M.J. Rose

Thank you to author Hope Tarr for answering this week’s Reincarnationist Q&A!

Hope Tarr is the award-winning author of more than a dozen historical and contemporary romance fiction novels. Look for “Tomorrow’s Destiny” in a Victorian Christmas anthology with her bestseller buddies, Jacquie D’Alessandro and Betina Krahn. Hope’s most recent book is: TWELVE NIGHTS, Harlequin Historical Blaze, Dec 2009 ISBN#: 978-0373795161

THE QUESTIONS:

What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?
Compassion, most definitely. I did a past life regression about five years ago and instead of being regressed to my most recent life, the practioner guided me to recall the life most pertinent to the lessons to be learned in my present one. I was “John” and I’d lived (and happily survived) the American Civil War, instead dying of “natural causes,” i.e., a cancer in my mid-sixties.
In this life as “Hope,” I’m a huge “feeler,” so much so that I have to take care to protect my emotional boundaries. That said, being able to walk in the shoes of others, to empathize rather than simply sympathize, has also proven to be a big asset in my writing life.

What is your principle defect that you believe may be inherited from a previous incarnation?
According to my astrologer–he did my first natal chart in 2003 and annual followups since–in all my past lives, I’ve suffered from a polarity in my intimate/romantic relationships. Loving someone has been associated with my abandonment of path and purpose, shame and loss, betrayal…Well, you get the picture. Think of my soul as the Jennifer Anniston of the galaxy. Pretty and talented and successful though she is, when it comes to love, that girl can’t seem to catch a break.The good news is that my stars, so to speak, are aligned to afford me multiple opportunities to get “it” right this time around, to heal the rift within my soul, and to balance loving someone passionately and fully with loving and respecting myself.
And so I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that in this life I’ve been drawn to romance fiction, first as a reader and for the past decade as a writer of more than a dozen novels.  Likewise, it’s no coincidence that I was born under the Sun sign of Libra (the eternal quest for balance–remember those scales) under Venus. I believe all of these circumstances are part of my soul’s mission to work out this whole love thing in a positive way so I can move on not to Rest in Peace but to tackle the next lesson.

Which of your favorite heroes do you think you could have been and why?
My all time favorite hero is Simon Belleville of TEMPTING, my Victorian single-title romance that also happens to be the Book of My Heart. Like me, or rather me five years ago, Simon is a conflicted soul. For him, half a loaf is the best he can foresee ever having. For Simon, it’s love and passion versus duty, honor, and yes, ambition. You see, Simon is a secret Jew with Parliamentary aspirations in a time when Members of Parliament were sworn in “on the faith of a true Christian” among other oaths. As you can imagine, that oath ruled out a lot of people, not only Jews and Muslims but Quakers for whom oath taking is verboten. But like his political mentor, Benjamin Disraeli, Simon has joined the Anglican Church of England and well, sucked it up. Wearing a mask has, for him, become not just a way of life but the only way.
But the Universe rarely lets us get off so easily. Newly appointed to Her Majesty’s Morality and Vice Commission (the Victorians loved nothing more than feretting out vice while secretly participating in it), Simon rescues a waiflike former dairymaid from the attic of an East London brothel. Even were Christine Tremayne not presumably a prostitute, she is most definitely not the stuff of which political wives are made in any era. Soon Simon is pulling a Professor Higgins, coaching Christine in elocution and history and table manners in preparation for finding her a respectable situation as a lady’s maid, all while privately falling head-over-heels in love. And as in real life, eventually Simon is pushed to come clean and yes, choose.
Despite being nominated for Best Unusual Historical of the Year by Romantic Times Book Reviews Magazine and receiving copious other honors, TEMPTING went out of print several years ago. The Victorian era wasn’t nearly so hot back in 2002 as it is now, and the interfaith relationship unfortunately was a turn-off to some of the more traditional romance readers.
But because I love that book soooo much, I pressed (hard) to get the rights back from the publisher. I did. By way of a shameless shout-out, I am actively looking for someone to reissue it.

