MY JOURNEY //

From a very young age, I’ve had a preoccupation with the nature of reality, perception, and consciousness. I remember being little and wondering if people saw the same colour blue or if they’d learned that whatever they were seeing was called blue. I was amazed and inspired that there was no way to investigate this. I spent most of my childhood daydreaming and playing outside with one of the many pets that shared our old converted farmhouse in the Washington, DC suburbs. I always had this feeling of being from somewhere else and not quite belonging. My extended family were a mix of immigrants and I felt like I came from the stars.

As I grew, I explored themes of consciousness through my work as a visual artist and then discovered energies that paved a much more experiential pathway into these spheres of curiosity. My spiritual journey began to open its arms to me soon after my 22nd birthday. In the new year/new me January vibe of 2004, my friend invited me to join her on a Reiki course. I’d never heard of it but out of sheer curiosity, I accepted the invitation without any intuitive sense that this would become my life’s work. Reiki gave me an intimate connection to nature, and ultimately a beautiful way of connecting to my own soul. Famous for creating change, that first attunement was an initiation into a more aligned life. By September of the same year, I was packing my entire existence into two suitcases. I boarded a plane with a one-way ticket across the Atlantic to study visual arts in London, not knowing my future husband would be living across the hall. After gaining a BA (Hons) in Photography from Camberwell, I spent several years working in the creative field before another transformational lightbulb illuminated an even truer way for me to live. 

I had one of those life-changing epiphanies on the summer solstice of 2015. My son was only two months old, and for the first time since his birth, I had ventured out without him for a little time to catch up with myself. I did what any new mother would do with this rare opportunity: I went to the park and lay down. Basking in sunlight, I nurtured myself with a Reiki treatment as I had done for many years. This was a simple and familiar activity of connecting to the Universe while gently placing my hands on my heart. I was on maternity leave as a photographer’s assistant, a certain trajectory I’d invested in for more than half of my life, yet I knew my heart held no desire to work in the commercial world of photography. For me it lacked the very thing I cared the most about: soul. 

As many artists do, I had found myself on a parallel path supporting other creatives instead of actually creating, occupying a commercialised version of a very uncommercial dream. But this was all part of the magic that unfolded. The arrival of my son, Elias, whose name means ‘ascended’ or ‘sun’ depending on which Greek you ask, cracked my heart open and revealed all the truths I had so neatly tucked away from myself. I couldn’t bear to miss a day of his fleeting infancy for a job I didn’t absolutely love. So, as I lay there in the summer light, wondering what future-me would be doing about her working life, I let myself be soothed by the warmth of Reiki. Communing with my soul, I went into the deepest place within my heart and whispered a question that would prove to be a springboard into my true calling. 

‘What is my soul guiding me towards?’

Looking back, this was one of those perfect constellated alignments of life circumstance with body-mind-soul. The clear image arrived so pristinely, out of the depths of inner knowing, the way portraits used to emerge from the developer in darkrooms. It arrived fully formed yet completely unexpected – a sincere aha moment. At the same time as it was surprising, it was so obvious, and I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me before.

What I saw was a simple picture of my hands, sharing Reiki with a client. From that precious seed grew my entire practice. Teaching arose without any real thought or consideration; I just followed the scent of it the way a wolf can trace the location of its pack through miles of wilderness. I had always been terrified of any sort of public speaking (even presenting my artwork to the smallest groups would have me shivering with the frostbite of fear), but my lack of questioning as to how this would all fit together kept my trail unobstructed. This might have been due to sleep deprivation.

Since that wonderful moment, I have met thousands of beautiful people through Reiki. Teaching, sharing, practicing – it is the energy of things coming together. It’s the deep inner space of unity and belonging.

I listened to that voice, who naturally speaks to me in the language of images, and simply put one foot in front of the other – dreaming, creating and following its gentle guidance. Reiki was always the method I used to connect to it. And here it was, the way the voice had pointed towards. My baby had given me a reason to reach for my true calling, beyond my own joy.

What magic awaits the one who lives this question as the quest: what is your soul guiding you towards?

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