Through Veils and Webs

By Irma Battig

Have you experienced love at first sight? Did any relationship leave you puzzled, regardless of how much you tried to analyze and explain it? This book sheds light on the enigma of soul mates: How we keep encountering them in various lives and dimensions to continue the dance and work out our karma together.

A highly personal and authentic account, "Through Veils and Webs" touches on the most important aspects of life and love in a journey through ages, countries, continents and even planets. It lifts the veils on what is buried in our subconscious and connects the dots in the web of our multi-dimensional existence.

As the author elaborates on the insights she gathered from her own adventures and past life regressions, she illuminates the inherent spiritual lessons that are relevant for all of us. Follow Irma Bättig through the multiple dimensions of her "a-maze-ing" journey! The trivial that holds most of us captive will lose its grip on you as you come out of this exploration with an expanded vision of reality and a deeper understanding of the mysteries of life and death, love and karma. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cloud 7 Holding
• Release date: Sep 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536522563

Irma Battig

Irma Bättig is a transformational healer, coach and teacher. Born and raised in Switzerland and Canada, she has also lived and worked in the United States and Costa Rica before moving to her Indian husband’s native country. At 33, after a successful career in communications culminating as a Chief Communications Officer and member of the top management of a multinational corporation in Switzerland, she underwent a deep transformation. Not looking back, the Phoenix that rose from the ashes stepped out of her old world to follow an inner calling. She embraced the spiritual path first as a student, learning from teachers and masters in various countries, then as a therapist, healer and teacher herself. On an accelerated path to personal growth, aided by intense personal and spiritual experiences, Irma has been able to assist clients and students from all walks of life and from all over the world on their own often challenging journeys. The multiple methods she employs help them heal old trauma, reprogram dysfunctional programs and beliefs and allow them to expand into fuller versions of themselves in alignment with their soul’s purpose. Her mission is to help those who are ready to raise their vibrational frequency so as to lead healthier, happier lives in tune with a rapidly evolving earth. Irma and her husband currently live in Mumbai where she works with her clients locally as well as internationally. She also participates actively in their business which offers eco-friendly homes and living solutions across India. Healing the planet is essential if we want to heal as individuals. We cannot separate ourselves from our environment. This book series is the author’s contribution to the global awakening that is taking place and that will hopefully turn the ship around before it is too late: Before the destruction of our eco-system is so far advanced that it cannot be remedied by human beings anymore. Putting our lives into a larger context, that of a multi-dimensional reality, should help us look beyond our plate at what really is at stake. Maybe it puts our daily preoccupations in their proper place – it is not about the next IPhone nor about what car we drive. Once we realize we are all connected and interdependent – on everything, not just each other – we are likely to revisit and redirect our priorities on a healthier and sustainable course. 

Book preview

Chapter 1

FIRST LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

~William Butler Yeats

I am nervous with anticipation. Edith, my best friend, has recently started attending school, a year early for her age. She is six. I am only five and too young to even join kindergarten. However, this morning she has spontaneously decided to take me to school with her. Studying with other pupils instead of on my own at home certainly sounds more enticing! I have learned to read and write and have been practicing first grade calculations for a while now, by myself. It will be more fun to share and increase my knowledge with companions and a teacher!

Edith and I are late; the bell for class has already rung. Excited by our own courage, we knock on the classroom door. It opens and, on my friend’s command to impress the teacher, I drop into a full split. Taken by surprise, the teacher, a beautiful woman with long, untamed hair lets us in. The grand entrance worked!

From that day onward I am allowed to unofficially attend first grade. I pack my school bag on most mornings and then race the few hundred meters to an imposing school building atop a hill. Inside, the corridors emit the faint smell of disinfectant and fluoride pills. We swallow these before we are allowed out to the play area for recess. It’s supposedly good for our teeth!

My father teaches me arithmetic during family meal times. He explains the principle and then gives me math problems to solve as he reads the news and finishes his meal, before heading out to the fields again. Reading I picked up on my own. I particularly enjoy sharing my grandfather’s newspaper. Facing him at the table after lunch, while he enjoys his black coffee with apple brandy, a strong and sweet brew which he occasionally allows me a few sips of, I have to decipher it the wrong way around. If I don’t know a word, I ask him for clarification and so increase my vocabulary. Thanks to this improvised home study, I am thus at par with the seven year old pupils I have joined in class and I participate in their exercises as if I had studied with them from the beginning. 

