When I went to Orenburg, I was in the tenth grade and I was the new girl at school. That sentence alone is enough to imagine how wonderfully a school year can begin — everyone already has friends, they know who sits with whom, who argues with whom and who tells whom the homework five minutes before class, and you walk in with that lovely privilege of nobody knowing anything about you. Except that something happened to me that I still remember. They accepted me almost at once. I didn’t need months to find my place, I didn’t stay “the new one”, and very quickly I began to feel as if I had been among these people for years. The strangest part was that there were other girls who had also arrived recently, yet for them that feeling of being new lasted almost to the end. For me it was as if someone had simply skipped that part. I lived in Orenburg for only one year, but my heart stayed there much longer.
And it’s exactly experiences like this that make me think about places differently. A place can please us, it can be beautiful, interesting, comfortable, we can take two hundred photos and move on. Or something entirely different can happen — we arrive and feel a closeness we have no way of knowing. As if the place recognises us right from the doorstep.
Later I experienced something different in Switzerland, where I lived near Zurich. There the feeling came through the surroundings themselves, whereas in Orenburg it had come through the people. The rhythm, the order, the lakes, the nearness of the mountains, the towns where you can be among people and a little later out in nature — all of it felt very close to me. There was something in that way of life that I understood without effort. And that too is a form of recognition — to land somewhere and feel that the surroundings suit you, that you breathe differently and that you can picture your life there without having to talk yourself into it for long.
And then there is that even stranger kind of attraction — to a place you have never even been. As a little girl, back in the first grade, I bought myself a Russian–Portuguese dictionary. I knew neither Russian nor Portuguese, which, if you think about it, makes the purchase rather ambitious for a child of that age. I learned Russian later, I still don’t know Portuguese to this day, I haven’t been to Portugal yet, and the feeling that one day I will go has never disappeared. It lives somewhere inside me like an unfinished note. I have no rational explanation for why Portugal of all places entered my life so early, or why I needed that particular dictionary when I couldn’t actually use either half of it. But it’s precisely these small oddities that are interesting, because very often they begin long before we have come up with an explanation for them.
With Italy the feeling is different, yet no less strong. I have spent only a little time there, and still my heart flutters in a special way. The language feels close to me, the atmosphere draws me in, the very idea of Italy somehow ties in very easily with my picture of love, beauty, life and temperament. And yes, apparently even the search for an Italian man has become a storyline of its own. If one day it turns out I’ve been looking for him not only on websites but through some older memory too, at least we’ll have a good explanation for why I’ve been so stubborn.
These examples are intriguing precisely because not every bond with a place comes from a real memory. Some begin as an interest that appears too early for us to explain it by life experience. Others are tied to a language, music, architecture, food, people, a way of relating, or the feeling that this world is somehow “ours”. We may never have lived there, we may never even have been there, and yet the place can be part of our dreams for years on end.
For me the sea is a third kind of feeling. When I imagine a home I would truly feel as my own, a terrace facing the sea appears very easily. And no, I don’t necessarily picture a sun lounger, a parasol and someone bringing me coffee, although I have no objections whatsoever to the last one. I picture the horizon, the air, the open space, the feeling that ahead of me there is still room for life. Theatre, opera, ballet and old halls draw me in quite another way. I love the moment before it begins, when the stage is still silent, the lights shift and everyone waits for another world to open. The waiting itself already tells a story.
If I gather these places of mine together, at first glance they don’t have much in common. Orenburg, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, the sea, the theatre — I could open a lovely travel agency with that route. Yet beneath the surface there is a common thread: belonging, open space, a different rhythm, history, beauty, closeness, love, the feeling that you can be a little more yourself.
And this is exactly where the theme “Where does your soul want to return?” begins.
The question of which city you lived in back in 1487, and whether you happened to own three horses, two houses and a very complicated love life, is fun, but it doesn’t do much for us today. It’s more interesting to see what kind of world you recognise, what kind of life you sense behind it and which part of you wakes up when you come across a certain image.
One person may look at an old harbour and feel freedom. Another may sense waiting. For one, the sea is open space and the chance to set off; for another it is parting and someone who once never came back. A mountain can bring independence, but it can also be a refuge. A library can speak of knowledge, writing and curiosity, and for someone else it is simply the dream of finally having time to be alone with their own thoughts. A theatre can awaken a person’s creative side, but it can also remind them that they have watched their own life from the audience for far too long. A temple can bring meaning, ritual, faith or the need to belong to something greater. A market can be noise, people and movement, but also trade, the skill of talking to others and sensing them. An old road can awaken a very simple thought: “I want to set out.”
That’s also why the same image tells different stories to different people. Two people can choose a harbour, but one may be looking for the freedom to leave while the other recognises a pattern of always waiting for someone. Two people can choose a library, but one may be looking for knowledge and the other — silence. Two people can choose a theatre, but in one a talent wakes up, while for the other the question becomes why they so often remain a spectator when they want to take part.
