Guinevere

1

How It All Began

I awoke suddenly in the middle of the night. Was it real or was it a dream? Shaking and cold and feeling as though I was going to vomit, I ran to the bathroom and bent over the toilet. I vomited. Then I washed my face and went back to bed. I sat there and gathered my thoughts. I looked around me. I was in Vancouver, in my bed. So why did I feel so different, so strange? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt as though I were two people. Then it came back to me—the dream. I started to remember. I closed my eyes and began to focus. Where was I?

The first thing I realized was that this was no ordinary dream. I was standing against an ancient wooden wall in a room that led to a dark hallway. I knew it was dawn but there was very little light. A smell of smoke filled my nostrils. I was aware that I felt tense, almost fearful, but somehow powerful at the same time. As I stood there motionless, I began to hear footsteps. My body tightened and I looked down and saw my hand holding a long stiletto like dagger shimmering against my plain brown robe. My breathing grew faster and I tried to hold myself still and keep the fear at bay. The footsteps came closer, then they were passing my doorway. As I looked into the smoky hallway, I saw a large dirty man in ancient clothes, boots and a helmet. He bent down to tend to another man in similar clothes already lying dead on the floor. He checked the man for life and in that moment I felt rage start to burn inside me.

Suddenly, I jumped out from my hiding place and onto the back of the bent man. In one swift movement, I took my stiletto dagger and thrust it into his back as hard as I could. Stunned, he yelled out in a strange language and threw me off as he fell to the floor. I slid, crashing into the wooden wall, the breath knocked out of me.

Gasping, I lay there and watched as the vile looking foreigner lashed out at my leg with a dull knife. Suddenly, his body went limp with death and I pulled myself to a standing position and leaned against the wall. My heart raced and I felt a strange sense of power and fulfillment. I looked down at him with disgust and turned quickly at the sound of more footsteps and the voice of a woman calling Gwynnefwar. Then I woke up.

Gwynnefwar? What kind of name is that? I said aloud to no one. I looked around my lovely pink room covered in lace and antique Victorian furniture. My body temperature was changing from cold to hot and back again. I felt as though I might vomit again. I forced myself to drink the cold tea on my bedside table and thought to myself, ‘Laurel, it was just a dream, go back to sleep’. I closed my eyes and lay back down in bed. I tried to laugh at myself for having a great imagination, but instead lay there for hours, unable to sleep, still remembering. I could not stop seeing the dagger and the blood. Most of all I could not forget the feeling of fulfillment I had at killing him. I sat up. What is wrong with me? I asked aloud. How could I possibly enjoy stabbing someone to death? I had always been so proud of being calm and stable, the one everyone depended on. I finally went back to sleep and awoke a few hours later. I had a good laugh at myself and went off to work as a bookkeeper/secretary in a Vancouver oil and gas exploration firm.

I spent the next few days trying very hard to focus on my work and on opera. Opera was my dream. Ever since I could remember, I wanted to be an opera singer and now it was finally happening.

A few days after my first dream of Gwynnefwar, I awoke again in the middle of the night, having just had the identical, frightening, but exhilarating dream. Also again, I felt the need to vomit when I awoke and spent the next half hour in the bathroom.

Over the next few weeks, the pattern continued until I became physically and emotionally exhausted. I decided enough was enough.

Over a year earlier I had experienced a past life regression through hypnosis from a local psychologist in an effort to help my insomnia. For months she focussed on finding the source of a possible fear of sleep but it never led to anything. Then one day, after months of expense and effort, she simply guided me to go back in time to the root of the problem. There I was in Ireland in the 1800’s. It was an intense and very real experience, which I still remember 30 years later. Also, after months of hypnosis, I began to learn a great deal about the subject and I followed it up with some research and felt that I could refine the technique the psychologist had used.

So, after weeks of violent nightmares and vomiting, I decided to try and use the self-hypnosis technique to see if there was anything in my subconscious that might be related to the dreams I was having on a near nightly basis. What could I lose? Hopefully—the nightmares. I lay down on my bed and played the pre-recorded technique on my trusty little tape recorder.

