I find it interesting to look at past lives to see how the individual soul works with the roles of male and female. Mostly I’m looking at the past few millenia as there are so many lives in any one soul book that there’s no real reason to go back that far unless there is something specific to the person’s current life or to a question they are posing. Which means that being male or being female have highly structured definitions and boundaries which we put on when we become embodied. And that can seem like a straight jacket keeping us too tightly bound or it can feel like a support helping us to become at a much greater and safer rate.
What interests me is the variety of ways in which we interpret and experience these roles, choosing to subvert them, fully embrace them, rebel against them, immerse ourselves in them, or utilize them for our own ends. Each past life weaves these choices into the fabric of that creates the foundation of that narrative. Being female in the 40’s and learning about empowerment through factory work to support the troops. Being male in the Middle East during the lifetime of Mohammed and choosing to leave the old tribal ways behind for a new type of community…or not. Being female in Ireland during the potato famine. Being male in Germany during the Roman invasion.
Each choice, each role we take on is planned not only to participate in the times, but to explore our own natures, to wear the role and make it our own, to find out about this aspect of ourselves, to fully and completely embody what it is to be male or to be female. And in all my experience I have found no soul that has been only one or the other. We all take on both rolls at times. And at times we blur the lines between them. Because our true nature is neither one nor the other. It is both and neither for the distinctions do not apply to souls. It is a gift to be able to split our nature into these two essential parts. It allows us to combine them in a multiplicity of ways too enormous to fathom.
Looking at our past lives allows us to see all that we have learned about what it is to be male, to be female, and points out all that we have yet to learn. Remembering this wisdom can help us be better at it this time around.