I was raised by my acupuncturist mother and musician stepfather in the wilds of the Welsh countryside. Natural health and wellbeing was a way of life for us and mum would administer homemade tinctures, remedies, balms and herbs from the hedgerows when faced with my sniffles and grazes and visits to the doctors were seldom. This rooted me with a deep sense that I was a part of nature, not separate from it.

I was a daydreamy only child of a busy single mum and if I wasn’t drawing my favourite 80’s cartoon character or singing along to Madonna, I could be found outside playing in the woods. I think it was the trees in our little wooded valley that influenced my interest in life’s deeper questions and I remember regularly seeking comfort among them. I would engage in pastimes that held a certain reverence for the cycles of life such as creating little coffins and decorative burials for the dead voles our cats discarded and making an altar dedicated to my late great grandmother after she passed away.

Visits to see my Dad, who moved to LA when I was small, were a stark contrast to my life in West Wales. I loved it. Everything was big and bright. Disney, theme parks, the city, massive duplex cinemas and boxes of popcorn that I could barely see over the top of. I missed my Dad terribly and the hole that was left behind in his absence created an insatiable desire to soothe and numb in places outside of myself, leading me through a painful adolescence and, during my latter teens when my body started to reject all of my coping strategies, a breakdown. I had little help in terms of mental health support so I turned to books. They were the only thing that could calm my racing heart and mind. I found solace in the pages of The Prophet, The Alchemist, The Tao of Pooh and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, their old wisdom building an inner strength which seemed to carry me through. A deep knowing of something bigger was growing inside me. Seeded long before, in my mothers womb, when in ‘78 she and my father left the constraints of their respective baptist and suburban upbringings to follow a spiritual path which led them to a ‘hippy’ community on the Welsh coast where I was born and later, an ashram in Pune, India where my mum took me as a baby.

I graduated from art college and for the next 20 or so years channelled my creativity into my time as an artist, singer, chef, Buddhist, mother, wife and, in more recent years, reflexologist and coach. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and with it, as for so many, the time (oh so much time!) to reflect and reassess, I came down with the virus. A sudden awareness hit me, a rude awakening to the truth of my life which felt as if it no longer fit me. I was reading If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie and as I absorbed her retelling of the myth of the Selkie, I knew deep in my feverish bones that that was what had happened to me - I had lost my seal skin. I had abandoned myself in ways that meant I no longer recognised who I was. I realised that instead of taking responsibility for my life, I was living reactively, blaming others for my unhappiness and keeping myself small for fear of rejection and making choices based on what I thought others expected of me. I was outsourcing my wisdom and giving my power away.

Something catalytic was working within me while I was ill and though I didn’t know it at the time, my calling was pressing through me. The realisation that I was only tapping in to a fraction of what I knew I was capable of sparked some deep self inquiry, a therapy journey, my menstrual cycle awareness practice and a coach training. What has evolved through this journey is a deep desire to play an active role in creating a world where all women, no matter their background or race, become allies for one another. Enough competing and comparing ourselves. Our daughters need this, our mothers and grandmothers need this. To support, nourish and celebrate one another, to weave a global web of love, solidarity and healing. To reconnect with our power, our wild feminine and rise together. I feel blessed to be living my calling, supporting women to step into their power, their true nature. Let’s release the shame and welcome in all of our parts, the dark and the light together, with compassion and remember who we are - innately intuitive, passionate, vulnerable, strong, cyclical, wild, joyful, sovereign, wise, powerful women.