As I drifted into a relaxed theta state, I soon found myself in the same scene as the nightmare, but this time it was even more real. Everything was vivid. My senses were alert and heightened and I absorbed all the details around me. I was in an ancient fortification made of wood. My clothes were made of rough linen fabric and of a brownish green color. The light was feint, coming from exquisite bronze bowls filled with oil that hung from ceiling beams or stood on pedestals. As I moved through the same scene from the dream of myself using a dagger to kill the large, bearded man in the helmet, I again felt wonderfully powerful and fulfilled. I continued on. A woman dressed in drab colored robes came running toward me calling, Gwynnefwar, are you hurt?

I looked at her as I gasped to regain my winded breath and replied, No. I continued on and found myself interacting with various people. They mentioned the name Arthur to me, lingering on the last syllable and pronouncing the ‘th’ as a ‘t’. That name stirred something warm in me and I came out of the regression. Arthur, Gwynnefwar—I wondered: sounds familiar, but only vaguely.

Having grown up in Montreal, Canada with only a history of French Queens and Kings, I was not up on the legends of Camelot and King Arthur and Guinevere, so I passed it off. The thought crossed my mind for a moment once, but then I reasoned that the legend of King Arthur and knights of the round table was set in a place of great castles where men wore shining armor and women beautiful gowns with tall cones on their heads. Didn’t they? Well, at least that’s what I remembered from an old Hollywood movie from the 40’s with Joan Fontaine. I only watched old movies, so I didn’t have much of a reference point to go from. Anyway, my name was Gwynnefwar and the man that was being spoken of to me was Arter. So what? What was important was that I needed to make a decision in my life. This woman Gwynnefwar that I was remembering was making a big fuss in my life and especially my sleep time. I was at a turning point of making decisions about opera or accounting for my future and I certainly didn’t need these nightmares to keep infecting my nights. So I decided that the best course of action was to try to forget about it and hope that the nightmares would go away now that I had faced that it was probably a past life experience, but not one that I wanted to explore.

I reasoned that there were probably a lot of past lives that I had that were unpleasant and I certainly didn’t have the time or inclination to rediscover and remember all of them. What was the point? I had a fabulous life and was preparing for a great career in opera. I had to focus myself and get on with my job and life.

Something else important was happening at the time. I was about to be married: in fact—in two weeks. He was a wonderful guy, whom I adored. Or at least I thought I did at the time. I had my wedding dress and the church had been booked and so had the reception and even the honeymoon. Two weeks to go! But the dreams wouldn’t go. They kept on coming until one afternoon when I looked into my fiancé’s eyes and something happened. I realized I didn’t love him. I looked and looked as though searching for something and not knowing what. Something was missing, but what that was, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I couldn’t marry him. So, I told him. He was furious, to say the least, especially because I couldn’t explain why. I didn’t know myself. It was just a feeling, but I knew I couldn’t go through with the wedding. In a very angry state, he stormed out and I didn’t see him for seven years.

In an astonishing turnaround, the nightmares of Gwynnefwar also stopped that very night. So, as a normal intelligent woman, I thought, Problem solved.

Then about two years later a very odd event happened. I was standing in the office and through the glass walls I saw a very tall man exit the elevator and turn towards our office. When we saw each other, I felt ice cold. Fear raced through my body and I ran into the coffee room and closed the door fast. I stood there breathing hard and wondered what in the world was wrong with me. I poked my head out of the door and noticed the man had entered my boss’ office, so I slipped out and came back an hour later, chastising myself the whole time for acting so foolish. I’d never had a problem with men. Besides, he was about twice my age and not particularly attractive, so why the intense reaction? I was stumped.

Unfortunately, when I got back to the office, my boss informed me that we were invited out to dinner by this man and his friend. I begged my boss to let me out of it, but she insisted as he was one our best clients. I was furious.

Later that evening at the restaurant I did everything in my power to be dull and avoid his look. At a break in the conversation, I was left alone with the cold man (as I referred to him). He tried everything in his power to make me like him. I wasn’t interested. He said he had something very important to tell me. Yeah, right. I’d heard that before, but he insisted it was important and that he wasn’t coming on to me. He said he felt an intense feeling of cold rush through his body when he saw me through the glass and he said, I think you reacted to me as well. Otherwise, why did you rush away so fast? I hesitated and felt I should come clean, so I admitted that I also had a cold sensation rush through my body. He told me that he thought he new why it had happened and if I would agree to have dinner with him the next evening, in a very public restaurant, he would explain. Well, even though I still felt intensely uncomfortable around him, I agreed. The next evening I met him at a local restaurant and we ordered. I gulped my wine and so did he. It was awkward to say the least.

