Transcript of conversation between Caitlin (age 12) and Shannon (age 9), Spring 2005, recorded by Brett as part of a study on childhood spirituality.

 

C What I can remember was, I don’t …maybe I wasn’t with the Native  Americans tribes, but all I know is that there are ways in what they believe, I think I can relate to that like I was part there.  Yeah but there’s other cultures I can relate to, like the Celtic people. I really relate to them, and the Chinese people, I listen to Taoism and everything, so maybe I was both of there, but I don’t know.  

 

S You can be in more than one culture over a lifetime.  Like one lifetime you can be, let’ say, an Indian in India. And the next lifetime you can be an Irish girl, or boy, you could change genders …you can even change species.

 

C  I just think that, maybe it’s, we’re all connected in some way. Like um … we’re all, like, we’re all the same people like from different places, different things.

 

S

 

C Maybe the reason I feel connected to so many people is because some way they’re all my people, and in my past life, I understood that.

 

S  I really don’t believe in past or present or future. What I believe is that, we’re all just things, I mean, I believe that you could be in the year 2120 in one life, and then be a dinosaur back 65 million years ago in another life.

 

C  So you mean time isn’t a straight line. It’s not, it keeps circling back, keeps going back.

 

S  I mean, I believe in time as just one period of time. I don’t believe it just keeps on going, and everything.  I believe, like, ok like your life focuses in one area.  And then you die and it comes back to the past or it goes into the future.  It could go millions of years into the future, or millions of years into the past. You could be on land or water, there’s no telling.

 

C Well I think that, you know … time … cosmos, everything is …all harmonized.  That’s where I got to the Great Spirit type thing.  Like power, kind of like Star Wars … “The Force” … kind of like this energy.  God, Goddess, whatever you want to call it. And there are certain times when you feel connected with everything in it.  And sometimes those times might not even be in reality … or what we call reality… maybe in a dream …  or maybe a dream in your other life. Or maybe just a memory from when you were in the Otherworld.

 

S  Maybe life is no different than death.

 

C  Sometimes I see life as a circle, or a spiral.

 

S  I kind of see life as …a life that just keeps on going. Like ... in some parts it curves and then it goes jig jaggity…and then it swoops down and then it goes really tall. 

 

C Well, what I can remember is this one dream.  I was in Nana and Papa’s house, and I went in.  I know this may not seem like my earliest experience, but it is a part of my life where I felt spiritually connected with everything.  And if it was part of a dream, all the better, I think. Well, I was in my room, the room in Cleveland, and suddenly all the walls became mirrors, a hall of mirrors.  And I was staring …kind of swooped me away. Suddenly, I was nowhere … and I was everywhere.  I just felt good.  And then this guy came and offered to teach me about things.  Well, I just got that feeling of power.  Not really power but …energy. Like when you feel that you know everything … you know nothing.  You feel … you see …You’re everywhere … you’re nowhere.  Just …here … just now.  Just  … connected.

 

S   A life is in a circle. Like people can think of something as the past or the present, but I don’t think that way.  I mean I love history, but I really don’t believe anything is history. I believe you can go before something happened, or after something happened.  Like a circle that never ends, its like…  maybe you’re in a time period where is jungley.  And the next is a city.  Well, life just keeps on circling and circling and circling.  It doesn’t have to be just one time.  Like I said, you could change gender, or species, or both. You could even change time periods by going back in time or forward in time.  And every thing changes about your new world, but your old world never leaves you. Like a memory that you don’t remember but still sticks with you.

…………………

C  We are always spirit … The body … people say its just a “container” but I don’t think that.  I think that once you have your body it becomes part of you …not part as in legs, arms and stuff, but you know … part of your soul. 

 

S  Like what body you were in in your past life still sticks with you, even though it may have dissolved, or been burned. But it still sticks with you … the memory of it still sticks with you.

 

C Like when you have your body it becomes part of you.  It’s you, it’s … it’s not your spirit just containing it … your spirit’s not living in it … your spirit’s part of it.   And when I say spiritual, I don’t mean like air spiritual………….spiritual isn’t air.  It’s air, water, fire …

 

S. I really don’t use the term “ghost.”  I think just people who have …gone into an extra life. And sometimes I can feel sad that they’ve gone. But once I think about it, they’re just living in another body.  

 

C They’re not gone … they’re here. They became part of nature.  They are spirit.  They are everywhere.  They’re spirit is with everything.  It became part of what, I think is the Great Spirit.  And I think this power is love.  It is always with us.  It hurts us sometimes, but that hurt ends up being help.  Maybe they hurt us so we can do something later.  Maybe we needed to be hurt so we can accomplish something later.

 

C  I think that what will never change is that there’s this big love … big power that surrounds us always…gives us fire, gives us life, give us everything, whatever you want to call it, just being in touch with that, feeling like you know yourself, being aware, asking why we’re here … and that’s spirituality.  I don’t really want put a definition on it, but …