At night time in my bedroom I would see the stars whizzing by. All this was in fact normal to me.
It was not until I was in my 30’s that I heard about all the unusual sightings in Birkenhead. Was it our cosmic brothers and sisters?
I would have been about three or four years old when every now and then in the middle of the night, I would hear the Morepork cry out and then I would see this beam of light that would shine down into my bedroom. Slowly I would climb up onto my dresser and suddenly, like magic, I would become part of the light. Other than climbing up onto my dresser I would have no memory of anything upon waking the next morning. Was this the angels’ light or was it something else? Despite being clueless about the answer to that question, I would always embrace the feeling of sheer delight anyway. When I moved from there at the age of 7 years, this all stopped for me and I can’t remember ever experiencing it again.
Occasionally people ask me if I believe in UFO’s. Normally I shrug my shoulders and say “sure I do, I am sure one of my sisters is an alien experiment that went wrong”.
When I was four I was taken to hospital because my leg was swelling up and the doctors apparently said it was a mosquito bite and I had a small allergy. My mum was really convinced it wasn’t a mosquito bite and she wanted it x-rayed. She was determined to not let the matter rest there. In hospital they said I had a little needle in my leg, but there was no tip at the end of the needle as was expected with a needle, it was just a piece of metal apparently. The doctors had no knowledge of how it could have entered my leg…I’ve got three stitches where it was taken out. It didn’t show up on the x-ray that it was a needle so I really don’t know what it was.
I remember always having this floating sensation as a child. It would continually become stronger then settle down into nothing. Through my younger years I’d had these feelings of the room getting bigger than me or I would become bigger than the room – it was really weird.
I later realised that the floating sensation I was feeling was called astral travelling. I discovered this later in life through reading books. My darling mother took me to the doctors to discuss these feelings and they suggested it was growing pains. I still smirk when I remember this.
I was probably more aware of spirituality when I was about 13, after all 13 is the goddess year. My father had left the Royal Navy and was now a farmer. We were living on a farm and at the back of the farm there was a Maori grave site. My dad said “don’t go there, don’t touch anything, it’s taboo”. Across the other side was a Marae and my father had built a little bridge across the stream so I could get there. I used to go and see the people in the Marae all the time; I didn’t think anything of it, for it was so natural for me to be a part of their community.
I learned a lot about the Maori essence from a couple called Anna and Alex and they would talk to me, whisper to me. One morning I went across to a grave site and touched the flowers. I did not think of it as being disrespectful, simply a 13 year old loving the beautiful flowers and wanting to touch them. The next day I had this dark shadow behind me. The shadow stayed for weeks and it would scare me like I had never known before. I would pray, for I always talked to the angels and God before I went to bed. I would wear a cross and it would continually break off, it was an horrific experience!
At first I didn’t want to tell mum (who was a psychiatric nurse) about this black shadow that had started to control my life; in case she thought I was loopy and would send me to a mental ward. Eventually I confided in mum who went to see Mr Phillips, a Maori man from Taumaranui who dealt with things like that. One night mum rang from work and asked me how I was. I remember that night as I was washing my school socks this dreadful shadow was sitting on the freezer watching me, and then without warning it went. This was at 9 pm and mum told me that was the time she had arranged for Mr Phillips to bless me and our farm. This taught me to honour spirituality and I seriously thought of becoming a nun. Shortly after this I ‘switched off’ my spirituality and stopped seeing my angels and friends from another place, which we call our loved ones from the light or heavens.
We later moved out to Te Kawa in the King Country, to another farm, and it was a creepy place; I was always frightened living there. I don’t want to use the word evil but there were some unpleasant occurrences going on. Dad would get up at 4.30 am to do the milking and occasionally I would wake up before him, waiting to tell him about my dreams. He always seemed to understand what I was talking about. One morning he told me that his mother was a clairvoyant. She married my grandfather and converted to Catholicism, so it was a ‘no no’ thing but his mother would come out with messages and they would turn out right.
I remember one morning I had gotten up because I could hear dogs howling and when my father had it checked out he discovered that that was where all the farm dogs were buried – and that’s where the howling came from. This really did not help because afterwards my cousin and I went to see the movie, “Omen” which had big black dogs howling in it and I was even more scared. To this day I won’t watch scary movies.
