9/11 Reincarnations

Have People Begun to Reincarnate Who Died on 9/11?

If not for the dream I had that told me to cancel our tickets, as we had plans to be in NYC and meet a friend that day who worked in one of the twin towers, we may not be here. If not for a loved one whose perpetual lateness saved them that day as she over-slept and missed her American Airlines flight 11 (one of the planes that went down), she would not be here. If not for our friend Dan, who worked in the twin towers, having stomach issues that day and deciding to not head into work until later, he would not be here. 

I heard an equal number of 9/11 stories of people who were not supposed to be at the towers or on a particular flight but something in them felt compelled to change their plans last minute to be in the “wrong place at the wrong time.” Is it possible that on some level we all know when, where, and how we are going to die? Were those people also listening to their intuition?

I honestly don’t know why the world works the way it does. I admit that I create mental constructs to help me feel better about the groundless uncertainty of life, but I have no idea if my constructs are true, accurate, or “right.” Belief is a choice and I choose to believe in a universe that allows forces seen and unseen to “speak” to us, if we allow ourselves to listen.

When my daughter was four years old, she started talking about past lives she remembered. When she was older, she explained to me her understanding of how each lifetime is chosen. She said she knew she had to keep choosing short lives (which amounted to tragic deaths) so that her spirit could be available to enter my body when I was finally ready to have a child. In 2022, she shared a dream in which she said she remembered looking at this big book of our lives, that was like a video in editing software, in which she could scroll back and forth through time to see our collective future as well as our collective past. She said, “I saw you and Daddy and chose you from this book. I saw you as children. I saw you on your wedding day. I had to wait a long time for you to be ready for me (17 years to be exact).” People have always refered to my daughter as an “old soul.”

Not one of us will escape eventual death, for all of life is impermanence. Is it possible that every soul that died on 9/11 (or on any other given day) had chosen the day of their death before they were even born—to create the perfect timing for the adventures they sought in their next life?

Are we just players on a stage cast in a production we have no control over directed by some man in the clouds who looks like Santa; or do we write our own scripts and direct our own movies and work symbiotically, like bees and nature, to co-create our realities? 

We mark 9/11 as a tragedy, which of course it was, because of the great loss it left behind: children who lost their parents, partners who lost their spouses, loved ones who lost their friends. America changed forever, as well lost our sense of security and many freedoms in the process (Patriot Act). Loss is a tragedy, and I wonder how each person who died that day might have eventually died if not on that day? How might it serve and empower us if we were able to shift our collective paradigm from believing cherished lives were taken from us by forces beyond our control, to cherished lives ended as part of a never-ending cycle of life-death-rebirth-life-death and that their spirit played a role in choosing when they would die? What if we as humans have life cycles that mirror nature? We do not mourn the leaves that fall in autumn because we know in spring, we will taste sweet fruit again.

Timing of expression is vital. Had someone said this to me after I lost any of my family, while I was still grieving, it would have felt hurtful, terribly insensitive and impersonal. My desire is to be respectful and ask this question, on this day each year, to offer hope and an expanded perspective that might ease the suffering of some. It’s been over two decades since that massive tragedy (9/11/2001), and I wonder if any of the people who passed on that day have reincarnated and returned to their loved ones in another form. 

I have lost all of the members of my childhood home in which I was raised (gratefully, I have a half-brother who is still alive, but we were not always raised in the same home and only reunited a year ago after a 20-year absence from each other’s lives). I’ve grieved the deaths of a brother, sister, aunt, uncle, and grandparents. I too know the pain of loss and what it is to mourn that which will never be again, and loss is the definition of tragedy—not the cycle of life. My papa was the most beloved spiritual, genetic connection I had, until my daughter was born. Around age eight, she walked into a room and saw me holding a plain cardboard box. She said, “My watch from when I was your papa, is in that box.” Inside that cardboard box which had been sealed for 20 years, was a non-descriptive wooden box that held my papa’s watch. There is no way she could have known what was in that box, let alone who it belonged to. 

In 2022, I was doing research on biblical passages about reproductive freedoms and consulting my collection of Bibles. I pulled out one that my papa owned where he had written his questions and commentary near the passages in the Bible. My daughter walked in and saw what I was doing and said with a bit of shock, “That was my bible when I was your papa, and that’s my handwriting.” In the fall of 2023, the vest look was regaining popularity. I shared with her that when I was in high school I used to wear my papa’s suit vests over t-shirts and that I still had two of them in the closet. When she tried one on and looked at herself in the mirror it was as if she was seeing two overlapping bodies from two different lifetimes sharing one soul in real time.

