Connection to the Land

I find myself saying that I belong *to* the Land, but I don't know what I mean. The preposition ‘to’ implies that the Land owns me...

In one of her posts on Sense of Place, Sterling also says that she belongs ‘to’ the Land. She suggests that she was brainwashed by Jewish day schools. I didn’t attend Jewish day schools. So what is the source of the connection I feel?

The absolute least likely reason is reincarnation, but I do have a strange story to tell.

Years ago, a friend and I decided to see a hypnotherapist for past life regressions. She was a believer; I was agnostic about reincarnation, but wondered what story I might tell.

The therapist struggled to get me to remember something. She kept taking me further down in her metaphoric elevator. Finally we found something.

Scene One: I was a man, a math teacher, in a small town in 1930s Germany. The boys I was teaching wore lederhosen. I was afraid of them-- one in particular-- because they all knew I was Jewish.

Scene Two: I lived in a single room in a brick building. My landlady cooked one meal a day for me. Sometimes, when sitting by my window, I’d see her hanging clothes out to dry.

Scene Three: I was wearing a grey coat and walking down an empty gray street in a city. (My body, the one in the therapist’s chair, felt huge, as if it had been inflated.)

Scene Four: I was lying on the deck of a large ship, very sick. It was daytime and a man was leaning over me. Someone shouted that he could see Palestine and men rushed to the side of the boat. I tried to sit up, but couldn't. I died a moment later, without even catching a glimpse of the Land.

After the hypnotherapist woke me, I thought, “It didn’t feel true.” And certainly, looking at the details, it couldn’t have been.

Did boys still wear lederhosen in the twentieth century? Would a Jew have walked down a German street during the World War II? Could a ship of refugees have approached the Land during daylight when the British had set up a blockade to prevent Holocaust survivors from reaching Palestine?

I couldn’t find any connection between my subconscious and the story I had told. (Of course, the nature of the subconscious is that you can’t really know it.)

Whatever the source of that story, it evokes strong feelings in me now.