Every Memorial weekend, I attend Folklife Festival, the largest annual free music festival in the country. Different culture’s music, dance and foods are represented.
I was watching a Scottish dance performance and was surprised to see an east Indian man as part of the troupe. As I watched other musicians and dance troupes, I saw a lot of cross cultural participants. These performers may spend years learning and honing these skills. I wondered what the motivation would be. The answer, of course, is past lives!
Have you ever been traveling and felt “at home” in a foreign country or oddly uncomfortable there? I’ve had both experiences in Hawaii. The first time I went to Kauai, I fell hopelessly in love with it. I know I’m not the only one to fall in love with Kauai, but this was a deep yearning kind of feeling. I cried when I left.
On my next trip to Kauai, my friends, Tom and Linda, and I took a guided kayak/hiking tour and walked through forests where the Alli’i (royal family) had lived. Later we went to hear a Hawaiian storyteller. As she was telling a story (in Hawaiian), I burst into tears and sobbed! Linda looked at me in horror and said “what’s wrong”? Through tears I said “I don’t know!”. The next morning, I meditated on this experience and discovered that I had lived in the forest we had visited that day and died from a disease as a young teenage girl. My heart was broken to leave my beloved family and homeland.
On my next trip to Hawaii, I visited Kona on the big Island. I had a heavy, sad feeling the entire week that I just couldn’t shake. Again, after meditating on it, I discovered a past life there that was completely stifling and unfulfilling. I did not follow my soul’s purpose in that lifetime and deeply regretted it.
Life is so much bigger and more interesting when we see it from a higher perspective and realize we’ve all lived and been part of cultures all over the world. It also makes us more tolerant of them, which is something we desperately need now.