After several weeks of this unusual arrangement, the teacher advises my parents to convince the school board to allow me into kindergarten even though I am not of the required age. She predicts that I will be bored to tears if I have to wait another year and a half to go over material I already know. Despite the fact that we are halfway into the school year the school board fortunately agrees to make an exception. Instead of tinkering with the alphabet, I will be playing with dolls and building blocks and children who are only one year older than myself instead of two.

Nineteen-sixty five, the year before my birth, produced an unusually large number of newborns in my village. By the time they are of school-going age, they have to be split up in two groups of 22 each. I am assigned to group A. When I meet the other group of kindergarteners for the first time, my eyes fall on this cute, dark haired and brown-eyed boy. I have an instant crush on him! The coloring of the Swiss population, in the German part of the country where I come from, is usually of the paler kind, and Robert’s dark beauty stands out. Even though I quite like a few boys from my own group, they can’t compete with this stunner.

Half a year later, I am back in first grade. My teacher (the same one who I had earlier impressed with my gymnastic skills and whose looks have left an unforgettable impression on me) happens to be Robert’s aunt.  She likes me. She was quite fond of my father, who had been her classmate, a decade or so prior. Her parents liked him too (as my mother would relate to me in later years), even though being the eldest son of a farmer, following the custom, he would take over from his father. She, on the other hand, came from the most prestigious family in the village. They even had an indoor swimming pool, a rarity at the time! But my father was too shy to act on his feelings, and besides performing in plays together, nothing serious came out of the mutual attraction.

When he was 20 years old, he met my mother who took care of the neighbors’ household. They happened to cross paths when walking towards their respective homes. While in conversation, my father quietly tugged at a button on his jacket until it came off. Pretending it had fallen off on its own accord, he asked the attractive young woman whether she would mind sowing it back on. She invited him to her house where she pulled out a needle and thread; this was the beginning of their courtship, and they were married five years later.

Here I am, one generation later, infatuated with a boy from the same family and repeating the pattern, albeit at a much younger age and with a slight twist. Beginning in Grade Two, when our classes are reunited into a single one again, Robert and I soon develop a love-hate relationship. We sit in each other’s vicinity in class, help each other cheat on exams and play together in private. But for some reason unknown to me, Robert enjoys mocking me in public. In German we have a saying, Those who love each other, tease each other. In our case Robert does most of the teasing, and it doesn’t feel like love to me. Aside from his close male friends, no one is spared his acerbic tongue. Still, I am at a loss as to why he always tries to put me down when I am gaga over him. Other boys like me, why doesn’t he?

The older we grow the more hurtful his attacks become. Robert’s callousness makes me wary of boys and later, men. I will need a couple of years of therapy to work out the kinks I acquired because of his offensive remarks and his ambivalent behavior; it will make me very reluctant to keep my heart open when the going gets tough.

Not only is Robert the most attractive of the boys in our class, he also has the biggest mouth of the lot and leads the gang. I excel in academics and athletics, I am popular and considered the leader of the much smaller girls group. As the two alpha kids in our respective packs, Robert and I butt heads frequently. He has the power of the majority behind him: there are 25 boys in our class as opposed to only 14 girls. Whatever decisions he takes as the ringleader of the boys will ultimately win out in classroom battles.

In addition, his charismatic, aristocratic air combined with his sharp wit compensate amply for the fact that he neither tops the class in grades, nor in sports. Yet, throughout our school years, Robert will maintain his star status. This makes me at once his friend, and (weaker) rival. On one hand, I am a victim of his spiteful attacks. On the other, jousting with Robert provides me with the opportunity to develop my own sense of retort and fighting spirit.

Robert’s closest buddy is my friend too. Norbert doesn’t just like me, though; he clearly is infatuated. He is a good natured, kind boy. When I am ill, he collects gifts from his parents’ shop and brings them to my sick bed, patiently sitting at my side holding my hand. I can count on him; he is always there for me. As we grow older, I share my secrets with him, including my fondness for his best friend and my misery because of it. I realize I am hurting him, yet I can’t help it. Being close to Robert, perhaps he is privy to information that would ease my plight?

