you.”
Amanda heard Rainbow laughing and wondered how she could be so happy about her birth. It’s humiliating to be stuck in a physical body, she thought, wondering who else knew about her entrance into earth energies.
Red-faced and more embarrassed than before, she decided there were a few announcements she just had to make about birth to her mother and the doctor, and to anyone else who might be listening. Looking into the thoughts and images in her mind for words to clearly express herself, she began to talk. “On earth, you have a silly idea that birth is a celebration. Birth is really a supremely complicated exercise in mental maneuvering and energy revibration.”
The words seemed clear enough to Amanda but sounded like gurgles when she spoke them. “It’s an intricate process of mind over matter. The real miracle of birth is that a soul has somehow managed to synchronize an innumerable number of circumstances, energies, and opportunities into the appropriate vibrations. When a soul gets everything in the right place at the right time, that’s something to celebrate.”
Getting caught up in the feelings of joy around her, she smiled, realizing she’d accomplished something very magical. It was kind of awesome, she thought, and even though her birth was far from perfect, it was still something to be proud of. Then she remembered where she was. “The concept that birth is a new beginning of life is silly, too! Who would ever believe a thing like that?”
She looked at her mother. “No matter how many times you’re born, it’s very shocking to transform spiritual energies into physical energies. Even though you went through labor, I did all the work.”
Her mother smiled at her with pure happiness. It was the nicest smile Amanda had ever seen and she loved her immediately. “She’s so beautiful,” Beth said to Jim. “Look at her big blue eyes and blond hair. She looks like a bright ray of sunshine.”
“She does have a special glow about her,” Jim agreed, smiling at Amanda. She reached for his finger and held it tightly in her hand. We’re forming a daddy-daughter bond, he thought, feeling a powerful surge of energy and emotion flow between them. There’s more to it than that, he sensed, wondering what it was. “Her eyes sparkle with light, as if she knows a secret she’d share with us if she could talk.”
The nurse agreed with both of them as she gently took Amanda from Beth. “Look at this,” she said. “She has a little bump on her right arm. It looks like a mosquito bite.”
Amanda shivered instinctively, without knowing why.
“Maybe she’s cold,” the nurse said, wrapping her securely in a soft blanket. “I’m going to give you a nice, warm bath,” she crooned to Amanda, “then let you rest for a while. Birth is hard on babies, too,” she said, smiling at Beth and the doctor.
Amanda felt trapped in her new body; it was too small and confining. Worst of all, it appeared to be solid. Trying to rise through the dense layer of physical energy which surrounded her, she fell back into her body, landing with a soft thud. Then she remembered the gravity of the situation she was in. After several attempts at synchronizing her thoughts with her projected images, she began to move upward, slowly at first, then more rapidly as the energy vibrations became finer.
Thank goodness, she thought. It isn’t as solid as it appears to be. She practiced rising through the levels of rainbow-colored energies until her flights were smooth and rhythmic, and she could flow through the vibrations easily.
Floating above her newly-acquired physical body, she watched the nurse put a diaper on her. How disgusting, she thought. There are some stinky things you never get used to. The nurse began humming a song as she dressed her in a little pink gown. Amanda floated gently into her body as the nurse picked her up and softly rubbed her back.
That feels nice, she thought, listening to the melody as the loving touch of the nurse soothed her soul. After all the commotion of birth, it’s good to have a hug from an old friend, she thought, recognizing her from a lifetime in Atlantis where they’d studied practical applications of universal energies. The nurse laid her gently in a bassinet and smiled into her eyes, as if she remembered her.
Amanda smiled back, then closed her eyes and drifted into sleep, watching sketchy shapes of her new incarnation show themselves in the mindscape of her dream images. Looking at the misty scenes, she didn’t know how the images would form into experiences. The way they kept weaving in and out, and around and through her thoughts gave her the feeling she’d have to put the pieces into their proper places.
Rainbow appeared and smiled brilliantly in shimmering waves of light. “Welcome to the world, Amanda. You made a wonderful entrance, with such a promising beginning.” She laughed. “I couldn’t tell which way you were going to land the way you kept fluttering around and changing your mind. It was so much like you.” She smiled. “Now that you’re in a physical body, you have to abide by physical laws.”
Amanda slowly opened her eyes and looked through a window at Rainbow. I’ve only been here twenty minutes, she thought. Birth was bad enough and now she has to remind me about the rules. She reverberated unhappily in her energies.
“You’re too young to swear; you’re not even supposed to be able to think or talk. People will treat you like a baby and you’ll have to get used to it. It’s part of the illusion. And please don’t play energy games with your mother. She doesn’t have any idea you’re an advanced soul. When you learn how to walk, you’ll forget you can fly. You have to use words to communicate instead of images. Matter is slower than thoughts.”
Amanda threw up. “Anything else I have to deal with here?”
“You seem to be a little cranky and irritable,” Rainbow said gently.
Who wouldn’t be, Amanda thought, if they tripped through the light and saw they’d been reincarnated. Feeling the slow vibrations of earth energy close in around you was enough to make even the most highly-evolved soul cranky and irritable. She took a deep, shuddering breath, not feeling at all like herself. “It’s just that I feel so … physical,” she said, searching for the right word.
“I know exactly how you feel,” Rainbow said reassuringly. “Before you completely adjust to earth energies, remember that one of the reasons for your reincarnation is to understand your true spiritual nature by applying your knowledge into all your experiences.”
I’ve read this somewhere before, Amanda thought, trying to envision where she’d seen the words. She felt so energy-depleted from birth that all she wanted to do was go to sleep and dream. “It would be helpful if I knew where my knowledge was and I could find it when I wake up,” she managed to say. An image of a golden key flashed through her mind.
“Remember your promise to Lavender,” Rainbow said.
Amanda’s thoughts and images began to fade. Before the pictures in her mind disappeared into misty dream images and cloudy thoughts, she knew she had to put the golden key in a safe place. Looking for somewhere to keep the key that would open her spiritual knowledge, she saw a rainbow shining through a misty ray of shimmering sunlight. There’s supposed to be a treasure at the end of the rainbow, she thought. A rainbow will keep it safe.
iUniverse, 268 pages, $17.95. 978-0-595-47523-0
Do you ever think you're someone else once in a while, but can't quite remember who you are? Or maybe you dream about events that seem to be happening to someone else, yet you resonate completely with them—as if they are happening to you? This book is based on one of my past lives in Egypt and the parallels to my present life. But this book goes beyond reincarnation; it explores the concept that we're living all our lives at the same time but in different dimensions of energy. It also covers the concept of parallel selves—the unity of our physical self with our spiritual self. Told in story form, it invites you on a mystical journey within your soul. Parallel Lives is the ebook of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Mystical Mindscapes, 308 pages, 978-1-883717-32-2 |
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