What happened when I explored a past life under Anastacia's guidance

By: Amanda Albert

I step into the kitchen. It's a small room, sparsely furnished, yet somehow it feels empty. A pot of salty porridge sits on an old-fashioned coal stove, left over from breakfast, but something inside me knows better than to throw it away. We'll need what's left tomorrow.

Faded blues and greens lend this farmhouse a dreary disposition, their colours softened by the grey light filtering through a weathered window above the sink. An old metal milk container stands beside the door. A wooden table occupies the centre of the room, surrounded by five chairs, although only four match. The air smells of damp earth, and my leather work boots feel heavy against the floor.

My body aches and I'm hungry, though neither sensation is unfamiliar. There's a persistent anxiety sitting in the pit of my empty stomach, accompanied by an equally familiar understanding that I must keep it to myself. Lunch needs preparing, and I have five mouths to feed: my husband, our son and two grandsons. There's barely enough food for two.

A calendar hangs on the wall, its lettering written in a language I cannot, today, understand. The illustration tells me it's May, although the chill in the air suggests otherwise. I seem to be somewhere in Eastern Europe, sometime during the 1800s.

I've never seen this kitchen before. I don't recognize the food or understand the language on the calendar. Yet, in this moment, I carry the weight of a life I don't recognize.

Somewhere beyond this farmhouse, in another time and place, Anastacia Anastascio The Spiritual Goth is guiding me through a past-life regression.