For my eighth birthday party, I have invited my seven favorite boys from my class. I prefer sports and exploring the woods next to our farm, to dolls. In fact, the forest with its ancient fir trees and fairies, and where I feel intimately connected to God is my favorite playground. I am a tomboy on one hand. Yet I love fashion, jewelry, make up and dressing up, often wearing a wig with long black hair and imagining myself a Native American Squaw, or as a Gypsy in flowing skirts with a shawl and hoop earrings.

Norbert, who is of course part of the one-sided guest list, shows up to drop off my present, but then disappears again. I try to persuade him to stay, but he insists on behaving like the underdog. He is very dear to me, but he must have missed the line when the Graces above handed out looks. He also lacks Robert’s arrogance, glimmer and exotic appeal.

Robert is the first boy I kiss in third grade. We are playing the spin-the-bottle game at a friend’s birthday party. This particular event starts a trend in my class; we will take every opportunity we can – usually birthdays – to celebrate with music and dancing as well as some game or another that allows us to get closer to the other gender. We are an unusually tightknit group, and a bit precocious for our age.

In fourth grade, my grandmother offers to pay for my ballet lessons. At least for a few hours a week, this will catapult me amongst the village’s upper class, consisting of Robert’s family; perhaps the main reason behind this gift in the first place. My grandmother is a proud woman who always dresses well and who used to showcase her four handsome sons in fancy attire, whether she could afford it or not. A close friend who lives next door and spends a lot of time at our house wonders if she is a real grandmother, with her dyed golden hair and vermillion-color lipstick.

Being her first grandchild and born on March 8th, the same date as her, she spoils me. That’s how my mother sees it. My grandmother is earning her own money, now that the younger generation is running the farm and the household, and she is finally free to get a paid job after decades of farm-work. She buys me new clothes and other goodies that my parents can’t afford. I don’t mind the hand-me-downs that I get from my parents’ friend’s children who have outgrown their clothes. It’s nice to be able to pick my own outfits at times though. Like my mother and grandmother who are both skilled seamstresses, I have a knack for fashion and have been designing clothes since before going to kindergarten.

I grow up in a three-generational household. This means sharing the six-bedroom farmhouse with my grandparents, my parents as well as two uncles and the farm help. My youngest sister and I are born eleven years apart, plenty of time for my uncles to get married and move out, thus freeing up two of the rooms. In our shared living quarters, I have ample opportunity to notice the lack of love between my grandparents. Their frequent quarrels are not limited to themselves, however; they also spill over onto my parents. No doubt their tight-knit union triggers especially my grand-mother’s jealousy. She isn’t one to hold her ire in check, nor is my grand-father a model of emotional intelligence. I am privy to nasty scenes between the two generations, followed by days or weeks of no communication.

My grandfather, a highly intelligent but also a temperamental Scorpio (or a hornet, as I call it in my own interpretation of his self-destructive astrological sign!), is not cut out for farm work, and persistent hard labor. He and my grandmother met when he was touring the country with his own band. With black hair and captivating blue eyes, adorned with a trumpet and his Hitler mustache, he must have made a dashing impression! The appearance was strong enough for her to marry a man twelve years her senior. I don’t know if their union was ever harmonious. He likes his red wine and tends to get agitated when he has had a glass too many.

Over the years my grandmother, although a Piscean, seems to have lost any shred of sensitivity. A commanding woman herself, she shares her latent unhappiness with her surroundings and revels in the stereotypical mother-in-law role: she appears to enjoy being cruel towards my mother, while she pampers her other daughters-in-law who don’t have to live under the same roof. I am appalled by the unfairness and feel great empathy toward my mother. I wish she would stand up for herself.

At times I feel like I am the adult in the house, incredulous that grownups could behave the way they do. I come to the conclusion that my grandmother buys my love. With me, she shows her loving and generous side, and I am aware that loyalty is expected in return. She has no other ally in the house and she frequently uses me as a shield between two warring factions, herself versus her husband, or the two of them against my parents. This certainly is an uncomfortable and unsuitable role for a young child to play, even if the compensation comes in the form of sweets, new clothes, ballet lessons and a pony.