This is exactly what makes the theme such a good fit for the Game of the Soul. FatedWays is built so that you can start from one image or one question and gradually reach the real theme underneath it. You begin with “Why does this particular place draw me?” and a little later you are already at your family line, at love, at a choice you keep putting off, at a talent you don’t use, at a loss you still carry, or at a life you have long wanted but keep leaving for later.
Imagine that in the test you choose an old harbour. Your first reaction is simple — you like it. Then the result starts to speak of movement, leaving, returning, people who come and go. And suddenly you remember that your family has a history of moving away, of life in another country, of separated families or of someone who once left home. Then the next door can quite naturally be The Lineage.
For someone else, the same harbour will open an entirely different theme. For years they have been waiting for someone to decide what they want, to come back, to take a step, to choose. Suddenly the harbour has very little to do with ships. It is an image of waiting itself. Then Letting Go may turn out to be the far more fitting next room.
Another person chooses a road and realises they have been torn between two decisions for months. They know they have to choose, but they keep finding one more reason to think it over “just a little longer”. For them the road leads very naturally to The Crossroads.
Someone chooses a theatre and feels an inexplicable surge of life. They begin to remember how they once wrote, painted, sang, danced, dreamed of stepping out in front of people, and then life went by through work, tasks, bills and everything else that so kindly explains to us that there will be time for dreams some day. Then the conversation is already about a gift and about a part of the person that wants its place in their life again.
If the image triggers a strong physical reaction — tightening, lightness, warmth, a shiver, the feeling that the body reacts before the mind — then the room The Body can continue the theme from another angle.
Something else can happen too. You choose an old town and suddenly remember that you often dream of narrow streets, stairs, doors or houses you have never seen. Then it’s worth continuing through Dream Interpretation. If a person appears in the image or during the visualisation, someone you feel a strange closeness to, and the feeling reminds you of someone in your present life, the theme may already open the door to Compatibility.
This is what I love most about the Game of the Soul — you walk in through one door and a moment later you discover a whole corridor behind it. One question is rarely just one question. Sometimes we start with love and arrive at the family line. Other times we set out from a dream and arrive at a choice. This time we’ll start from a place and we have no idea in advance where it will take us.
That’s why the test won’t say: “You lived exactly there.” A sentence like that closes the story far too quickly. For me it’s much more interesting to understand what kind of world you recognise, what way of life it carries for you and what from that world is missing in your present.
If you choose an old library, you needn’t ever have copied manuscripts by candlelight. Today you may simply lack time for books, learning, writing, research or just your own inner world. If you choose a theatre, the more interesting question is whether you use your voice now. If you choose a harbour, it may turn out that all you need is the courage to set out. If the mountains draw you, you may be looking for more space, independence and air in the life you live today.
And then comes a question I think is worth asking yourself even before the test: if you gather all the places that have been drawing you for years, what do they have in common? Look at them as a feeling, beyond the architecture and the country. Who are you there? Are you freer? Bolder? Quieter? More alive? Are you among people or far from them? Do you create, travel, learn, heal, trade, love, wait?
That already says a great deal more.
After the test we’ll take one more step — a guided journey back. It will be a regressive visualisation in which we let the images appear on their own; no honest person can promise a flawless film recording of a past life. I won’t tell you in advance the country, the century, the clothes, the profession or whether you ought to have long hair and a very mysterious gaze. We’ll begin with a road and let the rest come gradually.
You’ll sense what is under your feet, what the air is like, what you hear, whether it is warm or cold, whether you are alone, what your hands look like, what you are carrying and where you are going. For one person a clear picture will appear, for another a sound, a smell or a colour, for a third simply the feeling of knowing which way to go on. All of this is enough.
And if you chose the sea in the test and a cobbled street appears in the visualisation, we’ll walk down the street and won’t swap it for a beach just because that would suit us better. If you expect a temple and a noisy market appears, we’ll go into the market. The most interesting part usually comes exactly when we stop directing our own story.
If a person appears during this journey, we won’t rush to look for their name, date of birth and marital status. What will matter more is how you feel around them. Are they familiar? Are you glad to see them? Are you afraid? Do you want to stay or to leave? Is there something unspoken between you? Does the feeling remind you of a bond you know now as well? This is how the theme of a place can very naturally become a theme of a person, love, family, loss or choice.
Not every recognition brings a pleasant feeling. Some places draw us and sadden us at the same time. You may look at a railway station, a bridge, an empty house, a harbour or an old road and feel something that has no visible reason at all. Reactions like these are exactly the interesting ones, because behind them there may be a symbol of parting, an interrupted wish, a missed chance or a scenario that somehow takes part in your present life too.
