Born Again

"Among the Lapps, when a woman was with child and near the time of her delivery, a deceased ancestor or relation used to appear to her in a dream and inform her what dead person was to be born again in her infant, and whose name the child was therefore to bear. If the woman had no such dream, it fell to the father or the relatives to determine the name by divination or by consulting a wizard." p. 298 The Golden Bough

Snake Link


While the second part of the quotation does not directly correlate to my blog, I could not disregard it because it included wizards, and let's face it, wizards are pretty cool fellows.
In class on Thursday we discussed how life is constantly regenerated which reminded me of a book I read when I was younger titled Eleven Seconds by Travis Roy a Boston University hockey player. 11 seconds into his college hockey career he tripped and went head first into the boards and became a paraplegic. In the book he discusses his personal belief that he will be reborn until he lives a life that he deems perfect. This does not even mean to never make mistakes because mistakes are part of the beauty of life but it means on that satisfies and makes him personally happy. He met his wife and lives an enjoyable life so this does not rule out "this life" he is currently living is not the life he will deem perfect. I like this idea because part of being a human is making mistakes and it is not until the mistake is made that we truly learn. From instinct people are able to make the right or wrong decision. Instinct is defined as, "fixed pattern of behavior in animals in response to certain stimuli" this stimuli must come from somewhere so why not believe we are just repeating our time on earth? I personally do not believe in an afterlife so coming back to earth fills my appetite.