To make up for the special treatment I receive from my grandmother, my mother chooses to favor my younger brother. This questionable parenting technique doesn’t help my brother and I foster a loving relationship. He learns from an early age that the easiest way to hurt me is to start a fight. Regardless of who wins, it is almost a given that I will be smacked first by my impatient mother. I am the older one and supposed to know better... No wonder I grow up taking responsibility for everything and everyone, bearing the cross of most firstborns!

My mother, who works on the farm, also runs the household plus another enterprise on the side. Which leaves her no time to drive me to the ballet classes that are taught in another town. I am not certain if deep down she approves of such extravagance, although she probably wouldn’t admit that to herself. Her mother died when she was in her early teens. Her father was left having to feed ten children with a small farm consisting of ten cows. Under these circumstances my mother became accustomed to working hard, early in her life. The only luxuries she has known she bought for herself, my father never received any salary to run his father’s farm. When I was born, he gathered a bouquet of field flowers for my mother, as he couldn’t afford to buy roses from the florist next door. Fortunately, my mother always appreciated my father’s loving and resourceful gestures.

Robert’s mother, a home maker, has been driving his sister and their cousin to the weekly ballet lessons for years. She graciously accepts to take me along with them. This means I can enter their expansive and exclusive home every week, before climbing into the only BMW in the village.

Robert’s mother is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, a dark haired and dark eyed version of the seventies movie-star, Farah Fawcett. One can already tell that her daughter will follow in her footsteps. I feel flattered when she asks my opinion on which pair from her sizeable collection of black pumps will suit that day’s outfit best. Their villa, surrounded by a natural fence, is furnished with expensive taste and souvenirs from their travels to far-away countries.

Since ballet is on our half day off on Wednesday Robert is usually at home when I show up. Although she is my age, I find his sister to be immature and we don’t have much in common except for dance lessons. So I either wait around, at once thrilled and intimidated by the impressive surroundings, or hope that Robert will invite me to their backyard to kick a football. He takes pleasure in making me feel uncomfortably aware that I am in his kingdom.

At 12 years of age, I am accepted into the seven-year long high school track, reserved for the top achievers who intend to eventually enroll in university. Regular high school in Switzerland, on the other hand, is only three years long and leads to vocational training or technical college. The tactic employed by our new set of teachers is to filter the student body even further by putting us under considerable pressure to see whom cracks first. Those who can’t handle the constant tension of surprise tests and the long hours at school preceded and followed by home study to complete the heavy workload will be relegated back to regular high school.

A third of our new class consists of students from my village who have grown up with each other - a rarity, as usually no more than a couple of students from the same class make it to this elite school – and we are harder to break. We are a cohesive group and take pride in making life difficult for our teachers. One of the punishments frequently handed out is to be restricted to the classroom during lunchtime and having to resume our studies, rather than blowing off steam outdoors. If they were allowed to lock us up, they would!

Life has become serious all of a sudden and there is not much place for fun anymore. Fortunately, I share these tough times with my closest girlfriend, Robert, Norbert and my other best friends who have also made it to this elite educational institute.

In class, Robert and I sit in close proximity so we can whisper to each other and also exchange answers during exams. But when I become too trusting and let my guard down, Robert will invariably find a way to stab me from behind.

Returning from lunch one day I along with my classmates find a drawing on the blackboard: a short round figure with my name underneath and a long, stick figure with my best girlfriend’s name. I know this is one of Robert’s jests; no one else would be that mean. He in turn, is mightily pleased with the effect his caricature has on me. I am visibly upset at my being portrayed as short and fat; a stark contrast to my tall, blonde girlfriend.

Unconsciously I have taken on my mother’s complex about being a short woman. She always wears high heels, and buys me my first platform shoes when I am ten years old. Beauty is important to my whole family. It seems especially difficult for my mom to see her main flaw, her 1 meter 60 reflected in me, her physical carbon copy.