Then he started to explain. Look, he said, I’m a successful businessman with a company on the New York Stock Exchange and another on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Strange things don’t happen to me, but in the last few weeks, some odd things have been happening and when I saw you it all came together.

I was intrigued but said nothing and let him continue as I sipped my wine.

He fidgeted. This is really hard for me to talk about as I’m a logical intellectual, but—well, a few weeks ago I came out here from New York and met my sister. Her friend was there and when I walked into the room, her friend seem startled and said out loud, ‘Oh my! You were with King Arthur and Guinevere!’ So you can imagine my surprise.

At the mention of those names I put down my glass of wine and couldn’t look him in the eye. I didn’t know what was going on, but it wasn’t funny to me.

He continued, Now don’t think I’m crazy, because I don’t believe in things like this, but she was a psychic and kept insisting that I had lived with Arthur and Guinevere.

I smiled politely and took a sip of wine. What else could I do? He went on. Then, he said, about four days ago I had a dream about a red haired woman. It was so real I can still see it. I called her Gwyn.

I nearly spit out my wine! I started to breathe heavier and I was getting visible nervous. Are you okay? he asked.

Yes, I assured him. Go on.

Well, he said, I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you things like this don’t happen to me. I’m vice president of a major corporation. He took a gulp of wine before continuing as I tried to keep myself from shaking.

Anyway, he continued, the night before I saw you I had another dream about the same redheaded woman. Then just before I woke up a voice said, You’re going to meet Guinevere again. He paused and looked at me for a reaction but I gave him none. Then he seriously looked as though he was going to reconsider continuing, but instead he leaned forward a little. When I saw you yesterday—I froze! I literally froze inside! I went completely cold, like I’d seen a ghost! Then you glared at me and ran away. I knew it was you! You were her! Gwyn, or—I mean Guinevere. That’s why I had to meet you!" He sat back and waited.

I felt a rush of strange emotions, hot and cold and even anger. I was actually angry. I had successfully put that life back in a nice safe box and here was a complete stranger bringing it out and throwing it at me. I told him I had to go to the ladies room and I grabbed my purse and went to it.

Once inside a stall, I sat there shaking. What’s happening? I thought. This can’t be. It’s not true. It can’t be. I’m a bookkeeper. I’m logical. I’m smart. This is absurd. I got up and splashed my face with water after realizing that I was flushed red. Then I considered leaving the restaurant and not going back to the table, but I couldn’t do that. My boss would kill me. I had to deal with this. So I went back to the table, sat down and took a gulp of wine. He spoke first.

You think I’m crazy, don’t you?

No, I don’t, I replied. I just don’t see what the point of this is. So what if I was Gwynnefwar! He jumped at that. Gwynnefwar! That’s it! That’s the name. Not Gwyn, Gwynnefwar! Suddenly I looked around and noticed people staring. I was so embarrassed. I felt as though I’d been caught in a terrible act with no where to hide. Eventually, he spoke again. So you do know then. Or do you?

I’m not sure, I said, avoiding his eyes. All I know is that I’ve had experiences and nightmares as this woman named Gwynnefwar. That’s all! That’s all I know, I said as though pleading clemency from this trial.

Wow! He said and sat back. He took a long look at me, which I didn’t like and then he leaned forward. Do you realize what this means? I widened my eyes and snapped, No. It doesn’t mean anything!

Of course it does! You were Guinevere!

Gwynnefwar, I corrected sharply.

He frowned as though he was trying to put a puzzle together. Okay, Gwynnefwar. It’s the same person as Guinevere.

How do you know? I laughed sarcastically. Because a psychic told you? There could be a thousand women named Gwynnefwar or Guinevere.

No, he answered. Because of the dreams I had. It wasn’t just you. Arthur was there too.

I grabbed my purse. This is crazy, I said, getting visibly upset. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. There’s no point. So what? Who cares? I have to get up early tomorrow. I need to go home now.

Why are you upset? he pleaded. What’s wrong with being Guinevere? I thought you’d be thrilled.

