I’m not entirely sure what to write in this article because my life has been so tempestuous over the last couple of weeks. My “holiday” has turned into a journey of the soul, a journey which has been most often difficult so I’m feeling somewhat blessed in this moment to have a break from my holidays this afternoon and to sit in my store for a few hours while I work and write to you.

It’s funny hey how things sometimes don’t turn out how we imagined they would. This last couple of weeks have been a perfect example … what I thought would be a peaceful vacation has in fact turned into a lot of self discovery and a lot of “work”. It’s almost as though as soon as I freed up enough time, the Universe saw a perfect opportunity to teach me a few things. These teachings have manifested themselves as a lot of letting go, a lot of emotion being released from my physical and energetic body, and a lot of karmic resolve with past friends and lovers.

In a way I’m feeling blessed to have had these opportunities to let stuff go and to grow into a new person. Yesterday as I was completely and utterly falling apart in a moment of release of a lot of deep sorrow from who knows how long, I felt within my process a shift deep within my core. And that shift was so pronounced and so beautiful that not only did I acknowledge that there would be more to come, but I also felt okay with going through the pain knowing how wonderful the outcome would be.

As I mentioned in my last article, I will be spending February in my own retreat. During this retreat time I’ll be doing two wachuma journeys a week, daily meditation and yoga, juices, smoothies, dancing, hiking, sleeping long hours, gardening and just spending a lot of time nurturing and honoring myself. One of my aims in retreat times like this is to get back to knowing myself better and to transform any self criticism into self love. And it’s a beautiful time for retreat while it’s low season here in Peru, while many of my friends have left the country for a couple of months to visit their home lands, and while I’ve just recently come out of relationship. Continue reading →

I’m sorry that I haven’t been communicating much with you lately. Now that I’m no longer sick I’ve been enjoying my new health and have taken a couple of weeks “off” on vacation. Something that I don’t normally do because my life usually feels like a bit of a vacation anyway … only now that I own and run a health store in Pisac I do have to be in a particular location and work for a whole nine hours a week. So I guess it’s really THAT that I’m taking a vacation from.

I don’t know about you but I’m sure feeling a lot shifting around this year … in a good way. Anything that is not serving me is falling away (sometimes with me trying to grab onto it while kicking and screaming)… and new opportunities and experiences keep showing themselves up to me.

I’d love to know if all of this of which I’m experiencing is a lot stronger because of the physical location that I’m living in (the Sacred Valley of Peru). Or if it’s happening all over the world. I’d love to know what your experiences are. Are you finding that you’re going through a lot more emotional stuff at the moment, good and bad? Have you been noticing that anything that does not serve you in life or is not good for you is just slipping away without your control?

The energy feels so strong that I’m going to try and harness it by creating a retreat space in February. I’m hoping to spend a month largely on my own eating well, getting plenty of deep rest, doing yoga and meditation, walking in nature, opening up my voice through song and journeying with plant medicines. This month is the perfect time for me because I’m now single again and most of my friends are leaving Peru for a while so I won’t have as many social interruptions. Pisac here is a very social place. Every day I’m visited by friends and community pets which is beautiful because it’s such an open and loving community, but it is a huge distraction if you want to just get stuff done. Continue reading →

I had a healing today and it was incredible. It showed me that no matter how much you think you know about your body and your physical health, sometimes you’re wrong.

As you probably know from many of my previous posts, for the last three months in Peru I have been battling poor health. I’ve had a series of bad throat infections that spread to my ears and sometimes to my chest, my first ever urinary tract infection and a chronic yeast infection. In between these illnesses I battled continuous fatigue and a general feeling that my body was just not operating as well as it normally does.

I figured that the brief Mono I’d had when I was a teenager had returned with vengeance and weakened my immune system which was making me chronically sick. I also suspected that my change in diet (not consuming anywhere near as many superfoods and no supplements) since arriving in Peru from Australia was to blame. Today I discovered that I was right, but today I also learned the “why” which was something that I’d been completely in the dark with before.

In a powerful healing I had this morning with a friend of mine who currently lives here in Pisac, I learned that when I was six years old I made an agreement with a negative entity to help me deal with the loneliness that I was feeling. What I didn’t know or understand at the time was that this entity was taking some of my life force in exchange for its “company” to deal with my loneliness. This thieving of my life force manifested itself in a way that the entity was living inside my physical body, in fact inside my actual blood cells – which was in turn confusing the hell out of my entire physical system. Continue reading →

There’s comes a moment when traveling or living in a developing country that you just can’t get your hands on natural shampoo. And for the past month or so that has been me. I have found natural shampoo and conditioner in Cusco (the closest “city” to me here), but the store moved and it took me that month to find its new location. So I did the unthinkable – I used some toxic hair products and can I tell you one thing about my experience … they really sucked.

When I first started using natural shampoos, I thought that they didn’t make my hair as soft as it was when I was using chemical products. And I thought that the chemical products actually made my hair smell nicer too. I guess I was wrong. Since using toxic stuff for a wee big again, I’ve noticed that my hair has actually become more damaged AND it has a bit of a creepy toxic smell instead of the hippy essential oil smell that I’m used to. In fact I’d go as far as saying that the ends of my hair are really suffering .. the tips have become quite dry and brittle which is really not a good look at all.

I have a bunch of friends here in Peru that have taken the plunge and have done the “no poo” challenge. And no, I don’t mean that they don’t poo anymore, what they’ve done is stopped using all hair products including shampoo and conditioner. The idea is that our body is very good at cleaning itself, and that the natural oils eventually balance out turning dry hair soft and oily hair not so oily anymore. The key is to rinse your hair with water every now and again and massage your scalp with your fingers. This stimulates your skins natural oil production and allows your hair to contain the oiliness and cleanliness that it’s natural good at. Continue reading →

I’ve been trying everything to help heal my chronic throat infections. The Ayahuasca, Kambo Frog Medicine, Accupuncture and Homeopathic medicines have helped immensely, but I KNOW that I need to work a lot on the emotional side too to make sure that I stop getting sick. After five throat and ear infections in three months, I’m tackling this problem from all angles.

One message I’ve received (and repeatedly ignored until now) is to open my voice through song. The thing is, I absolutely love to sing but I’m way too shy about it. When I was 7 years old I was chucked out of the school choir. I was actually in the choir and loved it but had to audition when the school hired a new music teacher. I unfortunately didn’t make the cut so was no longer allowed to be in the choir. As a 7 year old this event was quite traumatic and I guess I never fully recovered because I still feel extremely shy about my voice. So shy in fact that the only places that I allow myself to sing is in private – in the shower, alone in the car or when I’m alone at home.

But, I’d love to change this. I’d love to finally free up my voice.

I have a German housemate who has been teaching himself how to play the guitar. He plays religiously every day. In the beginning he just knew one song but now he can play a whole handful. The wonderful thing about his practicing music is the lesson that it has been teaching me. You see, his voice is terrible. Well, his voice was terrible in the beginning but now it has improved considerably. When he first started to play and sing at the top of his lungs I was a little embarrassed for him, but that embarrassment turned into a deep respect for his strength and confidence to belt out a song at the top of his lungs without it having to be perfect. I love him for this – for with his song he has taught me that you don’t have to be a rock star to sing and play music. If you want to sing, then you can sing. Continue reading →