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By Kathryn Hand, PLR Hypnotherapist The year is 1916. A young Aussie digger is in front of me with his face contorted in pain. He has just been shot in the neck on the Somme battlefield in France. Within minutes he has left his body and he laments the futility of war. This soldier has just taken me though his final minutes of life as Billy Patterson. Upon waking, back in this lifetime, my partner Mick, is quiet and contemplative after the past life regression I’ve just guided him through. In this incarnation, he is a Kiwi, and served as a British Army paratrooper. He didn’t imagine he’d find himself as an Australian soldier in the first World War. His somewhat skeptical mind found it hard to believe. Luckily, we had a name to search for, so I was determined to find some evidence to support the session's information. It’s often not easy to find names people give in past life sessions. One requires the skills of a genealogist and historian to recover someone’s past life person in most cases. However, I thought it would be easy to locate Billy. The records of soldiers are meticulously recorded and updated. But after weeks searching, we became deflated as Billy Patterson was evasive and not showing up in any searches. Eventually, we enlisted the help of the War Memorial. More weeks went by and still we heard nothing. Then, a rewarding email arrived. The War Memorial had located Billy. It turned out his surname was spelt with just one ‘t’. We’d been searching for the more typical spelling with a double 't'.
Mick was away working at the time, and I opened up the email to find a photo of Billy Paterson in his uniform. It was a surreal moment to sit there looking at the face of the man I’d heard describing his death just months earlier. Here I was looking at another version of my partner from an earlier lifetime. There was even a striking resemblance between him and his past-life person. I cried at the loss of the life of this innocent budding man.
It took Mick a while to fully comprehend the enormity of the search results. The records confirmed exactly what he had described: his death on the Somme, his burial place, his name – all there in black and white from the War Memorial. Slowly, he has embraced this past aspect of him. We’ve accumulated a statue of a WW1 Digger, some literature about the ANZACs and a newfound respect for these brave young soldiers.
Last year, I went to my very first Dawn ANZAC service, something I have always wanted to do. It's always an emotional day, and on 25 April 2019 my emotions were overflowing and my heart filled with admiration and pride to be by Mick's side amongst the throngs of people paying their respects at the Cenotaph in Martin Place. Mick also had a first...marching with the red berets in the Anzac Day March. He pushed a 94 year old digger in his wheelchair. Mick had always felt like he didn’t deserve to march, somehow feeling inadequate compared to the diggers of the two World Wars. These days it's not always popular to participate in celebrations of war and military. We are all aware of the futility of it all. But for Mick to pay homage for a part of his life that shaped him, and to pay respect to those that lost so much, it's important. He finally donned his red beret from the paratrooping days and marched with pride, the ghost of Billy Paterson by his side.
Images: 2019 ANZAC Day March, lower right corner shows Mick in his paratrooping days. Second image shows Mick with other members of Paratrooper battalions.
Mick has now located Billy’s battalion colours and has a real slouch hat. We talk about Billy often. One day, we might locate the Paterson family and introduce ‘Billy’ to them.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
Kathryn Hand is a Past Life and Life Between Lives Hypnotherapist. She is the co-founder and co-organiser of the Cosmic Consciousness Conference. See www.kathrynhand.com.au for more information about past life therapy.