My mother was a member of the Salvation Army and was really spiritual. Her father died when she was seven so the Salvation Army became a very strong part of her life She was a volunteer for them for years and when she died they put on the most beautiful morning tea. I have wonderful memories of the ‘Sallies’. My eldest daughter and I would go to their church. I loved the concept of their spirituality and that’s when I decided to become a telephone counsellor for the Salvation Army. I worked for nearly two years as a counsellor until they found out I owned a spiritual shop and fired me! I still smile at this for I have been a bit of a rebel from the start. I have never seen my mother so mad as the time I got suspended for 3 days from Otorohanga College for saying the word ‘shit’. I had bumped my head on a window and I would not apologise to the office lady. Eventually I apologized to her while crossing my fingers so I could come back to school.
My mother was really mad about me being fired because she knew that never once did I bring in my spiritual beliefs to the counselling, I would pray and read out of the bible with them. To mum it almost didn’t matter what structure or religion you belonged to, it was how you were to mankind and it didn’t matter what god you believed in so long as it was a god of love and compassion.
My mother used to read the tea cups for her friends and sometimes we would play with the ouija board with my sisters and mum’s friends, it was really natural.
My dad wasn’t particularly into this side of things but I remember one night spirit communicating through the board was giving out my father’s navy numbers, that only he and mum knew about. Then it came out with a couple of things dad had experienced in the Korean War which only he knew about and it blew him away. I have not touched the ouija board for over 30 years – except for once (but that’s another story!).
Even though my dad was spiritual, it was more traditional and logical for him, while my mother would sit there and allow the heavens to make it happen. So I had these two different aspects to my upbringing, two different viewpoints, and I think that has helped me become a better person. Everything spiritual was accepted.
When I was 20 I went to live in Canada and I met a Canadian Indian who taught me not to be frightened of the spiritual side of things, as I had been from about the age of 13. He took me into a tent and I smoked this pipe thing. I swear to God I got stoned that day because I went off with the fairies but I knew when I finished I had the answers to life. And still to this day (at the age of 50) circumstances happen and I will remember that image, all that I experienced with the Canadian Indian.
It’s not about clairvoyance; it’s about the memory of back when I was 20. It was like waking up and you know you had a good dream but you can’t remember it, but it’s there. From that moment I was on my journey, I wasn’t frightened to talk to spirit any more, and I knew that I was well protected. My mother embraced the fact that I was on that journey and wasn’t frightened to share my spiritual messages.
Sometimes I was shy, lacked confidence with myself, but not with spirit. I didn’t want to share the messages I would get for people. It’s hard at times to be talking to someone and say ‘here’s a message from spirit’ or to say ‘by the way, is your mother dead?’ especially to a stranger. Maybe it’s about ego too, about being knocked back. No one wants to feel silly. But spirit wasn’t giving up. If I did not share a message I was hounded; I could not turn the frequency off until I spoke with the person.
I came home to New Zealand when I was nearly 22 and my Mum said it was appropriate for me to start to charge for my readings. When I was a child and would get these messages I would just share them with people. Between the ages of 13 and 20 I kept it really private because I was frightened. I would astral travel all the time to escape.
Shortly after returning from Canada I moved to Brisbane Australia and I just started doing readings and healings. People would then hear about me and another part of my spiritual journey began.
I met Steve, now my husband, when I was 22 in 1985. He’s from Belfast and Presbyterian.
His mother (who I was sure was on first name basis with God), brought Steve up very strictly in a religious sense. Then I came along and ‘yahoo!’, I was brought up differently; there was a lot of discipline of course but spirituality was always embraced. Steve’s upbringing was different; and his spirituality was different to mine, but in the same breathe it was the same. We found out later in a separate past life regression that we were together before in another life. However, I made sure in this life I taught him how to use a vacuum cleaner. We have always been asked if we are soul mates. I don’t feel so – it’s all our past lives together that makes us so balanced. I have a girlfriend called Jane over in Australia and I would call her my Soul Mate/Friend. I can’t get away with anything with Jane.