I conclude that Robert finds my best friend more attractive than me. This in turn leads me to assume it is the same for all boys. Later, when she and I discuss the two classmates we are both interested in, I unquestioningly give in, telling her to take her pick, certain that they favor her. I later find out however, that it was actually the other way around. I just recently watched the movie Something Borrowed in which two childhood friends, a dashing blond and a pretty brunette, are enamored with the same man. The less flamboyant girl doesn't imagine for a second that he could prefer her to her best friend and literally gives him away to her. Six years later she finds out that he was in love with her all along. Thanks to my mom and Robert, I can identify with the young woman, her distorted self-image and the consequently inaccurate interpretation of events.

The pressure tactics of our teachers are working according to plan; although the circumstances prompt me to perfect my cheating techniques, my grades are plummeting. When my dad glances at the report card of my second semester, he has a concerned look on his face, the first and last time in my academic career, and he inquires as to what is wrong.

My parents have never had to worry themselves with my studies. I have ranked at the top of my class since first grade. I have always come home from school, removed my books from my bag and immediately started on my homework. I never leave until I am done. Only twice do I ask my mother for help; I need someone to go over the French vocabulary with me. I quickly realize she has no patience for this exercise and give up after the second attempt. Now, my father understands that I am cracking under pressure.

My family’s decision to migrate, soon after the end of my second semester, saves me from sliding further down that slope.

As a birthday gift to himself, my father decides to realize his decade-old dream, and takes off on a trip to Canada to visit farms that are for sale. Traditional, small and conformist, Switzerland has always been too restrictive for this adventurous and forward-thinking pioneer. Before his departure, a broker shows us photographs of an imposing property on sale in Quebec. We all fall in love with the huge expanses and even more so the spacious, luxuriously furnished house that is part of the deal. We are all sold on pictures of the farm before he even sets foot on the new continent.

My mom takes my grandmother along a few weeks after his return to check it out as well, and she signs the sales contract. During their absence, I am put in charge of the household and of my three siblings, including my two-year old baby sister. For a whole week, I have to feed them all; I remember asking my friend’s mother how to prepare rice. By the time I reach home, I have already forgotten the recipe!

We manage to survive until the two women of the house return. The excited preparations for our immigration to another land begin: getting visas for everyone, sorting through a huge household accumulated over generations, packing up what we want to ship to Canada and selling the rest, including all the animals and my electronic organ, at an auction held at our farm. All the while, there is a constant stream of visitors who want to know where we are going and to say good-bye. Soon, I could recite the story my mother shares with these daily callers in my sleep!

I return from summer vacation to attend the second year of high school until the visas are granted and we can leave. Now that I know I won’t have to suffer through this mental torture much longer, the tension is gone and my grades immediately pick-up, like thirsty daisies in a rain shower. I wish teachers realized that stress makes one stupid and sick and is the worst pedagogical method.

To mark the closing of the first chapter of my life, I organize a farewell party for my old school mates and the few new ones I have made in the past year. Art Garfunkel’s hit Bright Eyes plays in the background as Robert and I kiss each other in a seemingly eternal embrace. A shiver runs through me when I inadvertently touch his neck with my thumb that is supposed to be resting on his shoulders. When his exploring tongue hits a sensitive spot on my gum where a molar was extracted a while before, I almost jump!

Several minutes of shoulder-tapping by friends finally bring us back to earth. It is midnight and Robert’s parents have arrived on the scene to pick him up. Mercifully, they don’t seem to mind finding their son in a compromising situation. Since we are about to leave for Canada, my fragile adolescent ego is saved from further embarrassment.  However, decades later Robert and I will still long to re-experience the magic of our innocent love. 

Although Robert and I have never spoken about our feelings for each other, I keep fantasizing about him even after my move to Canada. That is, until I turn 14, when I am struck by a pair of blue eyes and a lightning bolt of love. Even though the boy’s mother is quite in favor of the two of us becoming friends, Christophe and I are too shy to make much of it. Once an outspoken, lively and spontaneous girl, the hormonal changes combined with the insecurities from immigrating to a new country and the exposure to a foreign culture, have turned me into a timid, introverted adolescent.