She likened it to one of her favorite shows, “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (not to be confused with the blue people Avatar) in which the title character, Aang, has access to all his prior reincarnations. Each time after seeing items that used to belong to my papa, or anytime we go through old photographs, she feels a little unsteady and emotional, and explains a sense of being pulled in two directions of time simultaneously (however, it seems to be getting a bit easier for her.) Curiosity opens a window, judgement closes a door; so when we allow our discomfort to transmute into becoming interested in discovery, our perception of our experience can change.

I cannot prove if reincarnation is real, and I have no desire to. I share this story to introduce thoughts that can generate hope and connection and to offer an alternative perspective to the sadness that accompanies this day and loss in general. Suffering is tragedy. Yes, it is tragic to die in a plane crash, in a fire, by force. My family members died tragically too: murder, suicide, drowning, disease. I know the pain of suffering but allow me to share that I know too the joy of love and the connection that is possible with those no longer here. When we allow ourselves to be open to possibilities in nature that some ancient religions still practice, we can have spiritual experiences we never thought possible.

While I will never hug my sister again and feel the weight of her energy pressed into mine, after she passed away, I met an inordinate amount of people with her name who asked if they could hug me. Logic told me this was just a case of Baader Meinhof (when you experience more of what you’re focused on). Intuition, however, told me that my sister’s spirit was gently guiding these random people with her name to offer me a hug because she knew how much I desperately missed her embrace.

When I was a child and my papa was reading me the encyclopedia from start to finish and I would start to get restless, he’d embrace me and say, “I’m stuck.” We’d play a game where he was stuck to the book and stuck to me, and we’d giggle for a few minutes and get back to reading. (I’m eternally grateful for the knowledge he was devoted to pouring into me.) Whether my daughter is the reincarnated soul of my papa or not, whenever we hug and I start to pull away too soon (busy mom mode) she will hold me tighter for a second and say, “I’m stuck.” There are so many seemingly insignificant examples I can share of things like this that I choose to give meaning to. I do so to bring comfort to those who suffer to remind people that there’s far more we cannot explain in this universe than we can. We base our beliefs about life and death on faith, religion, and science (another form of religion for some). We have no proof about the nature of consciousness after we die—where it goes—only that energy cannot be created or destroyed. If we can’t prove either, why choose to believe in something that causes us pain when we can choose to believe in that which could comfort us instead?

It’s so vital to listen to our intuition, to our bodies, and to create a space in our lives every day through a practice of stillness or meditation so that we hear these nudges to change. Even just five minutes before we start the day, or get into the car, or enter the bustle of other people’s energy, if we can center our energies and bring all our attention to stillness, we create an opportunity to sense our internal guidance systems.

I choose to believe that all time exists simultaneously, which is why psychic premonitions are possible, but that nothing is written in stone, which is why sometimes, premonitions are wrong. At any moment, we can muster the courage to choose again and create a new reality, one that may not be created yet in this video-game-simulation-style-life. It wasn’t easy to cancel my tickets to NYC, to lose the money and miss out on performing, seeing my friends, and to explain to people that I was doing so because of a dream I had; but it was easier than living with the pain of regret I had experienced in the past when I did NOT listen to my intuition. This is how I choose to move through life, and I believe it serves me.

9/11 is a day when I send love to those who suffered loss, who made sacrifices. It’s the day I recommit to honoring my intuition and the act of allowing myself to listen. It’s the day I remember the journey of the soul, the circle of life, and focus on impermanence, which brings me to presence and gratitude for every breath, for every relationship, for every love in my life; and I sit in the waves of gratitude to love and be loved.

If you’d like to hear stories of children who remember past lives in which they believe they died on 9/11, check out this podcast video. There is also a plethora of books on the subject. Including

#ThomasNolan #FireProximitySuit #PastLives #Reincarnation #FortJohnsonR8 #FireFighter #911 #cade #Spirituality

Sage Justice is achingly sincere. Balancing wisdom and humor she most often writes deeply personal solution based pieces about the enduring virtues that connect us all: love and healing. She is an award-winning playwright and critically acclaimed performing artist who has appeared on stages from Madison Square Garden in New York City, to The Comedy Store in Hollywood, California. Ms. Justice is the author of Sage Words FREEDOM Book One, an activist, a member of the Screen Actors Guild and an alumna Artist-In-Residence of Chateau Orquevaux, France. She is a co-founder of The Unity Project which fuses activism with art, to educate and inspire, with a special emphasis on community engagement to end homelessness. She has a series of short reels about living with the rare genetic disorder, Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that you can find in a highlight reel on her Instagram page @SageWords2027