It’s now been 32 years that we have been together and Steve is not only my husband and the father to our girls, he is my best friend, my spiritual essence, my inspiration to reach the divine. People ask Steve if he believes in all of this and he’ll say yes, because he’s seen too much not to believe in it.
In fact, I didn’t find out he was a healer until about five years into our marriage and I had a migraine coming on. I remember getting his hand and asking him to share his energy, his love, and this amazing heat came from his hands. After about 20 minutes the migraine was gone. In the past with a migraine I could have ended up in hospital. I remember I sort-of went somewhere that was so heavenly and when Steve brought me back I cried; I wanted to go back to that wonderful place again, it was so incredible.
Another time Steve when was giving me a healing, I went back to when I was 6 years old in hospital for an operation on my tonsils. I was being wheeled down a passageway and up on the ceiling I could see pictures of Jumbo and Mickey Mouse, those cartoon characters. Next thing I saw was an angel that came to me, it was so enormous, like a big bluey-white light. It said to me ‘you’ll be alright’ but when we hugged it was only slightly taller than me. I swear I felt the softness of its wings. I know we sort of talked for awhile. I remember that I said ‘you’ve got wings and I don’t believe angels have wings because in all the earlier paintings they never angels never had wings. The angel said to me said ‘no, we gave man sight to see our wings but in the earlier days when we were first painted man could not see our wings because their essence wasn’t of the right intent.’
I knew then that I believed in angels. Then I came out of the healing and I must have cried for ages and I wanted to go back – it was once again the most beautiful experience. It was like when you first see your child you’ve given birth to and you have this force of love, this feeling of being overwhelmed by greatness.
I phoned my Mother that night and asked her if I had ever been in hospital and she said ‘yes, when you were 6 years old you got your tonsils out.’ I asked if there were any problems (because the angel had gone into detail about it) and she said my time in hospital was only supposed to be a day surgery but that they’d kept me in for an extra three days. When Mum asked why she was given the run around. My Mother said she couldn’t get any answers from the doctors so I asked her if she thought I had had a near death experience. She said she wouldn’t be surprised because they wouldn’t have kept me in hospital that long.
And a funny thing happened the next day. A purple sticker appeared in my mailbox that read ‘I Believe In Angels’. True. I went over to my neighbour to ask if she’d gotten one and she hadn’t. Apparently no one else in the street got one either. To this day I don’t know what was going on! And if someone else had told me that story I don’t know if I’d believe them, but it did happen!
When I was 32, I lost a daughter. I had a miscarriage when I was seven-and-a-half months pregnant, and it was over Christmas. It was tough because it had taken us six years to conceive. I really believe spirit helped me to come out of that particular black hole. There was nothing that was going to dissuade me that spirit was with me and that I am part of God’s energy. It’s the most beautiful sensation.
About three months after that heartache, I became pregnant again with our youngest daughter, who we now call her our little angel. She’s really is a psychic being with the most compassionate heart.
I like to keep busy and I felt a strong pull from spirit to share my knowledge with other Earth angels. After awhile I decided I would teach. Steve really encouraged me to do workshops because he said I had beautiful intentions and a good enough mouth for it – I can talk under water I am sure!
I remember thinking that I wasn’t well educated and wondered how I was going to do this. I knew nothing of the metaphysics of spirit; I could hardly pronounce the word. Once again I went to my mother with this. Like all mothers her wisdom was simple. “Have no doubt, believe in yourself and spirit,” she said. We were all born without doubt. Mum said I was like a gardener – I helped plant the seeds of spirit, and it was up to the people I met to allow the blossom. Part of me was scared that I would screw it up but having faith that spirit would send me only what I can handle helped me to be more at ease.
I researched the tarot cards for a couple of months however they did not really make any sense to me. I had written some notes but most of it was just channelled. I eventually created Tarot Spiritual Awareness workshops and ran them throughout that year. My guides worked with me; I was a teacher, yet the student as well. To be part of this change for people, to help them to become part of the divine Light and Grace, was truly astounding. I saw people’s confidence grow, not just spiritually but in recognising who they truly were and the reason they chose to be part of this journey. To this day it astounds and amazes me that people would come to my workshops!
Some people say to me ‘are you a good reader?’ and I answer that I love doing readings but I am a teacher first. It’s not just about spirituality but about being positive, leading people toward the positive, and I love being part of the light.
