Damn, Chi Guy - what a question. I have often wondered. When travelling, sometimes I've come across a place with inexplicable resonance; likewise with periods of history, likewise with people. And if here, unlikely that I was alone.

And that song . . . it is one of my all time faves, for various reasons.

not me, I'm just these cells, but Karen, Karen was a man who's family was killed by another tribe, she remembers coming home to dead bodies :/
Sometimes I wonder about ancestral memory though. We are so chemically like our ancestors- the same things make us feel good, the same things inspire us, and trigger our emotions. It's hard to not have a connection to the past, it's all around us and still inside us.

do you remember a past lifetime?

I hope I could have been there, but not alone...Although I'll take alone there over here, anyday...

That kind of wistful question could occupy me for hours. Where could I have been? What was I doing and who was I with? Was I happy? It just goes on and on.....

Cahokia, as old or older than the Pyramids of Egypt.

if I was here before, it wasn't me, it was somebody else

Where you here before? You ask that. Nice title.
Just so we don't habitually scowl in the future.
You/me can be a politician? We can ring bells.
Bang on doors the rest of 'our' Life and flop?
The poorhouse is a goof Place to find out?
typo. not goof, but Good Place to ask too?
Good Post.
The Farm Conference is in St. Louis Chicago?
I think they host the Farmer Musical shindig?
We ponder certain things the future children?

We folk should consider inner impoverishment.
I'll just let this download and hop in a potato sack.
Consider Soul? We carry good/evil into immortality.

Beautiful song and video. Loved the quote by Larry McMurtry- Very wise words he has spoken there.
Where was I 1,000 years ago in another life. Very thought provoking question. I have thought about that often in life. Great post..Thank you

Yeah, Rog. I been here before. I was a werewolf. In London. Aye-ooooow! I dreamed Warren Zevon wrote a song about me. When I was here before, or would that be there, that is, not now that I'm here, which is when I heard the song, for the second time, that is, counting the first time I heard it in my dream when I was here or there before. BTW, not to get too Clintonesque, but define here. I mean if you think you've been here before, but you were somewhere else, is that there or here and if you had a dream then about being here, or now that you're here, you have a dream about having been there, then where is here? Or there?

A-and don't get me started on what the 'Where' in your title means.

Beautiful.

Cahokia... I know! For me it's Louisiana. The first time I crossed through the swamps with the cypress trees and Spanish moss subsequently arriving in New Orleans I got the heaviest strangest deja vu that I ever in my life experienced. I didn't just think consciously, I "knew" that I had been there before. Thanks for reminding me C guy..

It's an interesting feeling. I've encountered it in a few places, including Savannah, GA.

Is there a cellular level of memory? are imprints of the past hiding deep in our very make up? When we come to some place that is hidden in our core do we feel a sense of knowing? Without knowing why? Can we feel the lust of the past here in the future?
Cahokia is in my stomping ground. only a short trip from here. Do we all have some secret memory of things we never experienced? Eternity is only the past remembered.

Some call it music some call it sleep a march of dimes say I hardhats out on the pole as the trees lean avoiding Lucifer's fire the birth of cool.
Why in the name of all together now was John from Cincinnatti stuff canned? What is warp speed? Is the universe so vast that there is a parralel EARTH wherein every molecule herewith is replcated? How does any of this apply to the autistic spectrum? What is the fatal trigger when a youth commits suicide? Is 121 the new 111? Why does the left pledge allegiance to non-violence and the right to the NRA? I salute the French, on this, another pleasant valley o so pleasant valley
This is wonderful work here, Chicago Guy.

Interesting question... the idea of previous lives is steeped in many spiritual traditions in the Eastern world, and I suspect there may be some basis for belief in it.

I enjoy studying history. I frequently find myself understanding certain periods and locations far better than others... almost as if I had lived there and then.

Who knows? I'll get back to you on it in a hundred years or so...

There is something beyond this, of that I am certain and will one day write about why. But is it reincarnation? Of that, I have no answer, only questions ... that will only be answered for sure when I make the voyage. Oh, well. Guess it's one more frigg'n day at a time. That's no fun. ;o) Is it?

Saw my typo in the title this morning
But then I kinda liked it that way.
What is reincarnation if not unclear?
Then I saw it drew a comment from Art James, and he liked it too!
So I didn't know what to do.
Changed it again.
But the alternate title of this is still "Where you here before?" If only for me and Art!

Owl---I've had that feeling too. And I'm reading a new book about Chahokia. .

Julie--I'm with Karen. I once felt it so strongly that I had myself hypnotized and I have some of the same kinds of memories she does. Whole other post. . .

SM---I'd think it would be the opposite. Wouldn't it be scarier to be alone in the unknown?

Art---Consider Soul? We carry good/evil into immortality. I believe that's true


Walk Away--then my work here is done!

Roy---Yeah but you guys look alike

Hi Chi Guy, great post, great question. Have been drawn heavily to places before where I experienced a Deja Vu feeling. Some people say there are coincidences.

I think I have been around for a very long time, and this life is but one more in my journey. Sometimes alone, others not.

