A Personal Note

If (somehow) you don’t already know, I am an astrologer, coach and facilitator.  I have my heroes and my mentors, but my approach is unashamedly my own—this vocation is the calling of my inner voice. I am not the product of an expensive indoctrination into an academic program, or faithful adherence to a particular school of thought. I’m an independent scholar, a poet,  a writer of books and essays. I’ve been a musician and composer, and various other things along the way.

I’ve taken my own path to get here. I’ve always been a thinker. I’m not an academic. I used to sneak out of school to read Plato on park benches. I’ve learned a lot by reading, and by listening, but I learn most deeply in the moments when I feel emotion the most intensely, so most of what I really know, I learned by living. I grew up in Brighton, England amidst a thriving atmosphere of wildly inclusive creativity which has informed my personality very deeply. I have lived in in rural Somerset, where the lessons to learn were delivered by the ecological complexities, plants and animals, sounds, scents and shifting seasons, and the ongoing negotiation of my place within nature. And now, I live in Exeter, Devon, and I’ll tell you about the lessons of living here, once I have learned them.

I traverse the path towards my own wholeness by doing my best to dwell within the true uncertainty of every moment, arriving at the world with no presumptions put upon the other. I try to understand the world and other people by a process of reflection, with honesty tempered by loving kindness and a reverent attitude. Psyche and spirit are the same phenomena to me, so inquiring into the inner world of others is a task that I approach with a special kind of reverence—as though every conversation is a visit to a cathedral, to be given serious respect, the way one knows to step lightly and speak in hushed tones when entering into a sacred place. My role in work is to give attention of a rare and refined quality, such that others can benefit from the experience of having a light shined upon the wonder of their inner world. From the outside this might appear as just talking—in a sense, that is what it is—but the stained glass windows of a cathedral appear quite different when seen from the inside.

Life feels fullest to me when I can remember how it feels to be held deep in the benevolent heart of the universe; when things slow down and get so calm that it feels as though my heart might contain the entire cosmos; when the unfathomable awe of existing as a self conscious life form brings on a swaying kind of vertigo; or when the unquenchable and exquisitely profound grief of human existence sweeps over me like a tremendous wave of icy water. Or when the communion and contact between two people becomes so palpable that you could dip into it with a spoon; when the conditioned limitations of our connection are overcome in an instant; when the linkages between vulnerability, generosity, courage and gratitude are established, and an air of experiential meaning enters the room with the easy grace of an old friend. Or when I feel the way my mind is changing as it digests and incorporates the thoughts of other people, and I notice the effect I have on others as they mirror that experience; or in that moment when in hearing something someone says, an involuntary “ah” escapes my throat as if to signal that they’ve given form to something that I previously only knew as formless. Or in the crazed abandon of laughter or of dancing; in the wild serenity of loving; in the deep relief of moments of real forgiveness, or in the times of overwhelming gratitude that can’t be measured.

Anyway. That’s probably enough “about me”. I’ll answer any question you care to ask, if you just reach out. Thank you very much for your time and attention, which I do not take for granted.