Reincarnation: create a home or return home?

Alex invited me on a road trip to see some of his out-of-state property that he wanted to turn into a ranch when he retired. Along the journey, he related the following story that oozes overtones of reincarnation.

In days gone by, when looking for land to buy as a retirement ranch, he made literally dozens of scouting trips throughout the western United States to California, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and Wyoming. Although he had been searching for years, he was unsuccessful. Then one time, during a family vacation in Utah, growing tired from the long trip, he and his family were looking for a place to stop and rest. His daughters saw a good place on the side of the road and said, “Dad, that looks like a good place to rest.” They later turned off the road and entered a valley the family had never seen before. It was a fascinating place for them and they began to investigate the area. Interestingly, as fate would have it, Alex found a forty-acre parcel of land that he thought would be perfect for his retirement ranch. He even had an old log cabin. After falling in love with the property, he purchased it right then and there.

After the purchase, Alex informed his mother that he had finally found the land of his dreams. Telling him where the land was, she remarked that her great-great-grandfather was one of an original group of pioneers who, making the arduous trek across the open desert in covered wagons from the east in the mid-19th century, settled exactly on that spot. Valley!

Coincidence? You make the call. Was it a random occurrence that a man, after exploring seven western states in search of a homeland to retire for years, traveled through a valley he had never seen, a valley his great-great-grandfather helped populate a hundred years earlier, and then ended up buying property there? Or is it the story of a man who returns home, a man who unconsciously searches for his past, his roots; a man reincarnated as the great-great-grandson of his great-great-grandfather, in essence, a soul reincarnated as himself in another time returning to his original home in the West?

Alex, by his own admission, had never been to that valley before in his entire life. He hadn’t even heard of it. He hadn’t even seen it. However, by some mysterious force, he was forced during a family vacation to not only go off the road for a respite there, but to buy land there!

Indeed, how does all this happen? When one thinks of all the land in the West and its millions of square miles, how does one man unknowingly buy land in the exact same valley that his great-great-grandfather settled in over a hundred years ago? prior to? Is this a coincidence? Or is Alex really the reincarnation of his great-great-grandfather coming home to reclaim his rightful place as owner of the property he originally settled on?

Summary

The reality of Alex buying property in a valley he had never seen, the same valley his own relatives settled in when West was young, and knowing nothing of such events certainly has to raise an eyebrow to a thoughtful mind. In fact, Alex does not rule out the possibility that he was his own great-great-grandfather. So, was Alex creating a retirement home for himself, or was he, in fact, returning to the land he once helped establish? Is this a real example of reincarnation or nothing more than a mere coincidence? You make the call.

~ finished
Copyright Richard Andrew King
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