M.J. Rose

Welcome back to the Reincarnationist QA! Thank you to author Marie-Nicole Ryan for answering our questions. Marie-Nicole is the author of a paranormal romance dealing with reincarnation, SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS. She also the author of several other wonderful books that appeal to our audience. Please visit her at her website, here.

THE QUESTIONS:

What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?

Hunger. In this life I have a problem with overeating. In one of my dreams, I experienced dying of starvation in a concentration camp. I believe whatever “world” one’s life condition is in at the time of death is the dominant influence of the next life. While one may be born into one of the lower “Ten Worlds”, it is possible to elevate one’s basic life condition. But hunger relates to more than a hunger for food. There’s the hunger for love, material items. I have a great love for antiques which may be a holdover from an earlier life.

What is your principle defect that you believe may be inherited from a previous incarnation?

Insecurity and a large dose of impatience. At least, these are the defects that plague me now and presents my greatest opportunity for growth.

Which of your favorite heroes do you think you could have been and why?

I’m so wedded to the female persona, and thus to my heroines, I’m not sure I can conceive of myself as male. But if I were to pick one of my fictional heroes, it would be Sheriff Cordero Tate, in SEDUCING THE SHERIFF. I relate more to his solid character than to the outrageous heroine of the story.  As for real life heroes, anyone involved in animal rescue is a hero to me.

What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?

Anya Seton, author of THE GREEN DARKNESS, Marie Antoinette (talk about some bad karma), and Gautama Buddha

What do you think happens when we die?

As a follower of Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism, I believe our consciousness (true self) goes into ku (a sort of cosmic consciousness) until time to be reborn. I believe in this state we are aware of all our past lives and have the ability to choose our next set of circumstances and the opportunities for additional growth as human beings.

When you come back next time, who (or what!) would you like to be?

I want to come back again as a creative person. Whatever form that creativity takes is fine, as long as it’s legal. In addition, and however shallow it sounds, being tall, thin, beautiful and brilliant would be okay, too.

Marie-Nicole Ryan’s links:

http://marienicoleryan.com
http://twitter.com/marienicoleryan
http://facebook.com/MarieNicoleRyan.author
http://sgi-usa.org

Buy Marie-Nicole’s new release, Love Me If You Can, here.

I love it when science discovers via technology and study that something incredibly mysterious is going on and are then forced to speculate how those findings could possibly be so mind-bending, and how or why the actual mechanics of the discovery remain largely unknown!

Here’s an example of science weighing in on some discoveries made about the deep connections that sometimes occur between people – and how these discoveries have actually made the phenomenon more mysterious!:

Wired Science News for Your Neurons

Good Connection Really Does Lead to Mind Meld

By Brandon Keim

When two people experience a deep connection, they’re informally described as being on the same wavelength. There may be neurological truth to that.

Brain scans of a speaker and listener showed their neural activity synchronizing during storytelling. The stronger their reported connection, the closer the coupling.

The experiment was the first to use fMRI, which measures blood flow changes in the brain, on two people as they talked. Different brain regions have been linked to both speaking and listening, but “the ongoing interaction between the two systems during everyday communication remains largely unknown,” wrote Princeton University neuroscientists Greg Stephens and Uri Hasson in the July 27 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They found that speaking and listening used common rather than separate neural subsystems inside each brain. Even more striking was an overlap between the brains of speaker and listener. When post-scan interviews found that stories had resonated, scans showed a complex interplay of neural call and response, as if language were a wire between test subjects’ brains…

Read More at Wired, here.

Thank you Jenny Gardiner, author of Slim to None; Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who’s Determined to Kill Me; and Sleeping with Ward Cleaver – for answering one of our last Reincarnationist Q&As (at least for a while!)

THE QUESTIONS:

What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?

I definitely was born to the water in a past life. It is the place where I feel almost eerily at peace and like I belong.

What is your principle defect that you believe may be inherited from a previous incarnation?

Eating – LOL!

Which of your favorite heroes do you think you could have been and why?

I think I would have been a woman who defied expectations to be seen and not heard. I have too much outrage over injustice and I know I’d have strained in the tethers of a society that suppressed women. I guess throughout history there are so many women who did this, who were able to stand up and speak and defend themselves that it’s hard to pick just one.

What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?

I’m a little curious about Thomas Jefferson since I live in TJ country and everyone gushes on him so much (having grown elsewhere we didn’t get a huge dose of his history in school like they have here). But I’d like to ask him about the types of double standards that were acceptable to people like him. To keep slaves yet be proponent of individual liberties. That sort of thing. I’d love to know if those famed patriots from around here are still lurking…
I’d love to talk with women who were persecuted in the Salem witch trials. It would be interesting to find out what happened with their souls/spirits and if reincarnated, how so?
I also think I’d love to talk with my grandmother, who I wish was around to talk about all sorts of things sometimes…Find out where she went after she passed away, and if she’s now been reincarnated into something/someone else…

What do you think happens when we die?

I do believe the soul or spirit remains somehow. And perhaps if there are major unresolved problems, they remain in an unsettled way. I also think there are bad spirits that remain. When I was in college I lived in the attic of a house for a semester and I was so convinced it was haunted by bad spirits that I moved out. I live in the South and many people have stories of hauntings in homes and properties here–relics from the Civil war and from slavery.

When you come back next time, who (or what!) would you like to be?

Someone who helps better the world.

Learn more about Jenny and her work at her various online locations:
www.jennygardiner.net
www.jennygardiner.net/blog/
www.facebook.com/jennygardinerbooks
twitter.com/jennygardiner