I awoke really early this morning, and couldn’t imagine wasting another precious moment lounging about. So at 4AM there I was with my coffee thinking…   What Do I Want to Write About Today?

AUSTRALIA was the first thing that came to mind. So be it, I will Make It So.

The person I was then was full of hope and dreams of greatness, big or small. I was aching to live my bohemian life my way.

It had all been prompted by a trip to Australia I took when I was 19 years of age – for 3 weeks in February of 1987. I was there with a German Canadian dance group performing in various German Clubs across New South Wales & Queensland, Australia. It was an amazing experience…trip of a lifetime.

We did tap & jazz, traditional German dances, and this thing called PRECISION. Precision is like Majorettes with no Batons. Since I had twirled since I was 3, I was a shoe in.

We preformed Tap to such Broadway fare as Putting on the Ritz, Singing in the Rain, and Mame. We did jazz routines to New York, New York, and fun with the Can Can.

It really was an amazing time in my life, and for that brief 3 weeks, I had this overwhelming feeling of being home. I thought at the time “how can I feel like I’m home, when that’s impossible“.

Out and About in a boat … Sydney Harbour, Australia

Well, maybe not completely impossible. I believe in reincarnation, and I believe I actually was an Aborigine in another life. No one special. Not a great shaman, or any of that nonsense. I just believe that I was one none the less. In another life, in another time, my soul resided in the skin of a man who walked barefoot across an entirely different Continent.

When I came back from Australia, one Saturday afternoon my BFF and I, and her younger sister were hanging out in our apartment. Her sisters like…”do you know if you stare long enough into someones eyes you can see who they were in another life“? {You can do the same thing by yourself in a mirror}. So that day my BFF’s sister looked deep into my eyes for as long as she could… and she began to see this man, this dark-skinned, Aborigine man. Strange, though not terribly surprising for someone to say to someone just after returning from Australia.

It was a life altering experience, and I returned with a deep and lasting fascination with the Dreamtime and Aborigine art. I developed this strong affinity towards these people. I actually have some Native American in me…as my Great Grandmother was half Cherokee…of North Carolina. So I have the blood of this Continent, but not of that other one so many thousands of miles away. Perhaps I am merely a native in spirit alone.

When I was in Australia it was the first time in my life I had felt free and able to make my own choices, stand on my own, and leave the nest. Within those brief 3 weeks I was in that far off land, I grew up. It was a profound experience. I was in my second year of Art School, and on top of the world. I was going to Dance, practice my Art and live this grand bohemian life.

Yet things change and we sometimes turn our heads away. Perhaps get too caught up in the soul of another, and forget our own. One day you wake up and find you have become entangled in a net of our own making. Such was my Helium filled matrimonial days of the early 90’s.

For a lot of reasons I guess I look back at that time of my life, and recognize the pure and innocent sureness I felt. My stubborn sense of creative solitude was in its infancy still, and had not yet solidified itself within me. I was free, and I felt this entirely new sense of self.

THE DOPPLEGANGER

In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger or Doppelganger (/ˈdɒpəlˌɡæŋər/; German: [ˈdɔpəlˌɡɛŋɐ] ( listen), look-alike, literally a “double goer”) is a paranormal double of a living person.

A doppelgänger is often perceived as a sinister form of bilocation and is regarded by some to be a harbinger of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person’s relative or friend portends illness or danger while seeing one’s own doppelgänger is said to be an omen of death. [Wikipedia]

Ok, so… a few nights ago I’m over at a friends, surfing the net for interesting furniture and neo-surrealist art…and he’s like “OH…I ran into your doppleganger at the Pub the other night. She walked in off the street and went right down to the washrooms, and I thought ‘that’s Paula‘.

It wasn’t, but it’s not the first time I’ve been told I have a doppelgänger. I had a reported double in Port Credit as well. Had 2 or 3 people tell me I had a twin.

One thing I know about myself now, is that I am one for signs and symbols. I cherish the faith I have in signs and portents and gentle winds of wisdom, or vision, that very occasionally comes my way. It’s also in my blood. My Great Aunt Helen actually read Tea Leaves {SPOOKY FACT:Until one day she turned over the cup, took a look at the configuration, and swore then and there she would never do it again. NO idea to this day what she saw…no one knew because she refused to speak of it}.

Ok, so lets just say someone else seeing your doppelgänger does hold some sort of significance. If it is passing along any message, I believe it is that MsPaulaB needs to keep her arse out of Pubs & Bars… PERIOD…FULL STOP.

The simple fact my friend saw this double coming into the Pub and going down stairs straight away, with a quick backward glance at the bar, is symbolic. Going DOWN into the earth, another domain perhaps… a demonic realm? Ah, maybe not.

OR…maybe its saying that deeper mysteries can be found in this particular Pub? I wish. However, I do believe its essential that in order to be a good pub, one must have a basement. Well, for one thing in order to serve Guinness, but also, to have some roots in the earth.

OR, symbolic of or a reminiscence of who I was when I was DOWNunder. Perhaps its saying its time to get back in touch with the Paula I was back in my Australian days.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that Dopplegangers are messengers. Not just of doom though, the spirit world is just not that direct; they are far more subtle, with wild and chaotic objectives. Messengers in mythology always have some connection to the underworld. They represent the in-between of things, and hide within and are like guardians of the cracks of life.

Hermes is a god of transitions and boundaries. He is quick and cunning, and moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, as emissary and messenger of the gods, intercessor between mortals and the divine, and conductor of souls into the afterlife. He is protector and patron of travelers, herdsmen, thieves, orators and wit, literature and poets, athletics and sports, invention and trade. In some myths he is a trickster, and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or the sake of humankind. His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster and the tortoise, purse or pouch, winged sandals, winged cap, and his main symbol is the herald’s staff, the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus which consisted of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff. [Wikipedia]