The Accidental Shaman: Journeys with Plant Teachers and Other Spirit Allies - Howard G. Charing 2017

Prebirth Existence
The Continuum of Life

As a child, I was fascinated with the actuality of being alive. This sense of wonder has never fully gone away. Even now, if I reflect on it, I still have the feeling that it is wonderfully weird to be alive. In the late 1980s I was drawn to the work of John-Richard Turner, who developed the prebirth matrix. This method takes you back to the precise moment of your conception, when you became aware. That moment holds the emotional blueprints, the source of the prevalent emotional patterns experienced in life. I attended the trainings, conferences, and seminars, eventually becoming a qualified practitioner of this body of work. It did indeed open many doors to awakening the memories of my birth, as I have previously mentioned, and also intriguingly the time before my birth.

We inherit not only the biological genetic coding of our parents but also their mental and emotional states during the nine months prior to our birth. With this knowledge, deep transformational growth can happen, transmuting negative, diminishing thoughts and self-judgments into qualities that enhance our well-being and life. I still offer workshops on the prebirth body of practices as they clearly help people to discover and heal the underlying emotional patterns that create dissatisfaction and unhappiness in their lives. This body of work is particularly beneficial in identifying and releasing the emotional impediments that prevent people from enjoying intimate and meaningful relationships.

In addition to the growth of our physical body in the womb, we also experience the development of our emotional and mental body, and these stem from our mother’s energy body. John-Richard Turner called this emotional DNA (eDNA). The developing fetus experiences the mother’s thoughts and feelings, and those become the emotional basis for the child’s life.

At the time this concept was put forth, we did not have any scientific data for it, although there was a significant body of anecdotal evidence. However, that has all changed with the amazing discovery of epigenetics. The eminent geneticist Professor Marcus Pembrey introduces the idea that the lives of our parents, grandparents, and previous generations can directly affect our well-being, despite never experiencing any of the things they experienced.

One of the firmest tenets of biology is that at the moment of our conception, we receive a set of chromosomes from our mother and father, and that DNA genetic coding is immutable. Our genes remain intact and unaffected either by the way we live or by our environmental conditions. The Human Genome Project started in the early 1990s with the objective to map the entire human genetic code, the biological blueprint for humans. This blueprint would offer a complete understanding of our biology at the molecular level, with the promise that scientists could find the genetic cause and cure for every disease. We could follow this map to biological utopia.

This utopia was never achieved because they realized that the number of human genes was considerably less than the original assumption of about one hundred thousand genes; in fact, the human genome is less complex than and has fewer genes than plants. The current assumption is that there are fewer than thirty thousand genes. This discovery led scientists to the conclusion that gene studies provide no way to explain the complexity of the human organism. There is clearly more to inheritance than the basic DNA sequence. Something other than DNA mediates biological inheritance, an elusive meta-agent that controls the function of our genes. It means that biological inheritance is not simply based on the genes that you inherit but on the internal configuration of the genes. This implies the existence of an independent genetic substratum that modifies the genes.

“We realized that we were dealing with what is now known as genomic imprinting,” says Professor Pembrey. “What genomic imprinting means is, in a nutshell, that genes have a memory of where they came from.”⁵

I emphasized the word memory because that could refer to the metaagent that informs our consciousness and physical form. We could call it hypermemory or eDNA, a means to transmit ancestral emotional experiences. This correlates with the holistic notion that consciousness existed before matter and that life, as the sages and philosophers have said, is a continuum. However, whether either can be proven or disproven is another story. The following discussion between two great minds, Carl Sagan and the Dalai Lama, took place in 1991. Sagan relates:

In theological discussions with religious leaders, I often ask what their response would be if a central dogma of their faith were disproved by scientific discipline. When I put this question to the Dalai Lama, he unhesitatingly replied as no traditionalist or fundamentalist religious leaders do: In such a case, he said, Tibetan Buddhism would have to alter. Even, I asked, if it’s a really central tenet, like reincarnation? Even then, he replied. However, he said mischievously—it will be hard to disprove reincarnation!⁶

