The director of the monastery, or whatever her designation was, was an elderly woman who hated my guts from the start because she was a puritan radical and I was her mortal enemy because I had had sex multiple times as a slave, the involuntary nature of which made no difference in her assessment. I had been allowed to stay at the monastery at the request of Zara, and due to the sway she held, but when the director learned that Zara had requested me to come with her, the former immediately kicked me out and so I found myself lost and pennyless out on the streets. I came across several young women sitting on a curb of a sidewalk (I don't know if there were curbs, but that's what it looked like) and I felt strangely comfortable with them and asked if I could join them. I sat down next to one of the women and we bonded almost instantly, let's call her Amal (meaning hope and inspiration). These women were street prostitutes (not not be associated with today's Amals in the world) and to cut a long story short, as my only way to survive I turned to sapphic prostitution, for which there was a market in those days. These times, out on the streets, have profoundly affected me throughout my subsequent soul history. It's when I sustained my scarcity wound
An esoteric term representing worry about money
, the fact that you will defend with your life a small piece of metal
A coin
(or anything that can be traded for sustenance).
Past life trauma fractures your sense of self and as past life memories return, I feel more whole, more myself, however painful the memories are. They also explain seemingly strange affinities I have had, feeling personally offended, for instance, when women in prostitution are under attack. Below are some paintings showing prostitutes in diverse settings, the first even in Egypt. However, it must be said that I the 2000s I made these paintings looking at it from the perspective of the gender identity I grew up with, the male, today I would portray the subject matter differently, in one of two subtle ways.
Amal had regular clients and revenues steady enough for her to rent a room to live in. She invited me to move in with her, but soon after, she feel ill, running a high fever and delirious spells. While I was our sole provider, I rushed back and forth between Amal and the street. When she recovered she made the decision to go back to her husband and two children, which I didn't know she had, and I went on my way too.
As I moved deeper into Egypt, I became a Buddhist and joined a Buddhist group, which included Asian people, which presumably (I'm deducing), had come in through the Silk Road trade routes. I have to digress on how my appearance changed over the years. As a slave I was bald headed 1 except for a strand, about two centimeters thick, on the back of my head, the strand ranging to well below my wasteline. This is how female slaves looked. When I joined Zara I let my hair grow long and curly. As a slave I was chubby and pale as I never got out. As a Buddhist I looked lean and fit, due to yoga and martial arts and very bronzed. I wore a Asian style tunic with pants, had long wavy black hair, thick eyeliner Egyptian style, and l looked intense, haunted and defiant. At some point I, the female leader of the group and two Asian Buddhist monks joined a trade caravan going east. I had managed to stay under the radar until about half way our trip, but then the men in the caravan started to notice me. My two male companions were worried about my safety and when the caravan set up camp outside a Buddhist monastery the two men suggested that I'd stay there to continue my Buddhist studies. The monastery and climate were cold and the landscape barren, so I refused, leading to the two men calling me a fine weather Buddhist. I did arrive in East Asia (possibly today's Thailand) safely and there I joined a small Buddhist temple.