The Journey

I HAVE SPENT MY LIFE WANDERING IN LANDSCAPES CONJURED BY THE WRITTEN WORD.

Born into a family of book lovers, I discovered at a very early age that what was contained within the mysterious covers vastly expanded my understanding of the world around me. I soon realised that it was often the case that the discoveries in those pages offered something preferable to the experiences I found outside them; my books became a refuge against the harshness of a world I often found difficult to understand.

When I had my own children, I limited my consumption of books for fear I would forget about the tiny humans who depended on me, feared that I would disappear into another magical world, deaf, dumb and blind to their constant needs. Now they are travelling their own roads; I luxuriate in my passions, disappearing for days at a time, as I would as a child, wandering a myriad of landscapes, absorbing the stories, experiences, wonders and heartbreaks of other souls.

I didn’t mean to write a book, the words just came out.

As quite often happens in life, I am led to believe, I reached a point where things began to go rather wrong. The difficulties gradually piled up until they became more significant than the sum of the joys and the scales finally tipped in favour of problems. Rather than going into the gory details, I will instead give you a few words to create your own version.

Suicide. Separation. Eviction. Teenagers. Depression. Heartbreak. Fear. Loneliness. Shame.
a life touched by other lives

Finding myself cornered by circumstance with my back against a wall, it seemed there was nowhere to go, nowhere to run to and no one who could actually see what I could see. Lost in the confusion of the years passing, life had moved on without me, leaving me voiceless and afraid; the way I got out of that corner, and saved my own life, was to go inwards, back to the world of words, back to where I had come from.

Picking up a deck of the Thoth Tarot, which I had had in my possession for many, many years, I started to open the magical doors contained within the cards, to travel the worlds they contained, using their symbols, images and colours to guide me through the darkness in which I found myself. Using a technique loosely based on pathworking, I began my “Thoth Journey” and kept going for three long years; I kept going until I had walked the entire deck, making journeys into each of the 78 cards; I kept going until I was no longer afraid to stop.

During pathworking, various techniques are used to enter a meditative state, and there is usually a key point that leads into the experience; for me, that place was the Hallway of Beginnings, a real place that I have known, and where I started all my journeys into the cards. Once in the meditative state, it is possible to open to the images that arise, to encounter a multitude of different facets of our universal consciousness.

Immersing myself in the astrological signatures, Kabbalistic associations, alchemical symbolism and sacred geometry, I carefully recorded what I found, my visions qualified by half a lifetime of astrological and other esoteric studies. The longing for balance became my muse as I set myself adrift in the dark chaos of change and I became a pilgrim searching for understanding. Eventually, amidst the ashes of my life, I discovered visions within the cards that seemed more beautiful than anything I had ever seen.

My experiences of profound loss had made the liminal world even more accessible, bridging the gap between known and unknown, tangible and intangible, conscious and subconscious; to me, it was a magical crucible where transformation and change occurred. As my familiar reality was torn asunder and an extreme sense of disorientation and vulnerability was created, the world that was eventually revealed not only offered possibilities for exploration, transformation and renewal; it demanded it, for there was no going back.

As I worked through the process and finally crafted something beautiful to offer up to the world, my deep belief in the interconnectedness of all things was resurrected in a way that far surpassed what had erstwhile been meaningful to me. Through navigating my internal wastelands and discovering profound connections within their liminality, I casme to experience a deeper and more peaceful connection to the universe and my place within it. Ultimately Thoth Journey is a love story, a tale of one woman’s love for her life, a life that refused to let her go.

Together we are strong; if enough individual lights are ignited, it will light the world.

Thoth Journey – The Oracle of Change is living proof that it is possible to change a life and what is terrifying into something beautiful. It is my deepest hope that others will discover this too. The Aquarius Edition builds further on that symbolism; released on Pluto’s ingress into Aquarius, it carries the aquarian message, the necessity for humanity to pour forth its personal understanding or spiritual knowledge, and the cleansing power of individual consciousness is for the benefit of the whole. Together we are strong; if enough individual lights are ignited, it will light the world.

Never has the need been greater for us to connect to the wisdom we hold in our own hearts.

Each of us, in our own way, serves best when we fulfil our calling and connect to the quiet voice within. This is the idealism of Aquarius, to maintain our individuality for the good of the group, meaning that the strength of the whole is only as good as the strength of each individual part. In an era of weak kings, the ordinary people must lead themselves; never has the need been greater for us to connect to the wisdom we hold in our hearts. This work I offer to the world is given with love; it is the product of our times.