Everyone knows me at school because we are a novelty: the Swiss family with the biggest farm in the area.  The locals receive us with a lot of goodwill, yet I feel vulnerable and exposed. I have become a public figure, constantly surrounded by my curious schoolmates, and I am not ready for such attention. Especially since my knowledge of French is limited and I cannot communicate properly. I am in my early teens, a time where everything is shifting internally and transforming one externally. It is not an ideal age to go through an additional fundamental upheaval, such as moving to a new and unfamiliar country.

I cross Robert’s path a couple of years later when I pay my old friends in Switzerland a visit. We ignore each other. When I return to my birth country six years later for a summer job, Norbert and Robert come to meet me. The latter brings his girlfriend along; good-looking and sophisticated, they seem to make a good match. 

I subsequently attend a class reunion during which I grasp the chance and ridicule my old flame, who is losing his shiny black hair prematurely, in front of our old school mates. The shot comes out of nowhere and catches him unprepared. Although quick-witted, he is unable to retort fast enough to save face. I am so proud; revenge, finally!

On another occasion I pay the two friends a visit in the city where they study and share a flat. There, I meet Robert’s new girlfriend, who he later marries.

At the next class reunion, Robert comes up to me and initiates a conversation. Are we making progress, behaving like normal human beings? He has just become a father and I inquire about his baby. He asks about my position on children, a topic I usually diligently avoid.

I offer my standard retort: They would have to be nice, intelligent and good looking. That is a bit much to ask for, don’t you think?

Don’t you think you and I would have made beautiful children? comes the astonishing reply!

I have no idea what I stutter in response. Here we are, over a decade later, and he is admitting that he not only liked me and was not only fantasizing about going out with me (as I used to), but that he has been thinking about marrying me and having a family! I am not even ready to seriously consider the thought of matrimony, let alone children yet, and he has obviously been imagining that scenario for years. I cannot believe it. What have we done? Have we missed the love of our lives? I certainly have never managed to forget my first love, despite my efforts. Now I know he hasn’t either. And: he is off the market, no longer available, with a first child, and two more to follow.

THROUGH THE VEIL

I walk to the blacksmith’s shop amid the hustle and bustle of our fortified town. Chickens are fluttering about, the hooves of horses reverberate throughout the market, and children are playing in the dirt, their parents going about their daily business.

Although my father rules over this fiefdom and I am thus of noble lineage, my best friend is the blacksmith’s son. We grow up together, playing with each other when he does not have to help his father. My parents do not mind me mingling with the common townspeople, especially since a good blacksmith is an important asset to my father who loves his horses. He treats his subjects with fairness and good will.

As we grow older, I become aware of the boy’s feelings towards me.  He is in love with me. Upon introspection, I recognize that I love him too. However, he does not arouse passion in me. I share with my mother that our friendship is deepening and that I am not sure as to what to do. She is not shocked and assures me that she will not stand in our way but will support me despite our class difference if I decide to marry him. However, she advises that I wait until I find someone who I truly fall in love with.

My friend and I are taking a walk outside the city walls when a horseman on a black stallion charges towards us. In a flash I know this is it, the passion I have been waiting for! The dark-haired young nobleman is on his way to our town where he intends to pay my father a visit. My friend senses that something is going on, it makes him anxious, but there is not much he can do. Back at my home, I have a chance to interact with this exciting visitor. I haven’t met anyone like him before and my mother is quick to realize that my interest is more than just being polite.

She knows it will hurt my friend, and so do I, but when things are settled I have to tell him that I am marrying this other man. It pains me to have to disappoint him. But the exciting aristocrat is in a class of his own. 

After our wedding, I move to his town and settle into my new life. We have a large home and he allows me a lot of freedom. Yet we are close and share an intense, and romantic bond, a rather unusual situation during these times. We have a beautiful daughter together and he lets me raise her unconventionally, allowing her to stand on her own two feet and to think for herself. He is a loving father and doesn’t mind me teaching our daughter about the healing power of plants and other less conventional subjects.

In the past life regression, I sense that my friend, the blacksmith’s son, is Norbert in this life. I immediately recognize Robert as the horseman and my future husband. His aura is so similar in both lives. Little does he know that his fantasy of us parenting a child together is answered in a previous life!

