I've always been drawn to art, music, nature and travel. Along the way, I also became drawn, quite intuitively, to holistic approaches to health: to food as medicine, to yoga, to indigenous cultures and animist spirituality. 
I became vegetarian aged 12, following a dream; a couple of years later I picked up a book on yoga but it was a few years later, in 1995, that I began a self-taught hatha yoga practice. 

My first degree was in Philosophy (western); after graduation, I embarked on a few nomadic years - living and working in Vancouver, New Mexico, Taiwan, Thailand and Spain, as well as other lands. In New Mexico, I was gifted a copy of the Tao Te Ching: this was my introduction to a path of Eastern philosophy that resonated deeply with me, and set me on new paths. In time I explored aspects of Buddhism and Zen, and eventually Yogic philosophies. Living in Thailand, a Buddhist country, also left a lasting impact on me, drawing me further away from paths of the intellect and towards the more intuitive, expressive and heart-led.
I returned to the UK wanting to resume my art studies (which I always regretted stopping in favour of academic studies); a fine art degree course and a magnetic attraction to south west England took me to Devon, where I lived for 20 years.

 

Unexpectedly, I discovered a uniquely rich and authentic Yoga community in Devon. I became a long-term student of Duncan Hulin, founder & director of the Devon School of Yoga (and a gifted shiatsu practitioner). For ten years I studied with Duncan, eventually training as a Yoga teacher with him on the Devon School of Yoga 500hr diploma course from 2011-2013. From 2012 - 2022 I taught regular weekly Yoga classes, workshops, courses and festivals in Devon, as well as one winter at a Yoga retreat centre on a little island in south west Thailand.

In 2009 my Yoga practice had begun to shift towards Ashtanga Vinyasa, a style I found very grounding and strengthening. My first Ashtanga teacher was Andrea Durant; and I was subsequently drawn to the original American Ashtanga pioneers, 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. 

My experiences on Maui at the end of 2015 were profound and transformative in many ways. This trip proved to be the peak of my Ashtanga practice and also the point where I realised it was no longer the path for me; I needed a more nurturing, feminine approach. Fortunately I found fresh, empowering, joyful and feminine inspiration in Maui teacher Jennifer Lynn's Wisdom Flow Yoga classes. I experienced a powerful heart-opening experience during my first Wisdom Flow Class. The natural beauty of the island - not only the coast but also the upcountry areas I frequented, and the indigenous healing traditions and culture awakened something in me that I've never quite been able to let go of. I received some magical lomi lomi treatments, inspiring me also to take some one-to-one training in this healing art there. When I returned to the UK my Yoga path began to become a lot more self-directed, my personal practice and decades of experience felt like all the validation I needed. 

Back into the UK, I also craved ways to weave as much of my Maui magic into my work and life as I could. This happened in a variety of ways: continuing to study the indigenous culture and teachings, seeking out places of nature, exploring more feminine intuitive Yogic practice, and a stronger wish to dwell in the energy of the heart rather than the head. To release the stones weighing down my inner bowl of light.

I already had a massage practice, as I'd trained in traditional Thai Yoga massage in a hill tribe village in the far north of Thailand in late 2014; after Maui, I began to weave in elements of lomilomi too. 

My interest in indigenous cultures had taken me to an animist village in 2014 - here, I first heard about a heart-opening gentle plant medicine called cacao, which was being shared in London by a woman who had a background in Amazonian plant medicine ceremony - she shared cacao in the style of an ayahuasca ceremony, I was told. As someone both drawn to and wary of this medicine, I was curious; however, it was only after my Maui heart-opening that I began to really feel a stronger calling towards a plant path. In 2017 I finally sat in ceremony with cacao for the first time; and in 2018 I embarked on a cacaoista apprenticeship with the ceremony facilitator, Rebekah. This apprenticeship experience - and the first cacao ceremony of the retreat on the quiet north shore of Ibiza -  proved to be unexpectedly deep and spiritually impactful for me. The insights received continue to reverberate years later. 

Following this initiation, I became apprenticed to the plant spirit herself for the next few years, holding regular women's ceremonies and introducing many to this gently potent beautiful medicine for the first time. In 2021-2022 I began studying online with indigenous Mayan teachers, and in 2023 I made a personal solo pilgrimage to Guatemala, where I was able to arrange to meet two of my teachers, K'at and Tzi'kin, on their land, as well as visiting cacao farmers on their farm in the south, also a very profound and moving encounter.  Returning to Lake Atitlan repeatedly, I sat in fire ceremonies and received a  personal reading and fire ceremony with a local aj'qij' (spiritual guide), immersed myself in as many aspects of cacao and Mayan culture as possible, and being forever thankful for my Spanish language skills! 

In spring 2024, after almost 20 years in Devon, and 12 years of sharing holistic offerings, I left for pastures new. Amidst the flux, my personal practices of cacao, meditation and Yoga have remained daily anchors and blessings. 
I shared these offerings with hundreds of people over more than a decade; it was time to step away and focus on filling my own cup again. (This doesn't necessarily mean I won't share in ceremony again when the time is right, though.)

Daily cacao ritual, zazen and yoga continue to be my foundational practices; after years sharing the healing arts, my own creative energies are turning back also to music and visual art. Art, expression, relationship to the natural world: all part of the health/healing/spirituality continuum. A gradual gravitation towards more intuitive, esoteric interests. I still feel the lasting inspiration of both Hawaii and Guatemala in my heart and soul.

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, with a cup of cacao or matcha (that other wonderful ceremonial plant beverage, from the other side of the Pacific!) and a grounded, nature-based spiritual orientation at the heart of it all.