If this were a script to be read for a podcast, I’d have to get a good quality windscreen to keep from popping my Ps. According to the UK National Gallery:
Pentimento is a change made by the artist during the process of painting. These changes are usually hidden beneath a subsequent paint layer. In some instances they become visible because the paint layer above has become transparent with time.
I had an experience which made me consider how the concept of Pentimento might give some insight into the between lives planning process. I have been doing some Between Lives work assisted by John Till because, even though I recommend it to my clients, I realized I hadn’t done much of this work lately. I enlisted John to help me unpack the planning process for my present life which I followed up with another solo session digging deeper into the details. Previous between-life sessions had brought me the information that my guide offered/suggested a completely different plan for my present life that I declined, which made me aware
a) that our guides can offer suggestions for lives or even entire life plans, and
b) that we can accept or reject these suggestions. (This is an area that I am currently exploring further.)
Instead, my between-lives self became aware of a plan being put together by 2 souls that was much more interesting to me. This became the plan for this life: working with those 2 souls and others as musicians with great aspirations to bring about progress through art and music. (More information about my part in preparing for a musical career is found in a post about Imprinting.) I did in fact become a drummer and connect with these people and work in a band with them for 7 years, a journey that took me from Brooklyn to Dallas and back over many decades, only ending in 2018 when I retired.
But it’s with the renewed awareness of that declined plan that the Pentimento concept has illuminated. What I learned in my own follow-up session is that this declined plan is basically doing this past, between and future lives work based on the Awareness Techniques of William and Diane Swygard. I learned how to “run” past lives in Dallas while on the road with the band, a city that wasn’t in my awareness as a die-hard New Yorker who never wanted to live anywhere but “the city.” And this past lives work has been on a parallel track with me all through my musical career. When I moved to Asheville to reinvent myself in 2014, I immediately returned to this work which led to setting up the Past Lives Project, the MeetUp, and this blog.
If Pentimento in painting is “the presence or emergence of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over” then in my life I see this “emergence” of an earlier plan that had been “changed or painted over.” There are details of that plan that are too personal to discuss but suffice it to say that there are elements of that declined plan that I’ve never been able to make happen now that I’m actively pursuing it. Possibly because the people that would have been involved in making that happen are no longer or never were in my life, or are in my present life in different roles, which makes it even more confusing. Trying to explain this reminds me of all the TV shows and films that attract my attention. I’ve written previously about all the Time Travel material. There are also a “parallel universe” shows like the excellent Fringe, 5 seasons of which I just inhaled; Counterparts which is set in Berlin; and The Man in the High Castle, based on a Phillip K. Dick story about the USA after the Nazis won WW2.
The other element of Pentimento, which functions more as a poetic metaphor rather than a direct comparison, is the Time element — how the brushstrokes “ become visible because the paint layer above has become transparent with time.” Over time, the plan for the painting that was left behind reveals itself, much like how the plan I didn’t choose came to the forefront after the chosen plan was completed. Previously if someone came to me dealing with a career choice or a relationship that defies manifestation, I would guide them to an “other” life— past, present, or future — to see if there were unfinished business, or vows/promises that can be felt and released. Now the area of between life plans can be explored to see if the planning process is affecting the present life, using my own experience as a guide. This, however, is next level work, requiring multiple sessions to access the core event behind the issue and become comfortable with the non-physical between lives state. For me, it was helpful to recognize this behind the scenes activity that gave me insight into my motivations and helped to adjust my work going forward.