What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?
Mahatma Gandhi, Anne Boleyn, and Elvis.
I think the Indian political and spiritual leader and King Henry the Eighth’s much maligned second wife would present a particularly lively contrast. History paints Anne Boleyn as The Other Woman, which she certainly was, and thus with a rather black brush. Arguably she must have been motivated largely by egocentrism. But Anne was also a deeply devout Protestant in a time when English Protestants worshipped in secret and were burned as heretics in public. In addition to advancing her faith, she was also duty-bound (by the standards of her day) to advance not only her position (through marriage to a king) but also that of her ambitious family.
In contrast, Gandhi seems so very selfless, and martyr-like, and yet as someone embodied in human flesh he too must have been motivated by ego to some extent. It would be very cool to do the old compare/contrast and see where even these two seemingly very dissimilar souls might meet in commonality.
As to why Elvis, why indeed? “Viva Las Vegas” was a fun film for sure, but I’m not nor have I ever been a particular fan of either the music or those swiveling hips. But I am old enough to remember when Elvis died–42 seemed ancient to me then–and when he did he seemed such a sad, almost grotesque caricature of that beautiful young man who’d blazed far too brightly for his good or anyone else’s. Elvis “sightings” aside, I do seriously wonder if he’s reincarnated by now or if his soul is still biding in some sort of day spa or remedial ed school on Ye Ole Astral Plane. Either way, I’d love to know what his soul has learned, not so much where he went wrong as what he would–will–do differently.

What do you think happens when we die?
Remember when I mentioned I had a past life regression performed? Well, in the course of those three plus hours, I saw not only John’s life but his “death.” He died in bed wearing a long white nightshirt of the sort men used to wear. I saw his/my body rise up in a sort of floaty fashion and then hover there, a sort of gentle swaying like a baby being rocked. It was pleasant, comforting, really. Then at some point, there was a greater ascension and then a propulsion through yes, a dark tunnel. In the course of the journey, John’s human physicality fell off, so that what had started out as a gaunt Caucasian male with white hair and trimmed white beard morphed into what was pure spirit essence, a general human-like outline of light but sexless and featureless. Gradually a pinprick of light appeared on the other end. The light gradually grew and as it did, the motion slowed. John or rather his/my spirit had arrived at the first portal and there to greet him were myriad people dressed in clothing from the 1850’s through the end of the century: a pretty little girl of ten or so with blond ringlets that I think might have been his sister, a man with a slashed face–a face John himself had smitten though at that point emotions such as anger didn’t seem to exist. As I was recalling this, my sense was that the spirits appeared in human form and dress so that the still earthbound John would know them. John’s spirit left these first greeters and continued onward. Another “party” met him, four men dressed in what those of us raised as Christians would have once called “Biblical” garb–basically desert dwellers whom John had known in a previous life, perhaps more of his core soul group. John continued on and more spirits met him, but these were embodied only as light forms and yet he seemed to know them and to reintegrate in perfect peace.

When you come back next time, who (or what!) would you like to be?
What a cool question! My personal belief is that we re-embody within species though the devil on my shoulder might wish cetain people would come back as slugs. But with that caveat, I’ll say the person I would like to return as would be a full-time humanitarian.
As “Hope,” I have a strong philanthropic drive. I recently joked to a friend that philanthropy is my heroine. Back in the 90’s I founded and ran The Pet Overpopulation STAMP OUT, a grassroots national campaign to lobby the US Postal Service to release a postage stamp urging citizens to “spay/neuter” their companion animals and thereby curb unwanted births and ievirable (and expensive) shelter euthanasias and abandonments. I started with “0” supporters and negative street credit. I ended with just about every national animal advocacy group, veterinary medical organization and college not only tolerating the STAMP OUT but actively endorsing it. Add to that nearly 50 US Senators and Congress persons from both parties and celebrities like Bob Barker, Betty White, Kim Bassinger, and Mary Tyler Moore writing personal letters to the Postmaster General urging the stamp’s release.
In 2002 and after more than 250,000 letters sent to Washington, DC, not one but two Spay/Neuter Your Pet stamps were released nationally. Their print run and sell-out is second only to yes, The Elvis Commemorative Stamp. Those six years of struggling to run a national campaign without funding were my brief, gaudy hour, and I don’t regret a single nannosecond. That said, I put my writing as well as general life on the backburner in a serious way. At this point, full-time philanthropy is a luxury I can’t afford. That said, I’d really like to!

Visit Hope online at www.hopetarr.com and “friend” her on Facebook and Twitter. You may also stop by her blog at www.hopetarr.com/blog to enter her latest contest.