Steve and I opened up a psychic’s agency in Brisbane, Australia. It enabled people to phone in from wherever they lived and be connected with a reader or a healer. Prior to that readers were mostly hidden in back yards, wearing dangling gold earrings and gypsy scarves and I thought ‘oh dear, get a life’!
We screened the readers, not just for accuracy but about the essence of what they do and their passion for it. If a client cried they would have to be able to lean over and give them a hug or a pat on the hand. Etiquette – we wanted to be sure they weren’t going to do their readings in slippers and track pants. Little things like turning off their phone during readings, right down to the type of tablecloth they used, common sense really. There was only one complaint from a lady who said she was offered a cup of tea without a saucer!
The agency was one of the first ones to start in Brisbane and it did so well. Then we got an agent ourselves and we were hired to do everything from crystal ball to psychic readings at Christmas parties for the banks and other large corporations. We would be hired to do readings in the form of entertainment. One company came from Melbourne and wanted to promote a new writing paper and we would be part of the show of James Martin, it was awesome.
I remember at the Sheraton Hotel there were four of us doing psychic readings. Our outfits alone cost over a thousand dollars and were Guinevere style. We all felt like princesses; a grown woman’s childhood dream come true.
When we were hired to do readings for the Christmas parties, our ‘customers’ might have been sceptical at first, but after a couple of people had had their readings we would end up with lines of people – it was hard case and great entertainment. And we would only be doing 5 minute readings at the most for it was all the time we could allow. The people were always astounded. To me it was a great opportunity to educate and enlighten people about spirituality.
But we worked hard because it takes a lot of energy, changing from one field of energy to another so rapidly, it’s very draining. I always say an hour’s work like this is equivalent to two hours of ordinary work. And we had a lot of success.
I have many funny stories to tell, but my favourite is one day in Queensland a lady came to me saying her bull ‘wasn’t performing’, he wasn’t doing the job he was designed to do and they’d spent quite a lot of money on him. Out of the blue I said to her ‘he doesn’t like his name, he has two names and he doesn’t like it’. Well, they changed the name!
I saw her about eighteen months later and apparently the bull was back in action because the lady had named a calf after me!
Sometimes you wonder if this is the right journey for you and then spirit comes along and creates a situation to help you once again have no doubt about your life path. One day, in Brisbane also, one of my friends who is a reader told me he was talking to a guy who said he was going to go up to the forest with the intention of committing suicide, he was going to hang himself. Just before that, almost at the last minute, he saw our shop open and called in. It was fairly late and I must have been unpacking or something because I was there a bit later than usual.
I read for this man and came out with some messages. Apparently this was what was needed to change this guy’s life around. This has stood out in my mind. I say to people that I don’t care if they walk out of the door thinking I talk a lot of rubbish, but that I would rather be honest with what I get from spirit, then have them realise in weeks to come that what I said was spot on, rather than have them walk out thinking they are going to meet the perfect man and their lives will be all lovey-dovey. I would rather say sorry, I don’t see it happening. I am known for my directness and honesty.
As with any belief system or job there are charlatans. You can get a bad dentist for that matter! And there are some ratbags around. I’ve heard a lot of stories of people going to clairvoyants and then eventually coming to me to tell me what happened.
We would have people come into the shop and say ‘but how good are you?’ And I would say ‘I’m perfect – here’s my husband’s card. Give him a ring and he’ll tell you how good I am but I have to warn you – the answer might make you blush’!
People think because you’re spiritual you are all God-loving but it doesn’t always work that way, we are human after all. If I am growling and stamping my foot about a situation with one of my daughters I know I won’t be getting the spirit mother of the year award. Sometimes my daughters are far too smart for me. Once I was telling my daughter off for ‘back chatting’. She said she was not back chatting but talking to her angels!! What can a mother do but smile at that answer.
Even after all these years I still love what I’m doing, and the key is self-care and continued believe in oneself. Sometimes you see such sadness and hardship that it can start to affect you and you can burn out very quickly. Thankfully I have a beautiful family, and my friend Jane, and when my Mother was alive she was a very, very grounded woman who loved and inspired me with my spirit relationship. Steve can give me healings when I feel that I am getting burnt out, it’s total supportive love.
