Dickens’ Dream by R. W. Buss

I first encountered the concept of reincarnation during The Winter of My Discontent in rural Nova Scotia. With snow piled up past the window sills, I sat home alone by the wood stove trying to stay warm while my husband went off to work each day. I read every single one of my little leather-bound Charles Dickens books that winter. And as the days crawled by, I experienced a sort of existential crisis that went something like this: I’m not doing anything; I don’t want to do anything; therefore, I must not exist. Maybe it was the solitude, maybe it was my choice of literature, or maybe it was time for me to look more deeply into the crevices of my life.

Then as if in answer to an unsaid prayer, a friend appeared with a book on reincarnation. All I remember about that book is the blue cover and the author’s first name. But it touched me deeply, and I felt a knowing – a certainty that what I was reading was true. I had been intrigued by the paranormal all my life, but I hadn’t bumped into reincarnation until now. I didn’t know then what it was that made me feel better, but my spirits lifted enough to get me up out of my chair.

Since that winter, I’ve looked at the world through different eyes. I find it easier to understand relationships and seemingly random occurrences, misfortunes and illnesses. And I’ve come to understand just recently that spending that winter in Dickens’ London brought me back to that very traumatic lifetime with the man who was my father in this one. What I hadn’t been able to fathom though is why I, as Spirit, would choose to experience such pain and suffering. Another chat with Source would give me the answer.