From the time I was three years old I was falling asleep in the center of the evening dances of Universal Peace, next to a beautiful shrine on the earth in the center of a marquee. It was at a beautiful spiritual camp which happens for a week a year, which has roots in western Sufism and is welcoming to a wealth of spiritual practices and lineages.
As a pre-teen girl I sat beside a fire next to Glastonbury Tor at Lammas whilst rolls of bread in the shape of Goddesses were being baked, listening to an Icelandic woman invoke the wild icy landscape in her voice and sing back ancient feminine power into my bones. I was given dark chocolate by my inspiration Carolyn Hillyer as an 11 year old when I was told off for lighting too many candles outside the Goddess Temple opening in Glastonbury.
As a young maiden I was celebrated with others in a menarche ceremony, a celebration of first blood. The day before I experienced my first sweat lodge ceremony, entering the dark hot earths’ womb and being reborn again, being celebrated by our yearly community with a flower crown, chocolate and belly dancing - and song, lots of songs.
I grew up around natural voice choirs that held space for unexplained tears, and a yearly fire night where us teens would paint our bodies and drum and dance the fire dance in community. These experiences shaped me and also set me apart from the 'normal’ world, where I went to school and struggled to fit in.
My teenagehood was chaotic with family struggles. I experimented with psychedelics from 14 years of age, rebelled by skipping school, painting my school clothes rainbow and writing poetry about the crazy and dark system - stuck in school I could see how people were slaves to an unequal and unjust system. I was a troubled teenager who had tasted a world where living barefoot and living simply were normal and I saw the system as it pushed people into a mold that did not feel natural.
Finding a way to first live as a connected and natural human, and then finding a way to bring all the gifts from my experiences into the world to create much needed medicine has been my life's mission. As a 16 year old I started to carve my way out of this murky path, I was repeatedly getting chest infections and singing was the simple way that connected me to my truth, and so I started learning about natural health, eating raw foods and practicing yoga. I also studied astrology and having an understanding of my birth chart has been a map to myself that has been my guide when I feel lost in the world.
It was lockdown and I was 26 and a single mother with a 4 year old son. I felt the longing to reconnect with Avalon and I started my priestess training with a wise elder offering a correspondence course. I journeyed through the Celtic wheel of the year as Mary Magdalene the keeper of the Rose guided me through each initiation portal to reclaim the divine feminine aspects within.
The journey for me was so powerful - to be held by the divine spirit of the Rose through the seasons of the earth awoke my power and devotion, and I was finally able to feel my tears as I was held in the softness of the Rose. I was finding this after being a mother and being on a healing journey after a 5 year co-dependent and abusive relationship where we were homeless and on the run, my partner at the time struggled with poor mental health and I was recovering from substance misuse as a young teen.
Being a mother rebirthed me and grounded me, and this journey led me back home to my spirit. One of the first songs that came through was Maria de la Rosa, a song of devotion and healing honouring Mary of the Rose. I also began working with plant spirits around this time which gave me a mixture of experiences, all leading me to come home to my body and embrace my mission on this earth.
The Rose has been my muse ever since, holding me and allowing me to soften into my experience, so that the medicine of presence and song may flow through. I found connection through the medicine family and was a part of the Rose collective singing world kirtan and devotional songs from around the world at regular events in Brighton which helped bring me out of my shell in a safe and loving community of like-minded souls.
I started to open my channel and write songs and my song Mama Cacao came through honouring this plant spirit that helped guide our journeys in opening our hearts, this amazing plant spirit that is now almost mainstream in its use, and I felt how important it is to honour the plant and where it comes from. It is amazing how this song has now travelled and is being remixed by producer Charlie Roscoe and will be out next year.
Since embracing this path of music and arts of the soul I have learnt to produce and songs flow through so often I can't keep up. I also occasionally get the time and impulse to paint the visions I see and in an ideal world I would do this more often. I have also found a deep connection to the ancestors through this path of healing, through my personal and our collective lineages. There is so much wisdom that needs protecting and huge wounds that need healing.
My upcoming EP Spin Woman (released 23rd Nov on Bandcamp) speaks to this - through the past few years I have been learning the ancestral arts of spinning and weaving local wool, an art that has been all but lost in the UK. It feels like a revolution just like Gandhi started in India. These songs are deeply inspired by the symbolic arts of spinning and weaving, like the myths spinning straw into gold to guide the way out of the darkness. The act of spinning is the same as Whirling dervishes or an Orisha trance, the spiralling of galaxies and the center of a rose. Creating energy, transmuting energy, rebirthing into something new. And weaving a new fabric of Earth, something beautiful, something true and harmonious.
The spiral of the Goddess, the fabric of Life, She is singing and we must let her sing through us. Sometimes I have thought - who am I to change the world? I am just a drop in the ocean, but my voice is powerful when I know it is Her song rising in me, and so is yours, so keep shining your light!
Hear my EP on Bandcamp - it’s out on streaming platforms over the next 6 months, with the release of Red Blood Earth Woman, 2 more videos released for Imbolc and Spring equinox, Red Berries and Spin Woman, with other songs released such as Weaver of Stars, She Walks the Edges, Wild Rose and Into the Belly. These songs explore the wisdom of women's moon cycles and the feminine wisdom that is mirrored in the earth's cycles and the rites of passage that have all but been lost to time.
This year 2025 has been a pivotal year for me, the year of the snake, an activation in many ways that feels like a rebirth. I have visited lots of sacred sites and connected deeply to the energy of the black rose, the cosmic womb, for in order to transform we need to enter the void of the unknown and allow death and the ultimate rest in order for new life to be born.
In my next projects I will be working on some more recently written songs with harmony parts that work well for singing groups, and also some full arrangements with a theme of our connection to nature and mother earth with Songs for a New Earth, remembering how we can live in right relationship with all beings, and how deeply we are all connected. I feel connected and alive when I have my hands in the earth, I garden at least one day a week, it keeps me grounded.
I am excited about what will unfold next. Producing my own music came out of necessity - as a creative with no hedge fund and as a mother, production does not come cheap. To live as a healthy human, care for a child and have time to create true beauty is extremely challenging in these times and I am grateful as an introvert to have raised a little bit of money to cover a small part of the costs. But I wouldn't change it and I love the creative and organic process of inspiration as a song develops.
I have had the desire from a young age to make everything I use myself so this goes towards satisfying this! I am also excited about holding more in person voice workshops and retreats. I have been doing this on and off since 18 years old and this year I have witnessed so much beauty and power through the journey of opening our voices in a ceremonially held space, especially as women in a way that is primally connected to the power in our bodies and souls. It is deeply healing for the feminine to be witnessed in this way. It has also inspired me to write songs that we can sing together. I am also excited to create some beautiful events collaborating my music with a Sufi whirling friend of mine and weaver artists.
So much of my music has come from a deep longing to create a world in harmony with nature, for the awakening and thriving of our spiritual nature. The longing has come from the beauty of my experiences in life and the contrast of the suffering from our disconnection from our true and natural states of being. I believe in the power of music and song to change us on a cellular level. Sound is the first language of the universe - in Sufism creation is said to be the beat of a drum, and in Genesis it is the word that creates all life.
Sound is inseparable from intention, used for healing, remembering the lost parts of our individual and collective psyches’ whole again, this will be the bridge to harmony on earth. When we reclaim the power of our voices, and unlock the medicine of our sound from deep within our soul, we can find freedom, peace and a new relationship with ourselves, each other and the earth and all life. It's time to create the New Earth together, singing.