A woman may choose a road and later realise that generations in her family kept moving and starting over. Another person may choose a harbour and see how often love, for them, is bound up with waiting. A third may choose an old market and feel such strong movement and confidence that the theme leads them to work, money, self-worth or a talent they could turn into something real.
So the test doesn’t end with the result. It opens the next question.
The Game of the Soul is made for exactly this — to let you set out from one word, image or feeling and follow the thread further. If the theme belongs to your family, you go to The Lineage. If it carries a parting — to Letting Go. If it leads you to a decision — to The Crossroads. If the body reacts strongly — to The Body. If a person appears — to Compatibility. If the image keeps returning in dreams — to Dream Interpretation. And if you want to see why this theme is entering your life right now, you can continue through The Celestial Teacher as well.
And at the end we’ll do something I really love. Before you leave the place you saw in the visualisation, you’ll be able to take just one thing with you. Not the house, not the ship and not the whole library, although for the library I personally would open negotiations.
Just one thing.
It can be an object, a word, a feeling, a skill, a decision. It can be a key, a book, a song, freedom, courage, a voice, a sense of belonging, confidence or that inner knowing that you can start again.
And then we’ll come back to the question that for me is the most important in the whole theme: if this place could give you back something you lost along the way, what would it be?
Perhaps this is exactly the feeling Orenburg left me with. I don’t know whether my soul remembered the place, and I don’t need to prove it. I know that I went there as the new girl in tenth grade and very quickly felt among my own people. I lived there just one year, but my heart stayed. Switzerland gave me another kind of recognition — a rhythm and surroundings that feel close to me. Portugal is that inexplicable pull that appeared back when, in first grade, I bought a dictionary of two languages I didn’t know at all. Italy is the place where my heart flutters in a different way — through the language, the beauty, the temperament and, evidently, through my stubborn idea that somewhere there must be one suitable Italian. The sea goes on being an image of open space and home, and the theatre — the feeling that behind the curtain there is always one more story.
And perhaps for you, too, there isn’t just one place. There may be several completely different places that seem to have nothing in common until you look at who you become in them. That’s when you begin to see the story that connects them.
In the test “Which Place Recognises You?” you’ll see different places and worlds. Set aside which one is the most beautiful and where you’d go on holiday. Notice which image your eyes keep returning to, which one you linger over a second longer and which one carries that strange feeling that there is a story behind it, even though you don’t yet know what it is.
The result will give you a direction towards the world you recognise, towards the quality it carries for you and towards the reason you need it right now. A ready-made biography from a past life we leave to novels. After that you’ll be able to continue with the guided journey back and see what appears when there are no more images to choose from. And if you want to see the same path through the cards, the tarot spread “The Place My Soul Remembers” will show you what awaits you there and what you can bring back from it into your life today.
And then the Game of the Soul will carry on from the place you have reached. It may be The Lineage. It may be Letting Go, The Crossroads, The Body, Compatibility, Dream Interpretation or The Celestial Teacher. The same image can open different doors for different people, and that is exactly the most interesting part.
Start from the place that makes your eyes return to it, and see what has truly been left there for you.
Sometimes the pull towards a city, a country, a language or a landscape appears very early, before there is any life experience to explain it. In esoteric traditions this is linked to traces of previous lives, and for the person themselves it most often shows what quality they are looking for today — belonging, open space, beauty, a different rhythm or more freedom.
It may be so, or the place may be an image of something you are missing now. It’s more useful to see who you become there: freer, bolder, quieter or more alive. That very quality is the thread that continues in your life today.
A guided journey back in which the images appear on their own — a road, a street, a sound, a smell, a person. It begins with no country, century or profession set in advance. The valuable part comes afterwards, when what you saw connects with your present life: a fear, a choice, a love, a loss or a talent that suddenly makes sense.
Behind such a mixed reaction there is often a symbol of parting, an interrupted wish, a missed chance or waiting. A railway station, a bridge, an empty house or a harbour can awaken a theme that still takes part in your life, and then the rooms Letting Go or The Lineage can carry it further.
Test: Which Place Recognises You? Past Lives and PlacesTwelve places from Ancient Greece to the New World. Choose the image your eyes keep returning to and see what your soul is looking for today.
Tarot Spread “We Have Met Before” — Past LivesThe symbolic story between you and one person: who you were, how you parted and why you are meeting again now. A tarot spread with 10 positions.
We Have Met Before: Past Lives, Karma and RecognitionWhy does a stranger feel strangely familiar? Recognition, karmic love, regression and past lives that still continue in your life today.
Test: What Did Your Soul Recognise in This Person?Does someone feel strangely familiar from the first meeting? Choose an image and see what trace it carries: old love, a promise, a debt or a mirror.