EXERCISE

Journey to the Moment of Your Conception

To look at our conception, the creation of our physical incarnation, we need to place it in a broader context. We are considering the eternal and immutable self, or soul, not the “I” of our present lifetime. Our incarnation is not a result of chance or luck; it is karmic. This incarnation is but one step in the soul’s evolution, its ongoing development and illumination, and one of the goals is to resolve unfinished patterns that were experienced in past lives. When we die in a past life with unresolved, diminishing emotional and mental patterns, our consciousness seeks the opportunity to transform and release these unresolved patterns. This is nonjudgmental and beyond the dualistic notion of “good” or “bad.” In order to release these patterns, we need to be in the physical world and enter into a set of circumstances that will allow us to activate them.

In this vast and timeless field of consciousness, we are energetically drawn to our predestined mother and father, who themselves are resonating with the same emotional and mental frequencies that we experienced in a past life. This mutual soul resonance draws us to our parents’ consciousness.

In this journey you will gain insight into some of your most deeply seated emotional patterns. This journey is based on the initial section of the prebirth matrix. You can try this practice by using a meditation practice or by using a shamanic journey. For clarity, the narrative is in the first person.

I allow myself to be aware of the consciousness of my father, how he is feeling within himself, about himself at the moment of making love, an act that will result in my conception.

I ask myself: “Are the emotions that Father was experiencing familiar feelings in my life?”

I allow myself to be aware of the feelings that Father is having at this time about Mother.

I ask myself: “Do the feelings that Father was having toward Mother appear as familiar relationship patterns in my life?”

I allow myself to be aware of the consciousness of Mother, how she is feeling at the moment of making love, an act that will result in my conception.

I ask myself: “Are the emotions that Mother was experiencing familiar feelings in my life?”

I allow myself to be aware of the feelings that Mother is having at this time toward Father.

I ask myself: “Do the feelings that Mother was having toward Father appear as familiar relationship patterns in my life?”

In the act of making love, hundreds of millions of sperm are released. From this multitude only a single sperm will be successful and fertilize the egg.

I allow myself to be aware of the consciousness of that single sperm, that one sperm that will fertilize the egg, an act that will result in my conception.

I ask myself: “What is my consciousness? What feelings is the sperm having? Are these familiar feelings in my life?”

And now I turn to Mother’s egg, which since her birth has been fully formed in her ovary. It is now released and starts the journey into the fallopian tubes.

I ask myself: “What is her consciousness? What feelings is the egg having? Are these familiar feelings in my life?”

And now as the egg moves along the fallopian tube, it sees the approaching sperm for the first time.

I ask myself: “What is the egg’s consciousness? What feelings is the egg having on seeing the approaching sperm for the first time? Are these familiar feelings in my life?”

And now, that single sperm sees the egg for the first time.

I ask myself: “What is the sperm’s consciousness? What feelings is the sperm having on seeing the egg for the first time? Are these familiar feelings in my life?”

And now, I turn to the millions of sperm surrounding and engulfing the egg.

I ask myself: “What is the egg’s consciousness? What feelings is the egg having at this moment? Are these familiar feelings in my life?”

Turn now to the moment just before conception, when the merging of the sperm and egg takes place.

I ask myself: “Where is my consciousness, my awareness of self at this moment?”

And now, the egg has opened its outer membrane and permits the single sperm to enter. The sperm and egg join, merge, and create a new form of life. This is the moment of conception, the beginning of life.

I ask myself: “What are my feelings at this moment? What unresolved emotional patterns are to be activated, experienced, and released?”

When you have completed this journey, come back into everyday awareness. Record your observations and the associated feelings. Then I suggest that you put this information away until the following day and allow your awakened feelings, insights, and memories to organize into a cogent form during your sleep. The following day, review and ponder the material. Have you gained an insight into the emotional patterns in your life?