Thrilled! I said leaning over and trying very hard not to let the anger that was forcing its way into my throat turn into a scream. Thrilled at having been a killer!

I jumped up from the table and rushed out of the restaurant as fast as I could. Luckily, I didn’t live too far away and I began a fast and furious pace home, muttering to myself the whole way at what an idiot I was to have had dinner with him. When I got home I couldn’t rest. I tried to reason with myself about why I was so angry with him, but I didn’t really know myself. I only knew that I wanted this Gwynnefwar or Guinevere experience to be kept secret. How would it look at work? I had a great job, I worked with accountants and businessmen and I was about to start a career in opera. This just would not do.

Well, the next day I arrived at work in a gloomy mood after having no sleep whatsoever. My boss asked about the dinner. I said it was okay but I had to leave early as I wasn’t feeling well. Then, in walked a delivery man with a florist box for me. I opened it. It was a single long stemmed red rose. There was, of course, a card. My boss urged me to open it. I did and it simply read To Gwyn.

Gwyn, my boss said. Who’s that?

Oh, it’s personal joke, I replied and I dropped the card in the waste basket. Well, for the next two months I received a single red rose with the same card every three days. The card always read, To Gwyn. He was trying to break me down and I knew it. My boss often said to me, What’s wrong with you? He’s wonderful. Why don’t you go out with him?

He’s twice my age, was my standard response. He called occasionally at the office but I usually found a way to quickly run to the ladies room and avoid taking the calls. Eventually, I answered the phone myself and it was him. He convinced me that it was silly not to talk to him and he really didn’t want to upset me any further. He just wanted to be my friend. After two months I agreed to another dinner.

At the dinner we laughed a little at how intensely I reacted to the whole event and he promised he wouldn’t tell a soul. It would be our secret. But, he said eventually, I would like to take you back to England sometime.

What for? I asked with surprise.

I don’t know. I just feel I should. It could be fascinating. What do you say?

I thought about it for about a nanosecond. No thanks. I’m not really interested. I love my life and I’m way too busy.

Well, if you ever change your mind, let me know. It would be a honor.

We agreed to let it go at that. He then went back to New York and I never saw him again as my world was quickly changing. The company I worked for was changing and I decided it was time to leave. So—happily—Gwynnefwar slipped once again into obscurity and I went on with my life. And what a life it was! I joined a wonderful opera company and I also opened my own personnel agency to supplement my income. I also began using that technique of hypnosis to help my friends in the opera world to relax before auditions and performances. Life was indeed—excellent!

Then it happened—years later. I was walking down the street in downtown Vancouver on my way to a meeting and a car pulled up and stopped beside me. It was my ex-fiance. It had been seven years since I had last seen him. I was now 28 years old. I was happy to see him after such a long time and he eagerly invited me out to dinner. We had a wonderful time and began dating again—that is, until the dreams began again. After seven long years I had almost forgotten about the horrific scene of killing a man with my dagger and the smell of smoke in the air. But it all came back in the same, identical nightmares. I awoke in sweats and feeling the need to vomit. Whilst sitting beside the toilet, yet again, I began to think there might be a connection with my fiancé and the past life, but I didn’t know what or why.

So, once again, I did a regression using self hypnosis. This time, however, the experience was different. I found myself again in the same body of Gwynnefwar, but now I was being prepared for a wedding. A woman was tying exquisite gold chains into my long red hair and I was dressed in a sheer white linen dress with gold braid wrapped around my bodice. Then I was led to a cart laced with flowers. It was a beautiful sunny day and yet I felt very apprehensive. I was wheeled on this cart through a crowd of people towards a waiting man. I felt nervous and tense. As I approached him, he reached out a hand and I got out of the cart and stood beside him. I noticed his arm first, especially the hair on it. It was dark black hair on a strong white arm. Somehow looking at that arm made me smile to myself. Then suddenly my hand was placed on his and wrapped in a golden cloth. A man dressed like a Bishop was speaking in a foreign language and it was obvious I was being married. I looked up at my husband to be and was astounded by his piercing blue eyes. They seemed to reach inside me and touch me in a way I’d never experienced before. I felt joyful and knew this was right. Then I heard the Bishop say a name to me, but it wasn’t Gwynnefwar—it was Guinevere! I came out of the regression suddenly as the name startled me.

