aBOUT
Since childhood I've had a strong curiosity about life, and a strong wanderlust; I knew the world was a big place. I've always had quite an animist orientation, and inclined towards holistic,natural approaches to health and healing. I became vegetarian aged 12, and a few years later in 1995, I began Yoga as a self-taught practice, using an old 1960s book as my teacher.
My first degree was in Philosophy (western); after graduating, I spent a year working in Vancouver before travelling south to places which had called me for years: Mexico and New Mexico. In Santa Fe, I was gifted a copy of the Tao Te Ching: this was the first strand of eastern philosophy that really spoke to me. I still have that book.
Wanting to keep travelling, I trained as a TESOL teacher and worked in Taiwan and Thailand - where I formed a heart connection to Buddhism - and Spain, where I dedicated myself to learning Spanish in the hope that I would one day return to Latin America. I returned to the UK in 2001 feeling a need to return to another childhood love, art; and so, for 5 years, I studied art formally, culminating in a second degree, in Fine Art. This is what brought me to Devon. Here, I found a special Yoga teacher, Duncan Hulin, and the seeds of a deepening practice and life path flourished. I studied with Duncan for ten years, trained as a Yoga teacher with his Devon School of Yoga 500hr diploma course. and from 2012 - 2022 I taught regular weekly Yoga classes, workshops, courses and festivals in Devon. I also taught one winter at a Yoga retreat centre on a little island in southwest Thailand.
IIn 2009 my Yoga practice began to shift towards Ashtanga Vinyasa, a style whose grounding and strengthening benefits were profound for me. Andrea Durant was a treasured local teacher, and I was drawn to the original, countercultural American Ashtangis, teachers such as Nancy Gilgoff, David Williams and Doug Swenson - I attended multiple workshops with them around the UK and in Portugal. In 2015 I travelled to Maui, Hawaii, intending to immerse myself more fully in the island's Ashtanga culture. Instead, I found myself on an unexpected yet welcome path, recognising I'd gone as far as I wanted to with this system, and was no longer interested in how far I could push my body (or let teachers push it); and that I could no longer give away my power to external systems or teachers. I discovered another teacher on the island, Jennifer Lynn, whose Wisdom Flow Yoga offered a nourishing, inspiring feminine warmth and energy. I experienced a powerful heart-opening during the first class, and when I returned to the UK my Yoga path began to become a lot more self-directed, my personal practice and decades of experience (at that point I realised I'd been practicing for over 20 years) felt like all the validation I needed.
Cacao ceremonies are something I first heard about in 2014, while learning the art of traditional Thai massage in a hill tribe village in the far north of Thailand. It was about two and a half years later, in 2017, that I finally travelled to London to sit in ceremony with cacao for the first time, with Rebekah, the practitioner who I'd been told about in 2014. In early 2018 I travelled to the quiet north coast of Ibiza for an immersive and intense cacaoista apprenticeship training with Rebekah, and upon my return, I began sharing this sacred heart medicine with other women.
My personal, independent cacao studies and daily practices continued to evolve; I wanted to learn directly from indigenous teachers, so I sought out Mayan sources (since cacao's sacred and ritual connections are with the peoples of Mesoamerica.) Eventually, I found the Mayan Wisdom Project, an organisation then just beginning to develop relationships with indigenous cacao specialists. I completed the MWP's original Mayan Wisdom Academy 12 month programme from 2021 - 2022 to learn about the Mayan cosmovision and other aspects of culture. Alongside this, in 2022 I also took their 10 week specialist Mayan Cacao Training, taught entirely by Mayan teachers. The following year, I made a solo voyage across the Atlantic to Guatemala, where I was able to connect with two of my Mayan teachers, K'at and Tzi'kin, in person; I was also able to visit a cacao farm, and deepen my connection to the medicine through this month-long pilgrimage.
After 20 years in Devon, I uprooted myself in the late spring of 2024 and left for pastures new. Amidst the flux, my personal practices of cacao, meditation and Yoga remain daily anchors. I've been a Yoga practitioner for almost 30 years; I've also had a seated meditation practice for almost 10 years, and a personal cacao practice for 7 years. Time in nature, time in silence, in contemplation, are essentials; and I remain alive as ever to the beauty of nature, the poetry of the night sky.
