I was born at the very end of World War II in the South of England. My family lived in a small country town halfway between London and Brighton which was re-developed as a satellite town to rehouse Londoners whose homes were bombed in the war. An only child to parents in their late 30s, I grew up in a very adult centric household with my parents, my Mother’s parents and her two brothers, also in their thirties.

As a child I was a bit of a tomboy, always outside close to nature and more into adventure and exploring than dolls! I spent a lot of time alone and had a vivid imagination; books were a strong source of inspiration. I was no introvert, I had friends nearby and we often escaped to nearby woods and deserted houses to play, discovering places that we felt were haunted or somewhat scary at times. I don’t have recollections of spirit world experiences just feelings that places or things were a bit eerie and scary. I was also obsessively scared of snakes and very wary of treading on one and being bitten.

My favourite book was about Greek mythology. I also had a passion for animals, water and learning to swim. I always had cats and when unhappy as a teenager would escape down the garden, close to nature, cuddling one of them! Swimming was more difficult; we lived far from the sea or even a pool!

I was always rather young for my age, naive and shy, a bit of a misfit at school, as I wasn’t good at sport with limited physical strength and poor kinaesthetic skills. I ended up in the science stream and qualified well, but my family couldn’t afford to send me to University. I started work at barely 16, in the local laboratory of a metal producer. There were about 10 of us, all boys except me, studying metallurgy at technical college in London by day release and applying our knowledge practically at work. I ended up marrying one of them at 20. I think I always knew it wasn’t right for me, but it was what you did to fit into society then. I was always attracted to other men, often younger than me and I left him after a few years but had to return because I was pregnant and didn’t have the confidence to go it alone. We struggled to save buy a home on our income and decided to immigrate to Australia when my son was 18 months old. So at 25 I started life again, in a country where I knew no one, with a husband I didn’t love and a baby I adored!

I sold Avon and worked part-time in a post office, then left my husband for a second time working as a waitress and a cleaner when my husband had his share of time with my son. When he started school I worked in BHP’s library, but still lacked enough confidence to create a life for myself, I was persuaded to returned to husband again. I returned to working in a laboratory using my metallurgy, at Massey Ferguson for 5 years. During this time we returned to England twice combined with extensive travel to the US and Europe. We bought houses and moved into better ones, bought a share in a ski lodge at Mt Hotham and skied regularly, bought a small yacht and started sailing.

I loved entertaining with lavish dinner parties; I also channelled much of my energy into creative pursuits such as drawing, painting, pottery, stained glass and batik. Around this time I started my interest in astrology and bought my first deck of tarot cards. Our relationship was no longer sexual, so course there were affairs on both sides. Whenever I left him the catalyst had always been infatuation for another man. They were always younger and always unavailable; I became very familiar with unrequited love…..

In the end I was retrenched, moving to a job at Nissan. It came with a car and finally gave me the freedom and confidence to finally end my marriage for good. I met an Aussie guy working with the Nissan Race Team who came to me for metallurgical advice at work and ended up living with him 9 months later, around the time I bought my own home. We were together for 20 odd years, he was the first man I truly loved as a partner, the chemistry between us was very strong and I never felt the need for anyone else while we were together. In hindsight he was emotionally unavailable too and unfortunately he wasn’t always honest with me, I found after I left him that he had fathered children with two other women whilst living with me and had been living a kind of double life.

He built and raced his own Sports Sedan cars as a hobby, which we converted my home to support, through a 3 car workshop out the back. I started out as his main pit crew at race meetings; we also were on the race association committee together for many years. I worked as treasurer, edited the monthly magazine and at one stage ran a race series including promoting it and liaising with the press and sponsors.

I managed to assume an equal parenting role with my son over this time, he lived with us for half of the week and we developed a common love for North Melbourne in the football. I took him to play football for his school, and then afterwards, we would go and watch the Kangaroos. Later, when he moved to Warrnambool to go to University, I would often spend weekends down there and watch him play for their team in the country league. I also joined the coterie group for North and continued to go to many games including dinner or lunch beforehand. My son finished his last year at school with one of the North players who originated from Warrnambool so we got to know a few of the current players adding more interest. His first serious girlfriend boarded with us for a year around this time and it was nice having a surrogate daughter around the place, we all did things together and it was lots of fun. He worked interstate and overseas for long periods of time following University.

I went from strength to strength at work too, taking a leadership role in the Nissan laboratory with increasing areas of responsibility, I became a leader in developing systems around introducing new models and quality as well, interacting strongly with suppliers, engineers and other areas of the company. Finally I was ready to move away from metallurgy completely into a full time quality role at Toyota.

My role at Toyota boomed, I co-ordinated the company entering and winning the Australian Quality Awards now the Business Excellence Awards. The company was on a huge improvement drive to justify investment in the new factory planned for Altona to increase export ability. My role was developing systems to improve the way people worked together across the entire Australian organisation. I mainly worked with the CEO, Executive Team and the 18 General Managers at the top, so it was incredibly high profile and influential position. It also involved my becoming Toyota’s spokesperson on how we did “Quality and Improvement” with interviews published in magazines and newspapers and regular public speaking engagements at seminars and for other large organisations involved in benchmarking. I visited Japan during this time and was first exposed to Buddhism and Shinto temples, which resonated strongly with me.

I became a voluntary evaluator for the Business Excellence Awards after winning the award and became a passionate advocate for the framework it operates around. It’s a holistic, values driven model for organisational success, based on Deming’s principles around empowering people, understanding & improving systems of work, delivering what customer’s need and using data in decision making. Over 70 of the world’s significant economies have a similar framework and awards process. I donated much of my spare time to helping other companies implement this approach and later set up a small business consulting in improvement using this approach.

