I’m old enough to remember when the actress Shirley MacLane wrote a book about past lives. She was mostly ridiculed since there’s no context for it in western culture. It doesn’t help that many who say they have accessed past life memories claim to have been someone famous, like Cleopatra or a Roman Centurion. I mean…please.

Other than experiencing many instances of deja vu throughout my life, I never really gave reincarnation much thought. This is a Western Materialism issue yet again. If you can’t prove beyond exhaustive analysis that your soul or spirit has incarnated before, then it must be a load of garbage.

The Buddhist belief in reincarnation is certainly no joke. There was a terrible movie about it years ago starring Keanu Reeves called “Little Buddha”. Mostly it was the acting that was terrible (I walked out halfway through), but it was based on a true story of a modern day Buddhist monk who believed a 4 year old American boy was the reincarnation of his master teacher, Lama Dorje.

There were things the child knew that simply couldn’t be possible. Surely even young children can have psychic abilities, but this was different. It wasn’t just things he said, but his mannerisms and how he carried himself were uncannily similar. However, I think this monk actually found similar characteristics in other children as well. It may be folly to look for deceased loved ones reincarnated in the same lifetime, but there are numerous examples of these claims even in Western lore.

I was introduced to a hypnotherapist when I was living in Santa Barbara years ago who eventually became a good friend. I’d been curious about hypnotherapy but was a little dubious about it being real. You see those performances in front of a live audience where someone is asked at random to participate in hypnosis and later has no recollection of being “under”. It seems pretty staged.

I entered my first hypnotherapy session with curiosity but also pure scepticism. Initially I was interested in hypnotherapy to heal the relationship with my mother, which was very difficult at that time. What happened when I was “under” was like accessing a dreamworld while at the same time being fully conscious. It was nothing I had ever experienced before. I’ll save the extraordinary details of that session and others because this post is about past lives.

Past life regression work in hypnotherapy might be the most valuable therapy of my life. I only had one session, which I’m realizing  probably wasn’t enough. Now, maybe I’m someone who is unusually sensitive or empathic. Pluto was transiting my 12th house at the time, which might have helped me access my subconscious a little more easily.

At the beginning of the regression, I was hovering as a spirit over what looked like a 17th century estate. I vaguely looked at the buildings but I vividly saw a manicured garden with topiary trees and perfectly designed stone pathways. To be honest, determining it was the 17th century was purely instinctual.

I was asked if this was a place that seemed familiar or felt like home. I replied that I was hovering as a spirit because this was a place I knew but it wasn’t home. I was asked where home was.

I ended up in what looked like servants quarters. Analyzing the room confirmed that it was the 17th century because of the decor. There was a four posted bed (very austere) and a mirrored dresser with a water pitcher and basin resting on top. The walls were faded and crumbling a bit and the few pieces of furniture had claw-style feet.

Since I was looking out from inside of a body, I had no idea who I was. I was asked who I was. There was a wooden step stool beneath the dresser. I stepped up onto it and looked at myself in the oxidized mirror.

I was a little girl, no older than 10, in a dirty white nightgown and stringy brown hair. I looked deathly ill. It was pretty clear to me that this room was my world.

I walked into the hallway and into the kitchen area. It was austere but clean. There were large glass jars filled with herbs and tinted liquids. A woman with her back to me washing dishes started speaking to me in French. She called me “Momo”, short for Monique (how would I know that?). I assumed she was my mother.

There was a window in front of the sink and it looked like late afternoon outside. Because I was conscious while activating my subconscious, I immediately recognized even the backside of this woman as looking exactly like me in this life. She never turned around so it is difficult to say for sure. But she had the same build, same height, same tone of voice…it was eery.

As I’m staring at her, I feel a wave of emotion surge through me. It was gratitude but also admiration. I could hear an inner voice saying that I wanted to be just like her. Strong and healthy. She was everything to me. My caretaker.

I didn’t move beyond this servant’s cottage to gain other insights, but I knew my mother was the cook for this manicured estate. It was owned by a wealthy aristocratic family. I can’t say for sure but I guessed I was the illegitimate child of my mother and a man of the estate. I don’t know if I was sick because I was kept a secret or whether I never left the house because I was too sickly and frail.

I mentioned in my post about the lunar nodes that the south node (both in sign, house and aspect) can reveal past life circumstances. I never understood why I decided to go to cooking school in my late 20s. It was never something I imagined myself doing. My 20s were a very confusing time post-Bachelors degree. I had several ideas before I chose holistic cooking. The program was something I could afford, so that was part of the appeal.

But suddenly here in this regression, things started to make more sense. I have the south node in Taurus in the 4th house natally, conjunct Sun and Jupiter. South node in the 4th house or Cancer is all about family. Familial relationships, care taking and feeling overly concerned about loved ones are strong themes. However, it is also about feeling trapped in a childlike feeling of codependency.

I had always had a challenging relationship with my family, but it wasn’t obvious to me until I was in adolescence and adulthood. I had security and all the basic (Taurean) needs taken care of on a physical level, but emotionally I felt completely disconnected from them. I wanted a relationship with my mother in particular that felt close and supportive but it never seemed possible.

Suddenly in this regression, all of my romantic relationships also started to make sense. I had read once early on in my astrological studies that those who are born with the Sun in the 4th house are going to be attached to one or both of the parents until later in life. With the south node in the 4th house or Cancer, the north node is in the 10th house or Capricorn, representing career, responsibility, adulthood and public recognition.

Because the south node is about familiarity, its also a stuck or stagnant energy. It is what feels easy but will never be satisfying. With a Cancer or 4th house south node, your purpose is about admitting to yourself that your family will never meet your emotional needs. They aren’t supposed to. In order for you to move towards the destiny of your north node, you have to abandon all attachments to what feels easy and deeply unrewarding. I had to move towards my Scorpio north node in the 10th house, which is about understanding the psychology of oneself and others and making use of it in the outer world.

With the south node in Taurus or the 2nd house, there is an identification with the natural world. Tangible things like cooking, gardening and living a hard-working, salt of the earth existence are classically Taurean. Pragmatism, predictability and all things physical.

My past incarnation (Momo) wanted to be just like her mother (me) and the Taurus-Cancer world is everything she embodied. So what did I end up doing in this life? Becoming a cook for rich people and having extremely codependent, dysfunctional romances. It would be laughable if it weren’t so disturbing.

In other words, I was fulfilling a Karmic debt that had nothing to do with my current life’s evolution, but here it was laid out neatly in front of me. It was almost too easy. Like a Karmic treadmill, I just wasn’t getting anywhere I really wanted to be. At least now I had some answers.

If I had to recommend any therapy to anyone, even more than getting your natal chart read, it is past life regression work in hypnotherapy. You will likely have many questions afterward. Seek out an astrologer or a Jungian psychologist who can help guide you through these questions.