Nostradamus, contd.

I have probably done myself a disservice by introducing this topic at this point. In fact it’s very likely. I realize that I haven’t given you enough background for any references to have any meaning, and so all credibility could be lost.

Add to that the fact that Nostradamus’ posts are deliberately vague, (as he pointed out, to protect himself) and you have ample reason for skepticism.

But it’s the way that I discovered what I believe is the connection that compels me to share it with you. So I’ll forgo the other quatrains that I think speak to Justin’s situation, and just talk about the key one.

It was in that period of grace that I mentioned earlier, when I was in a state of hyper-awareness. I just knew things, as if being steered by an unseen force.

We had invited friends over for dinner, and while settling on something to watch on television we happened on a documentary about Nostradamus. The program didn’t delve into his predictions but rather focused on his life. I had never heard of him before. But I was struck by a sense of urgency and hardly slept that night.

In the morning my footsteps clattered across the marble floors of the mall as I hurried toward a bookstore. I had never set foot in it before but I knew exactly where to go – the far right corner at the back.

“May I help you?” the clerk asked as I rushed past the desk.

“No thank-you,” I answered, and brushed her query aside with my arm as I kept on. “I think I know where to find what I’m looking for.”

And this is where it was weird. I walked right to a line of shelves, reached out my hand and it fell on a book. When I pulled it from the shelf the book opened to page 213, not in the center but toward the back. I looked down. The title of the chapter was “The Heart of the Lover”. I flipped the book over to see what I had drawn from the shelf: “Nostradamus – The Millenium and Beyond” by Peter Lorie.

I remember feeling faint, as if I was in a dream, so I slumped down into a crouch behind the shelves before I read the quatrain. I somehow knew what it would say and I felt the need to hide, as if everyone in the store would think I was crazy. As if they knew what was happening to me.

I read C8 25: “The lover’s heart is opened by furtive love the woman ravished by streams (of tears), the lascivious will mimic half a hurt, the father will twice do without the soul.”

Justin had written dozens and dozens of songs by that time, all coaxing a lost friend and love to remember their shared past, to think of him, to bring him redemption. My heart had been opened when I was young, but closed again when I doubted myself, then opened again in the strange occurrences of the previous year. Could that really pertain to us?

I thought of all the time I had spent crying in secret (explained in a previous post), overwhelmed by the grief of our deaths and the great burden put on us in this life. The woman ravished by streams of tears.

The lascivious will mimic half a hurt. So many artists had written and sung about Justin’s predicament. From the viewpoint of a man who lived centuries before, rock and roll singers might well have been considered lascivious. And they had placed themselves in his skin, mimicking his half of our hurt.

But it was the last line that struck hardest. The father will twice do without the soul. I haven’t told you about the life in the 18th century out of fear of being dismissed, but I believe in that life I left my husband – the same soul I am currently married to – to be with the soul who is Justin. And I had already hurt my husband so much, turned his life upside down, when I told him what I believed to be true. The guilt was overwhelming.

There are more quatrains that I believe speak directly to Justin – to his power as a force for good in this world we are in, but I won’t go into them. I can’t be sure I’m right after all, until Justin and I can sit together and speak about it. And even then, who knows?

But I was struck once again when I realized some time later that Justin had written a song about Nostradamus. A song so out of character with his previous works.

“Do you ever get the feeling Nostradamus told us true? And it’s all being realized by you.”

“Do you ever get the feeling Nostradamus told us true? And it’s all being witnessed now, by you.”

Until next time, stay safe.