Early this year, we spent a week and a half in the South Pacific Island country Fiji. One of the local tours we participated in was an evening visit to a traditional cultural village. As they fed us with the traditionally stone-cooked meat in the open air, they put on some traditional dance performances. To engage our visitors, they occasionally invite us to participate in their shows.
Now they wanted to show us how they prepare the Kava ceremony – a Fijian root drink, in a ritualistic way and serve a chief. I volunteered Tim to be the chief, in a joking way. However, when Tim, with their invitation, actually took the “chief’s chair,” I was stunned. Tim looked absolutely natural and so very into it. His face was serious, his posture was stern, his gaze was warm, and his personality was quiet. There was no trace that he was one of the tourists, except the T-shirt he was wearing.
My mind drifted back to one of our hypnotic regression sessions where Tim went to a life of Aarn. In chapter 5, “Chestnut Street” of Carol’s Lives, I wrote:
The only past life regression we had was that of a young man’s life. And when asked what his name was, Tim had a hard time pronouncing it – “Aarn” was the best he could come up with. Aarn was barefoot on a sandy beach on a South Pacific island. He was about 16 years old.
In those earlier days doing past life regression, I sometimes ran out of things to ask. When that happened, a handy question to pose would always be, “How are you feeling at this moment?” While most people would say “not much”, especially if it was at the beginning of a session, right there on the beach, Aarn’s answer to that question was very straightforward, “Horny.”
That simple, one-word answer opened up the entire story of Aarn’s life. He was to be party in an attack on a neighbouring island. Perhaps, it was the nervousness of going off to battle, but he wanted to have sex with his 15-year old girlfriend, Baochi. Aarn was using the passionate heat of sex to ease a dreaded feeling inside.
Aarn would subsequently become the leader of the village. He died a natural death sitting by his hut at 40- something years old, after defeating a younger man— “that fool”—who challenged his leadership. Aarn never had any children.
I watched the engaging show, and I watched Tim, the undoubtful chief, on that balm South Pacific Ocean summer night in February, I felt like being transported back to some other time.