Always an interesting thing to ponder.

CG- During my current, six, earthbound decades, I've heard more than a few times that I am an ancient soul. In truth, I've always felt older (not necessarily wiser-tee hee) than my years, even as a child. And I do experience "knowings." (instantaneous connection, recognition, understanding) , however, have had no clear remembrances of earlier self-iterations. Truth is, the more I learn, the less I know.
-rated-

That's a beautiful piece of music...thanks for introducing it to me (an many others, I'm sure)! The question you raise is one for the ages, of course. While I don't believe in the classic, Buddhist version of reincarnation, I do believe that our molecular energy lives on beyond our deaths. That's simply physics. As for our consciousness, I'm less certain, but I do think it is reasonable to expect that something as powerful as Love can persist outside of the physical body, and could manifest itself in dreams, or even some form of metaphysical existence.

I don't know. Everything seems fresh and new to me. Maybe if I was here before, I didn't stay awake well enough. But it's a fascinating quesiton.

Great question, great post, great video, and I love Larry McMurtry!!
Rated~~

To answer your question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiDOMuhpqUo

If I had ever been here before I would pro'bly know just what to do
Hey, don't you?
If I had ever been here before on another time around the wheel I would pro'bly know just how to deal
With all of you

And I feel like I've been here before
Feel like I've been here before
And you know it does make me wonder
What's going on under the ground

Do you know?
Don't you wonder?
What's going on
Down under you

Na, na, na...

We have all been here before
We have all been here before
We have all been here before
We have all been here before

When I stared at the pottery pieces at Lothal, something said maybe I was there... often I see me making a great long journey across deserts in my dreams and once when I was twelve I watched a movie and knew immediately that this is where I see me - been seeing me, in my dreams, from childhood... was here - not alone though... this post made me smile . rtd.

Good question that I think about evey time I listen to that song which I have been listening to for many many years.

Hi Rita--me too. And reading the new Cahokia book and stories (See hyblaean-Julie's recent piece) of the new species of human just found in Africa--make the thought compelling)

Fireeyes---Yea! Somebody else likes McMurtry!

Bill---that was my original choice till my trouble making wife made the comment, "Would you ever write that you liked the Indigo girls. . . .even though you make fun of them?" (PS---David, Stephen, Graham and Neil say hi.

tarheel---Yeah, whatever that other life was? We were both there at once. Now could you pass that. . . . .

Trig---that is EXACTLY what I've felt---and what really fueled this.

Sheila and Mothership---the two of you define "old soul" and AHP--You seem to as well---but what do I know!

bike---Savannah is a beautiful place

James Hart---Nothing better than writing something and getting back poetry. Thank you!

Bob and Steve--yes---physics, molecular structures and love---how could that NOT add up to SOMETHING!

Scanner---he is one of my lifetime heroes.

Rolling--on staring at the pottery---yes, for me there was a place where I felt I had been buried alive. I stood on the ground (this was maybe 15 years ago) and knew this was where I had died at a very young age. And then in another time, I remember squatting down at looking at the small circle of fire, the sand below my feet and the clear open star filled sky. . .

Perfect for contemplating on a Sunday afternoon...

I like what Juli said. And maybe it is a chemical romance, and not deja vu.

I was in traffic.

Lisa---me too on the song. It's what really fueled this.

O'Really---I wondered who that was that cut me off in traffic!

Zumalicious--I'm a big fan of chemical romances. . .or at least I was. . .once. . .OK a long time ago. . .

Cool song, video, and post. I'm not really a believer in reincarnation per se, but I love evolutionary biology and imagine sometimes that we're living previous lives through our genes. It's still such a mystery, what we come to the table with. It seems that we are not tabulas rasa/i> after all.

I was somewhere before. Not there but somewhere. Many somewheres, but not there. Old souls never die. They just are. Here, there. Dust to light and back again. No filters. Just currents. Perpetual motion, from here to there. Your post inspires.

I guess I can write this here without sounding nuts. I grew up in the South or the suburbs and never lived in anold city like Chicago, New York etc. However, when I visit such places and am just walking down the street alone it just feels like . . . home and I am drawn to the architecture and interiors of buildings from the early 20th century. So I think I was there. But every time I think that I think I am nuts.

Dorinda---you are NOT nuts. Or if you are, I am too---because that is exactly what I'm talking about.

If Dorninda is nuts, then I am too. I once went with my parents to the Pere Marquette shrine in Michigan. I immediatedly "knew" that I had known and was known by Pere Marquette. I was overcome with this knowledge, even though I was only a ten-year-old protestant girl who had never heard the word reincarnation. Rated.

CK---that is a very cool story. Thanks for that.

I've pondered this question many, many times. For some reason, there are people and places that are already familiar to me when we first meet. Interesting.

Aaaah, yes indeed. Where are we? Lost in imagination or grounded in reality? Sometimes hard to tell. Dogma or science, or some combination of the two? Can't say, but I sure do like that song!

Michael---that's exactly why I put the song there. The answers to the rest of the questions---I got no clue.