The pattern repeats itself in the present with Norbert having to accept that he drew the shorter straw. His best friend Robert conquers my palpitating heart, whereas he has to be satisfied with my friendship. If I was meant to learn to not be influenced by appearance, I certainly failed that lesson! Ironically, the ugly duckling turned into a handsome young man with the most ambitious career of our whole class. I do hope he is happy now and that my behavior didn’t wound him as much as Robert’s damaged me (words do hurt!).  Favoring his best friend over him repeatedly, while having him as a confidante at the same time, was unintentional cruelty on my part.

The story takes a twist this time, as Robert and I are not on equal social footing, his family being business owners while mine are farmers. In a way, I am in Norbert’s position from the previous life. This time, I get the taste of being of inferior social standing. Still, that didn’t seem to be the issue between Robert and me, since his parents liked me, and he didn’t end up marrying into a higher stratum of Swiss society.

Interestingly, had I not entered school a year early, I doubt the three of us would have had an opportunity to pick up our previous roles and repeat this play with the slightly altered script. Growing up, we hardly mingled with school kids from other classes and I may never have had a chance to get to know Robert and Norbert well enough to repeat the dance had my friend Edith and Robert’s aunt (!), the teacher not lent a hand in accelerating my admission to school. Thus, I got to meet up with several other soul mates too, not just these two, and to grow up and learn with souls from our group. How such intricate details could have been planned out in advance, is beyond the comprehension of my logical mind.

We meet again at 29, 30 in his case, at another reunion held at a restaurant. After it closes, my friend invites those who want to continue the party to her home. It’s after midnight. By now, my childhood love is sitting next to me and although we don’t talk much, he lets out an audible sigh when I remove the hairclip that hurts my scalp and my mane is let loose. He reminisces about my unforgettable good-bye party just before I left Switzerland and asks if I will accompany him to a night club. I have fond memories of that magical evening – and of him - too, and the invitation is tempting! But I can imagine what it would lead to, his wedding ring doesn’t seem to restrain him too greatly. I would rather stay out of such a doomed entanglement, even though it might shed some light on and perhaps even clear our confusing history. But I am in a relationship too, and I believe it is not worth the price.

At the last class reunion I attended at 34, my class mates who have organized the event include a little game of the sort we used to play in grade school. This time, the men have to drop one of their shoes into a bag and the women have to grab one from it, eyes closed, and then dance with the chap whose shoe they picked. A kind of reversed Cinderella motif that my childhood friend who pushes women’s rights whenever she gets the chance, no doubt came up with. Following an intuition, I glance at the loafer my hand has found before removing it from the bag. I knew it: It is Robert’s! I drop it immediately to grab a less perilous one.

When I later ask Norbert for a dance, he refuses. This seems out of character, but I have a feeling he does it for the same reason I avoided dancing with Robert.

We end up in a classmate’s basement where we continue the party until the wee hours. For quite a while the handsome man is standing right beside me while I explain the new field of work I have entered – craniosacral therapy and energy healing - uncanny concepts for those I grew up with in a small Swiss village. Although we are barely half a meter away from each other, we don’t exchange a single word. Because of my timidity, I have had strange relationships. But none of them beats the one with my first Cancerian.

For my 40th birthday, my mom puts together an album with important events from my life, including letters from friends and former boyfriends. She asks both Robert and Norbert to contribute to the compilation. They write that they would like to meet me the next time I visit Switzerland, and include a picture of both of them making a toast. As on most photos I have of Robert, his face is smiling while his eyes seem to look from behind a glass wall and his body language suggests a bulletproof vest underneath his jacket. 

Although in past life therapy I did release the protagonists from promises made in that previous life that are otherwise carried over into other dimensions, I do still wonder what we were meant to learn or make up for in this life. It doesn’t seem like we made much progress, quite the opposite! I am not in touch with either of the two men, but wonder if we don’t have some unfinished business.

Deciding to wrap this up and incorporate the lessons that are waiting to be learned, I inquire about both Robert and Norbert in another regression therapy session that I schedule while writing this book. I return to that same lifetime where Robert and I are happily married.

All of a sudden, the inside of my ear starts itching. The therapists ask me what this is about. I sense that I have poison in my ear. Where does it come from? I see a magician mixing it in his laboratory. Who wants to poison me? The answer I am getting is Norbert.

I have grey hair and seem to be