Guinevere! I said aloud. Oh no! I sat there confused. That can’t be, I thought to myself. In the past it was always Gwynnefwar. There’s a big difference in that pronunciation. Please be a different Guinevere, I thought as my mind scrambled for justification—or—even better, of course, there must have been many women named Guinevere. That’s it! Push it back down. That’s what I kept telling myself and that’s exactly what I did, but not before breaking it off with my ex fiancé—again, just to be sure. But before I did, I noticed at dinner that he often pushed up his shirt sleeves. Suddenly I saw a connection. His arm. It was the same as the arm of the man in the regression and his dark hair and pale complexion were the same also, but his eyes were different, they were brown. I searched his eyes as I had years ago and found—nothing.

Miraculously, or so I thought, the nightmares stopped and I felt safe to go on with my lovely little life, working at my agency in the day and singing my favorite operas in the evening. Perfect! What more did I need? Nothing. I had it all and I believed it. I loved my life. I had men to date and take me out to concerts and dinners and I had a full and rich intellectual and musical life. I was content. I lived in a beautiful, cottage style house in a wonderful area of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Over the coming years I began to use my technique of self-hypnosis to help more and more people who seemed to have issues of every kind in their lives. I streamlined the technique and found that I had fallen into becoming a past life regression therapist. I closed my personnel agency and became a full time regression therapist. Interestingly, as I was very adept at taking other people into their past lives, I was also very adept at ignoring my own. At least the one that was there in the background at all times. I did, however, delve into other lives: many of them, in fact. Lives in France as a hat maker named Madeleine Mireille. I even found out my shop’s street number as well as the name. A life of folly as a rich single man in France as well turned out to be quite humorous. In all, I delved into about fifty lives. All normal, mostly boring and dirty or smelly: some poor, some ill, most without controversy.

Then one day a client came to me and asked if I had had any famous lives. I hesitated. I wasn’t really sure. He pushed me on the subject and I replied, Well, I think maybe Guinevere, but not the Guinevere of Camelot and King Arthur. I was quick to add. He inquired how my Guinevere was different and so I mentioned the nightmares and the dagger and the fact that there were no castles or knights in shining armor around. In fact, it looked very dirty, smelly and the building was an old wooden fort, not a stone castle, so it probably was another Guinevere. Intrigued, he asked me if I would be willing to write the story. What story? I replied.

Why not? It sounds interesting, he said and then went away for six months.

I mentioned it to my best friend and we began to discuss it. She was also very intrigued and pressed me to do further regressions to see what I could find out. Well, I thought to myself, maybe it’s time. By now I had been doing regressions on other people for about five years and I felt very confident about the technique and that there really was nothing to fear as it was only memory anyway. The worst that could happen was that I would vomit again. I thought about it for a few months. In other words, I procrastinated and delayed. Then one day I decided to just do it. By now I knew how to regress both myself and others without needing a tape recorder, but I had one beside me so that I could record on tape anything that I might experience.

The day came. I lay on my pink loveseat in my living room and began to count myself downwards in a typical self-hypnosis technique. It took about fifteen minutes. For the next two days I regressed into Gwynnefwar for six hours. This is her life story.

I am going to relate events exactly as I experienced them in the regressions, which is why it reads in the first person, present tense. All of the information in this book has been received solely through my past life regressions. I decided before writing this story not to read any books or information on Guinevere and Arthur as I didn’t want it to influence my own experience in any way. I still refuse to read any other material as I feel it is not the truth but rather, passed on information that has become distorted and greatly embellished over the centuries. Since writing the first draft in February, 1992 and then having it published by Simon and Schuster, which was released in 1996 in hardcover and then in 1997 in trade paperback, I have taken myself into many regressions of Guinevere and found a great deal of information to help me understand her more completely. This book is the new—revised edition.

2

In the Beginning

The year is A.D. 482. Dark Age Britain. The Romans have left long ago to return to their own land. They left behind their descendants, a powerful society committed to defending their land against the onslaught of invaders. Tribes have begun to form throughout the land. Celtic tribes in the mid-north and Briton tribes of Roman descent in the middle and southern parts of Britain form alliances and together they try to build a new society out of the Roman ruins. A society based on farming and communal living.

