MY LIFETIMES THROUGH THE ZODIAC by Cheryl McGuire
What if our stories do not begin and do not end in a single lifetime? What if we have long histories through time? Eon’s worth. How would our stories conform, one to another, and why? Running with fantasy, here are a few fragments of my footprints.
As an Aries, I was one of the most famous female pirates of all time. Born in Ireland but operating in the Caribbean, I was known as Anne Bonney, a courageous, wild heart of the open seas. I became one of the most recognizable wanted faces of the “Golden Age of Piracy.” For my egregious skullduggery, however, I had to repay—oh, not in court. Yes, I was indeed caught and imprisoned, but never hanged: I was with child. No, I would have to pay alright, but with a pound of flesh in my next lifetime, when I would not understand why life was difficult.
I reincarnated in the United States, a curious grunt looking for adventure. I had nothing to my name and nothing to lose, so with great excitement I signed up with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and spent the next two and a half years of my life working like a service mule, packing heavy equipment, whacking brush, starving, and fighting disease and hostiles. I traveled some 8,000 grueling miles with those fellas, charting North America with a battered body and bruised fingers. I aged a thousand years in one lifetime. My name is lost to history.
As a Taurus, I chose a change of pace. I acted, sang, and tap-danced my way across the stage in the shadows of fame. With lightning-quick feet and precision timing, my tap shoes became my second voice. Very few heard. Only me. I learned from Fred Astaire.
As a Gemini, I reverted to the excitement of my old ways. I packed a gun and robbed banks. The day before my 30th birthday (June 21, 1933), I robbed my first bank and barreled out of town with $10,000. Quite the haul in the 30s. I was smart, fast, fearless, and charming. I had to be. I’d live only one more year. Every day had to flair bright and pop with passion. I knew I was traveling a one-way road. I did not fool myself as to what my end would be. If I surrendered, I knew it meant the electric chair. If I went on, it was just a question of how much time I had to live.
As it turned out, one year, one month, and one day later, my life would end. July 22, 1934, would be my last day. Outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, where I had just watched Clark Gable playing Blackie Gallagher in Manhattan Melodrama, I was gunned down. Blackie Gallagher had it right: “Die the way you lived, all of a sudden, that’s the way to go. Don’t drag it out.”
But my story didn’t end with my death, did it? There are the legends and the pictures. I’d stare straight into the cameras, looking for all the world as if I knew something everyone else needed to know but never would. I did. And I was never glum about it. I had that crooked smile as if saying hello to all of you out there. Even now. The public who met me, and the press who wrote of me, publicized my polite personal charm as if I found life amusing. I did. In that one year of fast living, I became legendary. They called me John Dillinger.
As a Cancer, I adopted an intellectual female lifetime. I believed in spiritualism and founded The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer-prize-winning secular newspaper. I started the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1881. I believed in mental healing and started my own church with the Christian Science movement. They called me Mary Baker Eddy.
As a Leo, I got myself into quite a bit of trouble. Arrogant little sign! I ran amok first as Napoleon Bonaparte then rampaged as Benito Mussolini. I was bullheaded—power was a hypnotic fruit. Later, I repaid a scrap of my humongous debt to society as Orville Wright by inventing a flying machine humanity could use.
But I got my real comeuppance in 1947 when fate put me in the path of some unknown bozo who viciously murdered me. I paid the ultimate price. But that’s not all. To cauterize any future soul desire for fame, I was humiliated in death. The murderer carved me up in such a way I’d be forever tagged The Black Dahlia. The grizzly details remain emblazoned on the public mind to this day, some seventy-five years after my death. To cement the repayment clause in my soul contract, I’m not allowed justice. The case will never be solved.
As a Virgo, the sign of the Virgin, I ran against type and lived as a prostitute. My wretched claim to fame as Mary Ann Nichols was the distinction of being Jack the Ripper’s first victim. He made quick work of my tormented, luckless life. (I sense a theme here.)
As a Libra, I embraced my creative side once more and dallied in the world of make-believe. I wreaked havoc (metaphorically) in the dark recesses of theater. As Bela Lugosi, I got to be the boogeyman without harming anyone.
As a Scorpio, I didn’t fare so well, though I had great intentions. I possessed a nationalistic spirit and desired to protect the Romanian people—high ideals, indeed—but instead became known as Vlad the Impaler. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.
As a Sagittarius, I gave everything I had to this one lifetime. I wore myself out commanding, strategizing, leading, public speaking, researching, writing, and painting. After my time as Winston Churchill, I needed a strong drink and good long rest.
As a Capricorn, I was called upon to fulfill the legend of the maid who would save France. I was keenly aware of the two sides of life, the seen and unseen. As Joan of Arc, I would burn at the stake for the Truth I knew.
Later, wanting to prove the pen is mightier than the sword, I incarnated as the writer Edgar Allan Poe. Again, I straddled the seen and unseen worlds, but my earth life was harsh and unsparing, full of tragedy. Haunted by emotional pain on earth and perturbed by the clouded veil between that world and this, I was destined to write of torment and beauty. Gratefully, I was granted an early release at forty. Today, the world credits Poe as the inventor of the detective genre and a great influence on science fiction.
As an Aquarius, I came into a musical lifetime. As Mozart, I was small in stature and short-lived. I burned with music inside and was incredibly prolific during my thirty-five-year sojourn. My music, which was everything to me, outlasted me by centuries. I had Tourette syndrome, however, so I wasn’t always popular at court.
Much, much later, I returned. What on earth for? I didn’t want to be here and drummed up the idea of heading straight into outer space at the first opportunity to land on the moon. They called me Buzz Aldrin.
As a Pisces, I was put to the test, as all souls will be at one time or another. In spite of harsh life circumstances, my task as Michelangelo was to provide spiritual gifts to mankind. My first love was marble and before I was thirty, I sculpted Pietà and David. Less enamored of painting, I nonetheless had to earn a living and accepted a commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in fresco. I labored from 1508 to 1512 on the project, the hardest thing I ever did. Starting in 1505, but constantly interrupted by other projects, I worked on the tomb of Pope Julius II until 1545, forty years! When I finished the central figure of Moses, he was so life-like I slammed his knee with my hammer and commanded, “Now Live!” By the time I was an old man of seventy-one, I succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. I transformed the plan so that the western end was finished to my design, as was the dome after my death. I lived a long life—eighty-eight years. It felt long—after a while, the weight of gravity buckles the knees and humps men’s shoulders. Released from gravity immediately upon death, I was aware of an incredible lightness of being. My eighty-eight years? An instant, a flash—the blink of an eye.
The End? I doubt it. Famous, infamous, or unknown—no one escapes the struggles of incarnation. A tiring business. I’d like to put my feet up in some hidden corner of the universe and watch worlds wisp by like holograms through a movie projector. I’d like to press the pause button on a remote and hum along in neutral for a spell.
