Who are you?

You are a beautiful, strong, vibrant woman who finds herself on a journey of personal discovery. Rich with your own life experience, you are tired of constantly looking for the answers outside of yourself and you’re longing to unlock the deep inner knowing that resides within. You desire succulent spiritual practice, the courage to surrender and the permission to make pleasure a priority, seasoned with a square or two of bittersweet dark chocolate, a glass of smooth, full-bodied merlot, and some of that raucous laughter that erupts whenever women gather to share their truth.

Who am I?

I am a woman who lost herself by seeking her own wisdom in the words of others, and who has since embarked upon the long journey back home through the juicy life lessons of embodied spiritual practice. A writer, a mother, a teacher, a lover, a gentle warrior, a sensualist and occasional hedonist, I am not content to leave this life half-lived. I am on a quest to ground my own spirituality in my own body. So here I stand, rosy-lipped, round-hipped, and hand extended, inviting you to join me in celebrating our sacred sensuality, our embodied wisdom, our gift of physical presence. Join me?

If you really knew me, you’d know…

• That my phd isn’t just about the writing and career of the author Stephen King, but a complex exploration of the economics of cultural production. (If you’re interested, you can find it here: Charting Habitus: Stephen King, The Author Protagonist & the Field of Literary Production)
• That I have taught English Literature to hundreds of university students, and the the texts I’ve covered have included those by  Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, T.S. Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Mary Shelley, Raymond Carver, Arundhati Roy, J.M. Coatzee, Quentin Tarantino, Chris Nolan, Chuck Palahniuk and Stephanie Meyer amongst others. Eclectic, hey?
• That I still teach a summer course every year at the University of Stirling on 19th Century British Gothic & Its Impact on Contemporary Popular Culture. Which means that we get to explore everything from the credits to True Blood to fashion spreads in Vogue to zombie fun runs to video games such as Silent Hill, Amnesia & Slender Man, and our day trip includes a tour of Edinburgh Dungeons and cocktails at a gothic theme bar.
• That I’ve delivered research papers at various international conference in Europe and North American, and I’ve organised 3 post-graduate conferences, each with over 100 speakers.
• That I got married the day after my 19th birthday to a man I met the same year. And that 16yrs on, we’re still going strong.
• That by the age of 23, I had given birth to 3 of the most beautiful, most loving, most funny babies. Ever.
• That I may be biased. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
• That I was a (very!) heavy smoker til I gave up on my wedding day.
• That my hair was a very deep auburn until I went “grey” in my 20s, which actually meant I went blonde. And apparently we do have more fun.
• That I need the sea. As Pablo Neruda said, “it teaches me”.
• That I have a thing for black biros and pukka pads.
• That I have the Sun, Venus and Uranus in my 10th house in Scorpio. Oh, and Venus is in retrograde there, which means I get to go and retrieve secret feminine wisdom from the past so that we can use it to make sense of the present. Pretty cool, hey?
• That my Kindle is more or less surgically attached to my fingers. I read self-published romantic fiction almost exclusively.
• That I love love love Pixlr Express +. It’s my favourite toy.
• That my favourite poem is Eliot’s The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, closely followed by George Mackay Brown’s Hamnavoe and Kathleen Jamie’s Queen of Sheba. Oh and Lavinia Greenlaw’s A World Where News Travelled Slowly. I freaking love that one. And Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese. And everything Rumi ever wrote. That man knew what it was to evoke the sacred stuff of life through ecstatic language.
• That my wardrobe complies to a strict colour palate of black, ivory, red, grey, navy and emerald/pistachio green.
• That my apartment overlooks the deep harbour of Newhaven, Edinburgh. And beyond that, the wide mouth of the River Forth as it invites in the cold cold water of the North Sea. And that I am at home at the edge of things. Very at home.
• That my name means “beloved” and that my birth certificate is signed by Dr. Love. Love is my purpose, my medium and my message.
• That I have a thing for volcanoes. Especially those with a history of pyroclastic flows. I know, weird, right?
• That I am convinced chai lattes are ambrosia of the gods. Or perhaps a gift from the goddess….
• That my favourite quote is also by T.S. Eliot – “So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” Or Leonard Cohen’s “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
• That I home educate my kids because I am raising beautiful free-thinkers, and part of my role as their mummy is to ignite and stoke their passion, to coax their self-expression and to hold the space for their self-discovery.
• That I adore Stravinsky’s The Firebird. But that my soul songs are Joni Mitchell’s Case of You, Feist’s Limit to Your Love, Scott Matthew’s Elusive, Mama Cass’ Dream A Little Dream of Me and Jackson Browne’s Late For the Sky.
• That I believe business can be a creative practice that supports you to express yourself as fully and as freely as possible, and facilitates the full receiving of your soul medicine.
• That I laugh a *lot*. And really loudly.