Celtic chiefs rule over their own lands and tribes. Their lives are filled with music, art and a pagan lifestyle of worshipping the gods and goddesses of the earth and spirit. The Celts are very close knit and passionate, with a lust for pleasure and a pride in the land, which they feel is sacred and must be cherished and honored. They spend their days farming small fields of grain and vegetables and tending to stocks of sheep and goats as well as oxen to be used as beasts of burden. Life is simple and hard. Women mostly tend to the cooking and making cloth of linen and wool, while the men toil in the fields and keep their weapons sharp, as there is always the chance of invasion.

Evenings are joyous occasions where the people of the small village, surrounded by a tall walled enclosure, gather to eat, drink and make merry, with spirited music and dancing. Their flowery Celtic language of symbols and pagan beliefs are slowly being smothered by the southern Roman/Briton Christian influence. Although they often clash in their behavior and lifestyles, the Celts and Britons set aside their differences for the sole purpose of defending the island.

The Briton army in the south that has been watching over and protecting Britain since the exit of the Romans, does the best it can but the army is dwindling. Hungry Anglo-Saxon, Scotti and Pict invaders vie for this affluent land.

The Saxons and Angles from the eastern countries of the continent have entered Britain and begun the move westward, destroying communities and farms along the way. The Picts from the far north of the island move south with precision along the eastern shore and inch their way into middle Britain. What the invaders have underestimated is the determination and passion the Celts and Britons have for their land and their way of life.

3

The Birth

In a lush green valley with rolling hills in Northumbria, Britain, a heavy fog obscures the early morning. The fog clears and I notice a large timber fortification with outside walls rising to an impressive ten feet. I float through the main walls of the fort and notice a single wooden building rising from the center of the grounds. All around this main building, small round buildings of wood and sticks spew smoke out of holes in their straw roofs. A few people mill about their wooden huts, busy with the morning work of carrying food and wood to various other buildings. A few sheep and dogs wander around freely, searching for scraps of food.

I float into one of the larger timber buildings and find a room filled with simple, but comfortable, furnishings. Large wooden chairs softened with stuffed straw cushions have been handcrafted by the village women and embroidered with circular Celtic symbols. Simplistic, but sturdy square tables make up the rest of the room. There is little natural light in the room. A single window lets in more dampness than illumination. A large hanging bronze bowl with ornate Celtic symbols on the sides is filled with oil and lighted wicks and lights up the room, as does a small glowing fire in a stone circle.

I notice a man, Lord Penryth, chieftain of this northern Celtic tribe, standing in front of the burning fire and rubbing his hand through this thick coarse beard. He is a tall, burly man of thirty-seven with long dark reddish hair and a ruddy complexion that spells of too much drink. Clad in a long brown leather and wool tunic and breeches with leather boots laced up the sides, he turns and walks absentmindedly to a table in the center of the room that is covered with bowls of half-eaten flat bread and apples.

A worried look comes over his face. The look turns to fear as he hears a woman’s scream! He races from the room and down a small damp corridor to the doorway of another room. I float behind him, aware of a strange pulling sensation. Lord Penryth is stopped by a tiny, elderly woman clothed in layers of long woollen robes who pushes her hand against his chest roughly.

No… go back to your room. You are not needed here, she says firmly.

I find myself pulled inside the small room to find a tiny fire glowing in a corner circle of stones. In another corner sits a graceful young girl of ten, Merewyn. She wears dark brown robes and has long braided chestnut brown hair. She focuses intently on the astrological charts on the table as her mother, a heavyset woman of forty, shows her how to chart the stars. A wise woman and healer, Merewyn’s mother is also a gifted psychic.

I find myself hovering in the center of the room, suddenly transfixed by the scene happening beneath me. On a small bed lies a woman in excruciating pain. She is a lovely young woman with flaxen hair and very delicate features. She seems almost out of place here amongst all these brown and red haired women in drab brown robes.

The woman in pain is Iryanne, Lord Penryth’s wife. She writhes and moans as she prepares to give birth to her first child. A strange feeling overwhelms me. I feel pulled toward this woman and suddenly find myself inside of her womb being pushed out. Her body feels weak and I sense that it is not safe here, almost as though she wants to die.

Suddenly, I feel a great need to be born. I feel uncomfortable inside her, as though I am