My Journey

I was raised by my mum and stepdad in the wilds of the Welsh countryside. Mum was an acupuncturist and natural health and well-being was our way of life. My stepdad was a musician (or as he would put it - a rock and roll star) and live music was a massive part of growing up. I’ve got so many memories of trying to get to sleep with band practice happening downstairs and I loved dressing up with my mum for gigs. We were always first on the dance floor.

I was a day-dreamy only child and when I wasn’t outside playing in the woods or creating little rituals for the creatures the cats brought home, I was drawing my favourite 80’s cartoon character or singing along to Madonna. Those early years, surrounded by trees and nature, stirred a deep curiosity in me about life, spirit and the unseen…

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 neon. Disney, theme parks, the city, massive duplex cinemas and boxes of popcorn that I could barely see over the top of. I adored it, but missing him shaped a turbulent adolescence that ultimately led to severe anxiety in my teens. With little support, in terms of mental health, available in the 90s, I turned to my mum’s bookshelf. Books like The Prophet, The Alchemist, The Tao of Pooh and Jonathan Livingston Seagull became my lifeline and opened a doorway to something bigger than myself.

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 the teachings of Osho. Their desire to live differently to their parents led them to the permaculture community on the Welsh coast where I was born. They were some of the first ‘hippies’ who settled in Wales in the late 70’s. Suffice to say, it was interesting soil to be growing up in.

Despite largely flunking school, I graduated college with an art degree, and after a brief stint working in a studio, channelled my creativity through, singing, cooking and my current work as a reflexologist, coach, and circle and voice guide.

Music became a central part of my adult life too and I started singing at 18, in a band where my boyfriend (now husband) played guitar. Around that time I met my dear friend and long-term collaborator, musician, songwriter and producer Piers Partridge. And within a year Kev and I moved to Bristol, joined his band The Pindrop Band, and Piers and I recorded two albums and were offered a major jazz label deal with Candid Records. We performed widely around Bristol until 2007, when we left the band to move back to Wales. Where, I formed, with friends, a harmony-rich swing trio (The Nancys) that later evolved into a folk band (The Wrens). Piers and I still meet weekly to noodle, write and keep the music alive.

During the pandemic, when everything stopped, I was home schooling our daughter and was faced with so much of myself that it made me realise how much I’d been hiding from. When I came down with Covid, a sudden realisation hit me, a rude awakening which I couldn’t ignore - My life no longer fitted me. At the time, 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 so many subtle yet profound ways that I no longer recognised who I was - Instead of taking responsibility for my life, I was living reactively. Blaming others for my unhappiness, 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 into a fraction of what I knew I was capable of sparked deep self inquiry, a therapy journey, my menstrual cycle awareness practice and a coach training.

Since that moment, a deep desire to play an active role in creating a better world is evolving inside me. One where all women, no matter their background or race, become allies for one another. Where we no longer feel the need to compete and compare ourselves with one another.

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.