Drawn to Japan’s Warring States: A Past Life Reading
A lifelong fascination with Japan’s Warring States period led one woman to a reading about loyalty, peace, and the search for truth.
Past Life Stories · Lludy Ono
She had loved Japanese history since childhood. She felt at ease in traditional clothing and was especially drawn to the country’s Warring States period. After reading my stories on Instagram, she came to me with a wish: she wanted to know about her own past life.
What unfolded in the reading was a story of unwavering loyalty—and a question that, in my interpretation, had followed her into this life.
The Clues in What She Loved
Past lives enter my readings in different ways. Sometimes, as I lay out the tarot cards, I feel it is necessary to speak about one even when the person has not asked. At other times, someone arrives with a strong desire to know.
In my experience, that desire often comes when a person is ready to explore the subject. I begin with questions, looking for threads that might lead into the reading: What do you enjoy? What places or scenes draw you in? What work do you do? What do you dislike or fear? Are there feelings you find difficult to contain?
This woman told me that studying Japanese history was one of her favorite pastimes, particularly the Sengoku, or Warring States, period.
As a child, she had been energetic, with more boys than girls among her friends. She had asked her parents to make her a wooden sword to play with. By high school, she was learning how to dress in traditional Japanese clothing. She especially loved hakama, the pleated garments she also wore in her school’s Japanese archery club.
Listening to her, I felt a strong connection to a life in Japan. Then I laid out the cards.
Beside a Warlord
The scene that appeared to me belonged to the Warring States period. First, I saw a powerful warlord, the kind of figure whose name might appear in history. Beside him stood a man whom I understood, within the reading, to be this woman in a previous life.
He was one of the warlord’s retainers.
The life that unfolded began in a warrior family. From childhood, he studied martial skills and academic subjects. He also became exceptionally accomplished in the arts of tea and incense, which he had learned as part of his upbringing.
As an adult, he entered the service of the shogunate through his father’s connections. His particular gift for working with numbers helped him rise to a position of responsibility in financial administration.
It was there that he met the warlord. Recognizing his wide range of abilities, the lord asked him to join his household as a retainer.
A Loyalty That Never Wavered
Alongside other retainers, he became one of the lord’s advisers. He took part in many battles. Sometimes he returned wounded; more than once, he barely escaped with his life.
Yet his loyalty remained unchanged. In the world I saw—a world of deception, betrayal, and intrigue—his commitment to his lord did not waver. His life was devoted to serving and fighting for him.
Eventually, after many victories, their army was defeated. The surviving retainers faced a terrible fate. In the reading, this man was paraded through the town and then executed on a riverbank.
That was how the life ended.
A Different Kind of Life
When I had told her this much, she began to connect it with things she had felt for years: her fascination with that period of history, the comfort of wearing hakama, and her childhood wish to carry a sword. To her, these felt like memories her soul had carried forward.
In this life, she was a married woman raising a daughter while balancing work and family. She also had a strong dislike of dishonesty and a straightforward manner. Within this particular reading, I associated those traits with masculinity carried from the man I had seen in her past life.
The reading then moved beyond his death, into what I perceived as a world of light. There, I understood her soul to have wished for a different experience: no more life spent fighting, shedding blood, and dying in battle. This time, she would be born a woman, marry, have a child, and build an ordinary but peaceful family life.
But there was another intention, too.
The Question Left Unanswered
At the end of that former life, one question had remained: What had been a lie, and what had been true?
In the language of the reading, she had chosen to return to Japan so that she could study the history of the Warring States period closely and examine that question for herself.
I reflected on how uncomfortable truths can be buried by those in power, and how the wrongdoing of the victorious may go unrecorded. Even an account accepted for generations might contain something untrue. Perhaps her fascination with history would lead her to examine those accounts more closely.
And perhaps, as she continued her research, she might encounter someone she recognized as the person she had been in the reading.
This was a possibility I raised, not an identification of a historical figure. Neither the lord nor the retainer was named in this account.
She looked relieved as we talked. She told me she felt excited—as though she had found something new to look forward to in her life.
I was left with a sense of wonder. I had seen many ways of understanding the connections between lives, but this reading brought me another: perhaps the desire to uncover the truth could itself be part of resolving karma.
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