I was born in Africa with a wind in my head . . . a wind which held in its breath the knowledge of all life since the beginning, the knowledge of my being and of all beings . . . it was simply that way. I knew from a young age that I had lived for a long time . . . such was the nature of my Soul. I knew also that I held the responsibility of choice and consequence, and in the choosing I would find my own relationship with God, and that would be how I stood in this life . . . my own position of being. So that is where I first came from, my own place on the spirit path . . . the place where we all begin.
Through my first twelve years I was a silent creature . . . I stuttered badly, and so chose mostly not to speak. Thoughts to words . . . when you cannot speak yourself into the outer world you turn the other way, and within that silence I learned to live inside of myself and to find my way in the world of imagination and inspiration.
I have memories from a young age, and some I discussed with my father before his passing to the world of spirit. One, which still seems important . . . I was about nine months old and I remember crawling across a carpet with a pattern I can still describe, pulling always one record with a white cover from the gramophone cabinet, and crying for that record and no other to be played. It was the first symphony of the Russian composer Rachmaninov, sombre, deep and evocative, and no other music would please or comfort me. Still today, it stirs and moves my Soul to inexplicable depths of longing and sorrow.
Between the ages of four and seven years I would sit every morning in meditation at the foot of my bed . . . compelled by some deep nostalgia, I would continue with the astral journeys I had undertaken in my sleep dreams the night before . . . I remember well that childhood ritual. And I have not forgotten the places I visited . . . travelling always to the north and the east, I remember vast and endless mountains, caves and sacred places, and always the holy man who waited for my visits. I would travel every morning in the spirit world, and my feeling, I recall, was one of reverence, as if I were taking some final instruction, seeking to bring something forward from a past life. And then I would return to the day around me, filled with comfort and a feeling that all was as it should be, and my day would begin.
At that age, as it is with all young humans, I was sheltered within the life-body of my mother, my Spirit held and nurtured by angels and other higher beings. Within this safety net my astral journeys were profound, the memory of which I have carried all through my life . . . an innate sense of my Soul-journey through many cycles of time, through cycles of life and death and rebirth . . . for just as we awaken each morning with the same living physical body, so we are born as spiritual beings into each new earthly life.
A child filled with feelings . . . feelings . . . a nudging of dreams from my Soul-body, ancient memories held in my blood, my water, and in me the yearning to be a hunter-warrior . . . a past life unresolved . . . a circle not closed. In my imaginings it was a vast place from whence I came, a place of soft earth and free wind . . . I had not forgotten. My hope would always be that I might have the strength of Soul to serve that which I carried as memory.
I knew that I was equal to all creatures and to all of life . . . I grew to understand that difference between all living creatures is a fact of birth, and that equalness between those same creatures is the spiritual heritage, which each individual, through choice, must claim. My choice was made a long time ago.
And then came the time when my body would manifest those inner feelings, realise my life through muscle, bone and blood . . . come to understand and express my own young Ego . . . my sense of my Self. As a young man it was time to live my Soul into the world so that I might one day return, having followed myself when it mattered.
Following always my inclination to explore the outer limits of the physical world, I spent many years in wild and lonely places . . . in submarines I explored the belly of the ocean . . . in gold mines the heart of the earth. Barefoot across Africa I have walked to many strange and challenging encounters, threading a path through life’s jungles and deserts . . . memories . . . so many humans with hearts opened in kindness . . . souls I will always remember . . . I could have died a hundred times but I knew no fear, for I journeyed under the wings of strong angels.
Time passed and I came to see that there was more to being a man than just dreams and physical endeavour, and so I felt back inside to my place of beginning to find that which I had always known, my first Soul-rememberings. There was much to learn of my true heart and of my place on the spirit path, my purpose to understand how I stood upon this earth . . . who I was and who I could be.
I knew then that I would go to the desert, my heartland . . . fuelled by faith and hope, I would go because I remembered and I was born with that wind in my head. Like every young Percival, I set off on a journey that reflects the truth we all seek . . . my quest for the Holy Grail.
The Kalahari Desert and the Bushmen . . . ‘bushman’ . . . a word and a veiled memory. Outside of my own unconscious blood memory I knew nothing of this stream of humanity. In the little I had read, I recognised a common lack of comprehension and truth. There was the usual array of academic information, much intellectual posturing, but no real understanding of who these people are . . . nothing of the Spirit of the First People, and so nothing of our own beginnings.