I was headhunted to take an Executive Quality role at Howe Leather after Toyota which involved setting up operations in South Africa and Mexico to support international customers in Europe and the USA. This was followed by working for another international automotive supplier in Ballarat, where I also had responsibility for quality teams in Malaysia, Thailand and China. We built a house in Bacchus Marsh as a halfway point but our relationship started to drifting apart. I spend regular time in England with my son and my mother; my son settled down and had a daughter. My mother died at 91 which had a much greater impact that I had imagined. Soon after my son returned to Australia to work in Sydney, and my grandson was born. I was often able to visit them, but my partner would never come with me and I was often overseas or interstate for work and he became more and more immersed in his love for motor sport, CAMS committees and I guess other women. I found I was very drawn to the temples in Thailand and wanting to learn about the mythology surrounding the Buddha.

I became unhappy with my job and lost a lot of confidence, I’d got quite unhealthy and overweight over the years. My partner was also quite critical and negative about what I did which I had become somewhat accustomed to. I guess one thing I learned from the experience was to be totally independent and resilient.

A male business friend helped me get myself back on track and regain some of my confidence and I gradually lost some weight and felt better about myself. I also decided that I was fed up with all the politics in international companies and developed the confidence to give consulting a try. I was able to get retrenched to give me the capital to set myself up and develop a successful small business. I also started to get myself fit in earnest with a young Italian personal trainer. We went on a ski trip together and he made me aware of my spirituality from talking about my life. I began to realise that I wanted a meaningful relationship with someone positive and encouraging like him who I could connect with physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Finally I decided that I could do a lot better than the one sided relationship I was in for the rest of my life and split with my partner.

My life really changed then getting back into single life again and coming to grips with internet dating, flirting by sms, msn and being able to meet younger men as I found I couldn’t connect with most men my age. My son had moved to the Gold Coast, and I was spending time up there with my family, loving walking on the beach and getting back in the sun. So I decided to move back to Melbourne, nearer to my friends and the beach in Carrum Downs. I had started to explore my spiritual beliefs and found most of the people I was close to were similar or at least open to that way of thinking. I started to get intuitions about what to do and where to go with my life. I became very attracted to crystals and I started to play with my tarot cards more often. I had my spirit guide drawn which opened me up to getting more intuitive thoughts. I did consulting work for my previous boss, now CEO of a local company, his hobby was martial arts and energy healing so he offered to help me with my journey. I did the equivalent of Reiki I at his school which opened me up even more.

My family were concerned about the direction I was heading in as they had become increasingly involved with fundamental Christianity. I became aware that I had some emotional patterns that were repeating and I would need to resolve them to have a fulfilling relationship. I started to search for what I believed in, I knew I didn’t want a religion, Buddhism was the closest fit, but I wanted to think for myself not conform. I read a lot of books, Osho really helped me the most I think, but Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra were very influential too. Then I found a Spiritual Institute right on my doorstep with a 20 week certificate course in Tarot. So I decided to give it a shot, it really changed my life; it was so wonderful being able to mix with like minded people who were loving and accepting. I soon found I had a real talent for interrelating the cards in their different positions. My guide started giving me “goose bumps” as confirmation when I was onto something significant. Then I was exposed to part of my numerology, through synchronicity in several ways, within a week, it intrigued me, I had to know more. I looked it up on the web and a course was starting that day, so I had to make the time and do both courses. Then I was really hooked! I found it explained why I was like I am so much more clearly than any psychological test I had done in my business career. I felt that I was meant to do something with it corporately; it could really help with self-development and life balance that organisations seek for their people.

I started to get goose bumps whenever I talked about it or anything else my guide felt was important for me. I’d never been interested in Palmistry but once I studied it as part of the course I realised this all wasn’t just fortune telling and it really added another piece to the puzzle. About this time, I also started mandala painting classes and regained some of the joy I had experienced years ago with expressing my creativity. I was finally finding my real self again.

Once I got into doing readings for others I felt that this was what I’m really here to do. I started finding it hard to concentrate on my consulting work, my passion was all for learning more and helping people. I’d always enjoyed developing my staff and training people, I did a lot of coaching and training with my consulting and I had found throughout my life I had ended up helping people with their personal issues too! I started

I have pursued further courses on Chinese Astrology, Meditation, the Kabbalah and developing my channelling ability. I’ve continued my passion to develop further with the Tarot by joining the Tarot Guild, attending their workshops, completing their transition process to become a Professional Member and joining the committee as treasurer.

I started to teach Tarot the way I wish I'd been taught, integrating in knowledge from the other modalities that relate. I had found I had a special gift in blending aspects from all the modalities into my numerology profiles as I wentalong. I also find colour inspires me; I have bought quite a few decks but love the Tarot of Dreams which I use in my readings and profiles. I recently visited the Red Centre on a Spiritual Adventure Tour with Rachel Pollack, which finally gave me the impetus to resign from my management consultancy and pursue my spiritual activities full time.

I still help a close friend, "The Caveman", with the foundation and networking business he has set up to resolve the homeless situation, through coaching people to overcome their limiting beliefs.

I am developing a Numerology course to run for Mystical Dragon in Carrum on Wednesday evenings, starting in 2009.

I've been on a massive learning curve with Astrology this year, building up a library, taking my VAA exams and studying through a variety of different sources. I've started to undertake work on charts, including identifying birth times, where people are unsure of the detaills. I've also been given the opportunity to write a sun sign column for Metro News.

I feel like a sponge that seeks to continually soak up more and more knowledge. I’m thoroughly enjoying my journey and I’m keen to help others learn from my experiences through my Self-Develop Resources page!