Case Study: A client checks out the facts of a past-life session
Recently a friendly, unconventional middle-aged woman, ‘Sophie,’ came to see me for a Quantum Healing Hypnosis session. Although she was curious to see if she had any past lives, she really wanted to know if there was an unknown cause for an inflammatory autoimmune disorder which affected her joints. For 30 years she had tried everything, from painkillers, anti-inflammatories to all kinds of holistic medicines, with only temporary relief. Was there an underlying cause that needed resolution? She thought it was worth a shot.
I never can tell before the session what will come up or which path it will take, as we hand it over to the client’s soul or inner wisdom to bring up what is most appropriate for them to know.
The first images that came to her mind was large flat vista with hills in the distance, a dusty sandy coloured type of earth underfoot, and a Native American woman kneeling and doing some kind of work in a rust coloured suede outfit, and Sophie saw a round piece of beadwork in her long dark hair. Her conscious mind was surprised when she stretched out her own hands to see that they were large, white-skinned and male. As she looked down she saw a beard and dark brown suede trousers, which were the same colour as the woman’s outfit, though she knew the man also had a pair of dark blue trousers with a button flap around the waist.
In the next scene the man was by a river surrounded by tall green trees in a misty cooler environment, panning for gold. He was a miner living a Grizzly Adams-style existence in a shack higher up the mountain, and the woman was his girlfriend. When I asked what tribe she was from, the word Arapaho sprang to Sophie’s mind, and she saw the woman making food with a pot over a fire by the side of a rocky river. She was around and about, helping out and coming and going.
He, meanwhile, lived in a man-shack; Sophie said it was really dark inside with not a lot in it – a cauldron over an ashy fire, and a bright native-woven blanket over a simple bed. She saw him eating a barbequed fish on the ledge outside, and was surprised to see white bread on the plate, commenting, “There must be other white people around.”
Sophie’s conscious mind questioned how the environment had changed so much, as one scene was flat and desert-like and the next was a rocky bubbling river, surrounded by green trees.
Still we moved on to the next important scene in this life. She saw the woman’s face looking happy and smiling from the side, with a bright green white and pink beadwork headband on. They were in a circle of people outside in a dusty environment and were getting married. Then followed a contented domestic scene in a tepee with his wife holding a baby girl.
Later Sophie saw tepees on fire at night, and a brief flash of what was once her burnt body in a tepee. He was asleep, and US cavalry had snuck upon the group and surrounded them. There was no escape. The last thoughts as smoke came in around the edges of the tepee were of anger and revenge, and ‘I will get my own back!’ In the next scene he was a confused spirit, sitting nearby at night, wondering what happened and concerned for his wife and child who were not in the tepee that night. His wife and child were some way from the camp by a river visiting relatives when it happened, and she was a survivor, who moved to a reservation and married again. The child died of an infection aged around 9.
Sophie was guided to release the anger as it had lodged in her joints, and trust the universe to right any injustices.
Sophie was amazed at what came forth, as there were correlations with her present life – she has a fear of fire and checks her home up to seven times to make sure the cooker is off before leaving home. She had always felt connected to Native cultures, and would feel distressed when hearing about tribal cultures being destroyed, and was a member of a tribal support charity called Survival.
She was surprised that she saw herself as a white bearded male, as would have preferred a story in which she was a Native American. But nevertheless was worried she had imagined it all, so when she got home she checked the facts on the internet about the history of the Arapaho tribe, and with some trepidation waited for photos of the style of dress, housing and environment to download.
It all matched correctly. Sophie had questioned the changing environment, yet the Arapaho tribes covered a large area, including the plains which were light in colour and in which the Southern Arapaho tribes lived, and the Rocky Mountains of the Northern Arapaho, which was the scene for the Pike's Peak Gold Rush in 1857-1861, in todays’ western Kansas and south-western Nebraska. The tribe were friendly with miners, but hoped they would return from where they came after they had found enough, ‘yellow metal which makes them crazy.’
The Arapaho tribe did indeed wear buffalo skin clothes and create skilful beadwork and live in tepees, they were friendly and lived together with the Cheyenne.
This is what happened to the co-existing tribes: “Without any declaration of war, in April 1864 soldiers started attacking and destroying a number of Cheyenne camps, and on May 16, 1864, a force under Lieutenant George S Eayre crossed into Kansas and encountered Cheyenne in their summer buffalo-hunting camp at Big Bushes, near the Smoky Hill River. Cheyenne chiefs Lean Bear and Star approached the soldiers to signal their peaceful intent, but were shot down by Eayre's troops. This incident touched off a war of retaliation by the Cheyenne in Kansas.
In the same year members of the Arapaho tribe were murdered in the Sand Creek Massacre, inflicted barbarically by the Colorado territory Militia. “Confrontation with white invaders of Arapaho territory intensified rapidly after the discovery of gold near Denver in 1858. Many bands traditionally wintered in the sheltered Denver/Boulder area. A treaty in 1861 attempted to remove the southern branch of the Tribe to a small area along the Arkansas River, but the treaty was never ratified by representatives of the Tribe. As the conflict turned violent, a peaceful band of Arapaho and Cheyenne camped along Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado in 1864. They were attacked without warning, despite white flags of truce, and brutally massacred by Colorado militia. The Sand Creek Massacre touched off widespread conflict throughout 1864-65. Treaties were finally signed in 1867 and 1869 which resulted in the Southern Arapaho moving to west-central Oklahoma, where they remain to this day.
In 1878 the Northern Arapaho agreed to move on to the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming, which they share with their traditional enemies, the Eastern Shoshone.” Sadly there are now no Arapaho people left in the region.
Sophie’s health condition disappeared for a week, but after reading about the barbarity of the massacre her condition flared up again. She found forgiveness work was needed to let go of the whole situation and move on. So far, this has been improving in stages and is a work in progress.
