A Propeller, a Past Life and a Pause

At one stage in my seeking, I used to take the train into the city and head to the Theosophical Society in Melbourne. They had a curious little library, full of spirituality, esoterica, and occult books. There was also a shop selling tarot cards, crystals, incense, and all sorts of things you’d expect in a place like that.

They often hosted talks and presentations, metaphysical subjects, near-death experiences, spiritual philosophies… basically, anything strange or slightly off-centre. I didn’t mind it at all. I liked wandering in, grabbing a book, sitting down, seeing what the afternoon would bring.

One Saturday, they had a presentation on a topic I can’t quite remember. I think it had something to do with suffering. During the discussion, I put my hand up and gave my two cents:

"I think all suffering comes from the ‘I’ from an idea we hold about ourselves that simply isn’t true."

As soon as I said that, someone behind me blurted out:

“How would you know?”

I turned around. It was an older guy, sitting at the back with his arms crossed. I said, “I don’t know, it’s just my opinion.”

He scoffed and didn’t say another word.

During the break, while everyone was grabbing snacks and chatting, I decided to go and speak to him. I was curious about why he’d reacted so strongly.

I walked over and said hello. He looked at me and said hello back and to my surprise, he was friendly. Engaging. The opposite of how he’d come across earlier.

I asked him why he reacted the way he did. He said he simply didn’t see things that way.

I asked, “What way do you see it?”

And that’s when it got interesting.

He told me he’d once been reading a book about old ships just casually, sitting at home. He said he was deeply absorbed in it, really fascinated. At one point, he turned a page and saw an image of a particular boat. What struck him most was the propeller underneath for some reason, he felt especially drawn to it. He just stared at the picture of the propeller…

And then suddenly he wasn’t there anymore.

He was a young girl, sitting on the edge of a pier, her legs dangling off the side. In front of her, some men were working on the exact same propeller, on the exact same boat. She was just watching. Calm, present, silent.

Then just like that he was back. Sitting in his chair, holding the book.

Something about that image, that specific propeller was like a portal. A memory hidden in plain sight.

I was overjoyed. I loved this sort of stuff. This is why I came to these talks.

I said, “That’s incredible, thanks for sharing.”

He smiled. I asked, “Got anything else?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I have memories of being a barbarian. Around the time of the fall of Constantinople.”

He said he wasn’t a good man in that life not at all. He remembers full days, scenes, behaviours. Like recalling a dinner from three nights ago. It was that vivid.

I said, “Wow… you must be living some kind of amazing life now, with all those memories.”

He laughed. “Absolutely not. I sit around doing nothing. I don’t even have a job.”

I was taken aback for a moment, then laughed with him.

What else could I say?

He was speaking his truth. And I accepted it as such.

I walked back to my seat, half-listening to the rest of the presentation but my mind was elsewhere. On old ships. On Constantinople.

On a girl sitting at the end of a dock, watching men work on a boat’s propeller not knowing that, decades or lifetimes later, someone would remember her.