When I came back to New Zealand after 25 years to be with the family after my Mum had died, I was surprised to find that spirituality here was a bit like a secret society, there was hardly any sharing of knowledge or spirit essence.
We moved to Taupo, a very transient place but a great healing place with its lake and mountain. Steve and I opened a crystal shop and we had the greatest time ever. I was surprised that nearly everyone wore big pieces of greenstone at that time, and slowly we introduced crystal pendants to the Taupo people. What was amazing was how the children embraced the crystals so quickly. After three years we moved to Tauranga. We once again opened another crystal shop. Tauranga was similar to Taupo energy but I felt it did not have the same spiritual essence as Taupo. I learnt that not everyone was as open as I was, that some people put conditions on being spiritual, and it was all a bit too secretive for me.
At this stage I was Classic Hits’ resident clairvoyant which helped me to enlighten the public with my fun loving way at looking at spirituality. I can’t believe at times how some people are so damn serious with the spiritual movement. It’s as if they think spirit has no sense of humour. I would never say I am better than one person or one person is better than me. I believe we read differently. Yes, I am the teacher but I am the student too and that’s what it’s all about with our life path.
There are many people who say I don’t look like a clairvoyant, you know, with dangling earrings and long dark flowing hair. I don’t have my ears pierced so there goes the idea of gold dangling earrings and my hair is short because I can’t be bothered with it other than a quick brush. My reading table has crystals and an angel with Qyan Yin on it because I love them. And I dress up because when I look good, I feel good. And before a client arrives I will go and put some lipstick on.
I remember one day doing an expo where there were a lot of readings back-to-back, I was putting on the lippy and a lady said ‘do you have to look good for spirit’? I had to smile at this. The lippy was because my lips get dry with all the talking I do in the readings.
And there are other things in my life, Reiki, Seichem, Tarot. People say ‘what type of reader are you?’ and I say I’m a chocolate cake, a bit of this and a bit of that. Reiki came about because my brother had started doing it and in those days it was like a secret society. I believed then that you could heal through God’s love in his name, and still I believe that, but a group of friends said they had a teacher coming and would I like to do Reiki? I did get to masters and I realised there was something there…it’s very symbolic.
Seichem is a softer energy, goddess energy, hand in hand with Reiki but to tell you the truth while I will use Reiki with my healings, I tend to use it also to get my car started, to get the computer to finish the last three pieces of paper to print – I just do the Reiki symbols and it works! I have no answers but I respect it.
I did training in Touch Point Therapy because I realised that when I look at someone’s body it’s like a graph, and some of those graphs dip down, and then I found out those lines were called meridian lines…
I think spirit will show you whatever you need to learn from them. I have some qualifications that enable me to teach, to show other people how to do the work of spirit, and that’s the only reason I do it. I don’t believe that if you’re a Reiki master you are a better healer. If a child falls over, a mother’s or father’s love is the best healing he can receive.
I’d have to say that today, spirituality is very commercial. Let’s face it, our parents started off card reading with playing cards but now there are thousands of packs and it has become complicated and ego-driven.
We have robbed Earth Mother so much she has become sick. For example, I won’t buy a crystal now because I don’t want to be a part of taking that from the Earth Mother. I have asked for permission with the ones I’ve retained and I can use them as a vibrational tool to heal others.
I really feel that in 2017 the vibration is going to be tremendous. This year, 2017, we had to have a lot of effects happening before the world can come together.
It’s like 9/11…I remember being in a park and a lady was talking to me about it, how horrible it was. I said yes, but I think it’s beautiful that globally we all came together. But the question I ask is, why does it takes something like that, or wars, or mankind to be dreadful, for us to get to that stage of coming together?
I feel 2017, people will start saying we are not going to put up with it; we are going to embrace the loving caring attitude. And some places, like Kerikeri, are adopting a leadership role in how to achieve that, getting back to the traditional, and yet modern, ways. There’s a sense of oneness in Northland that could be taught to other parts of New Zealand.
I believe that oneness will move stealthily into the world. Further on, I think 2017 is when we will sit back and say the world is where it should be. And our children are coming through – they are our teachers.