Something Happened That Changed Everything

Please see previous post – Why You’re Here -to ensure continuity.

Justin was born in the house next door to his grandparents’ home on Dean Street, Swindon, Wiltshire, on October 14th, 1946. The row of closely packed houses bordered the railway line of the Great Western Railroad. His early life was spent there and in Berkshire before the family moved back to Swindon.

His parents were teachers, and enlightened people by Justin’s account. Being raised in that environment would be crucial to dealing with what was to come.

Justin spent hours listening to his grandfather’s gramophone records, and he was entranced by the Anglican hymns he heard in church, fueling his love of music. But it soon became evident that he had been born with talent – God given some might say. He learned to play the ukulele and then the guitar, and was performing in professional musical theatre in his early teens. There was no doubt he was destined for a career in music.

And what a blessing that was, given the nature of the quest that would propel his life.

But life for Justin was progressing along normal lines, filled with girlfriends and gigs until his late teens, when something happened that shook him to the core. It charged his life with meaning and purpose, and, at the time, promised glory.

He had always been a sensitive person given to rare insights, but what he experienced in those moments spoke right to his soul. In an interview with Sammy Sultan in 2013 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGlij906ZsY) at 43:56 when Sammy asks why the opening track of Spirits of the Western Sky is called In Your Blue Eyes, Justin replied somewhat cautiously: “Yes. There’s things that happened to me in my teenage years and early twenties and people that happened to me that made a huge impression on me and……it’s just about……someone that……uh……that I hope is still there and sometimes thinks of me the way I do them.”

The bravery and resolve that took was visible on Justin’s face. So was the relief in saying it, though he knew the ramifications could threaten to topple his life and hurt the ones he holds most dear. The lifelong struggle between conflicting loyalties and responsibilities could be wrestled no longer.

What he had seen so long ago was the death of himself and his wife in his previous life. They were on honeymoon, after a long, close relationship. I will tell you more about that horrifying experience later, but he relived it in those moments.

It was perhaps then that Justin saw his wife – reborn as he had been – living a new life. He knew she was far, far away and very young. In fact she had been born equidistant from the place where they’d died though in the opposite direction, with a vast ocean between them. She was somewhere in the western sky.

Her face had changed, as his had, but the signature energy of her soul was unmistakable. He could see her, hear her. And as more and more knowledge came to him he realized that they had loved each other through many lifetimes – each with its own trials and separations.

This was not an ordinary love. Not a love born of physical attraction, convenience or mutual dependency. This was the love of the soul.

When trying to explain the emotion captured in Nights in White Satin, Justin has often said that he was at the end of one big love affair and the beginning of another. And this was taken at face value. In fact he had learned that love continues into death and continues to grow and mature there, ready to face the challenges of a new life. But that is not conventional thought in the west. “Some try to tell me thoughts they cannot defend.”

Out of that initial awe, shock, hope and despair came one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Anyone who hears it knows it comes from a deep, beautiful agony. Nights in White Satin stands as an anthem to that impossible love.

But who to confide in? Who would believe him?

And what to do? How could he find this young girl again? She had changed – so had he. Her whereabouts were vague, elusive.

He knew he had the perfect vehicle – music. He would write songs to her. He would work hard and become famous so that she would hear them. She would know the past just as he did.

And then she would come home to him.