I didn’t ‘discover’ or come into spirituality. It’s always been an integral part of my life through contemplation, creativity, animals and nature.

Living beings are without number, I vow to row them to the other shore.

I was an ardent prayer as a kid ( I still am). Every night, I would pray to God to protect my siblings and our pets. But then I would think, what about the neighbours and their pets? Everyone deserves to be safe and loved. So then the neighbours and their pets were included… and then my friends, and what about all the other kids in the neighborhood and all their pets and the animals in the woods nearby? And if for them then what about everyone else in the town? And so it would go. I would try to pray for the whole wide world by listing off all the people and non-human animals I could think of…in cities, villages, towns, provinces, jungles and rainforests, as many foreign places I could think of.. Without fail, I would fall asleep mid-prayer because they took so long. I’d wake up more than once during the night – was it minutes or hours later, I’m not sure – and continue the prayer (Years later, I finally learned the art of condensing, shortening the prayers to “all the people and animals on the planet.”)  I was so worried about leaving anyone behind. I wanted everyone to be seen and counted. I understood on a visceral level that you and I are connected. When you suffer, I suffer. My prayers are probably one of my earliest experiences of what Buddhism refers to as generating the mind for awakening for all sentient beings.

By thinking of all sentient beings
As more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel
For accomplishing the highest aim,
I will always hold them dear

My connection to God (Goddess, Source, Universe) and yearning to ‘go home’ wasn’t something that suddenly came to be. It always was. It wasn’t influenced by religion. In fact it butt up against it many times. Mystical experiences began young (though I would argue most kiddos probably experience mystical moments that are either missed or dismissed by adults). Questioning patriarchal religion and speciesism, asking too many questions in Catechism, seeking connection with Divine Feminine, and esoteric curiosity was inevitable.  Sleeping life was vivid: lucid dreaming was most often spectacular and frightening, a vibrant and rudderless inner world and imagination.

At the age of 27, I was officially a ‘successful’ full-time working actor.  I first heard of Reiki from an assistant at my then agency. I was skeptical. It’s not that I didn’t believe it was possible, I just thought, “how would this work on me?” I thought I had to do something special to make the Reiki work.  My first treatment was euphoric. Reiki started to make sense of dark corners in my life, namely old, deep traumas and gently forced me to acknowledge my own mystical experiences.  After receiving Reiki for about a year, myself and my Teacher, Dr. McMurtry, both felt it was time for me to be initiated.  I received attunement for level I and II in 2008.  However, I still ‘in the broom closet’ with Reiki and my ‘gifts’.  My ego was very attached to my identity as a ‘successful actor’ and ‘succesful actors’ don’t side gig as Reiki practitioners or wild woman something-or-other mystics, whatever the hell that means.

By the time I had reached my early thirties, I was exhausted. I didn’t know how to embrace the ‘Wild Woman’ without the fear of coming across as delusional. We don’t live in a society that rationally validates anything ‘esoteric.’ I kept my practice private and publicly I carried on with a successful career in television that did not make me happy and running a grassroots NGO I had founded in my late twenties working with refugees. This led to a massive emotional, psychological and spiritual burnout.

My late thirties saw a deep calling to restore and reclaim myself, to ‘go home,’ Glennon Doyle calls it ‘untamed’, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD calls it ‘wild woman.’ I set a deadline to retire from my acting career and find my way back home.  Simultaneously, I contemplated becoming a nun for most of those years.  Calling myself what by name – a witch and student of mysticism – felt arrogant and scary (and what if people made fun of me). Being a nun felt viable and more socially acceptable. I could devote myself to contemplation and service without raised eyebrows. However, to be a nun, I would have to turn to a patriarchal religion (even Buddhism is patriarchal) that didn’t truly believe the Divine could be revealed through women; religions that had actively buried, diminished, destroyed Matriarchal wisdom and Goddess worship. A patriarchal academia that dismisses pre-Abrahamic Matriarchal/Goddess religions as primitive ‘sex cults’ and ‘hedonistic.’ while glorifying male diety (Abrahamic) religions that separate spirit from body, telling women their life-giving bodies are dirty and sinful. Religions with painful connections to misogyny, bigotry, homophobia, and racism. And although I have a sincere respect for nuns, I didn’t want to do that. So I committed to my own path, honouring Divine Feminine minus a nun habit or tonsure. Turning 40 was a milestone for this energy, committing fully to what was always there: wild woman mysticism and, what one of my teachers calls, veil lifting.