With the deepening awareness of conscious awakening and the unfolding understanding that comes from a life of sobriety and integration, I have found many concepts that have been tossed around by authors (myself included) to hold truths. There is no doubt that we tap into the subconscious when we authors channel our literary dances into prose and …
I have many fond memories of people I interacted with in Vancouver. I was fortunate to meet some of the finest people in my life there. I could say the same for many places I have lived all over the world, Perth, Port Douglas, Byron Bay and Wellington, but many of the most formative years …
Addiction has been a huge part of my life experience. In earnest, addiction was for me a form of coping with trauma, boredom and often subjugating unexpressed emotion. When I was at Otago University, in Dunedin, alcoholism (which has history on my father’s side of the family) became my coping mechanism as I began to …
It’s a cliche that you hear in movies, poems, and songs If I had known then, what I know now, would I have taken the job with Suzanne Castonguay when she said, “You’re going to work for me”, I am at a loss to say yes or no. Without being dramatic, there is so much about …
The use of the phrase welcome home is splashed around the phenomena called Burner culture, or Burning Man when you enter the playa or the paddock (if you’re going to Kiwiburn) but I feel that it is more appropriate for this festival for it changed the landscape of the festival culture in this country like no festival …
I remained glued on the spot where I stood until the women broke out into Waiata (a song used to commemorate a special occasion for the Mauri people), and then I slowly turned and walked away back through the forest and down the hill to the sound of the women singing echoing through the forest. …
(This a is story from the mid-1990s when I was living in the Tasman Bay region picking apples in the late summer… a wondrous and wild story) It was a beautiful day in Tasman Bay when I strolled into the garden at Gabby’s home and found Kiriana sitting and drinking tea. She knew that I …
I worked as a Personal Assistant for Suzanne Castonguay from August 1999 – May 2001. To her, I was an open book. She knew my life story the moment I walked through her door to build her the closet with Charlie. Her psychic abilities were extraordinary, and her insights into my downfall were relayed to …
The feeling of helplessness that filled the later part of 1999 was suspended by the kindness of the fellow travellers that I met in Kitsilano and the burgeoning friendships I made with a group of people from Point Grey and Kitsilano. The then occupants of West 10th and Macdonald (in 1999 the house was two …
One of the most hilarious aspects of my conscious awakening has been the experience of understanding that the male characters in my novels Sanctum, Entwined and United are all aspects of my consciousness being expressed across the multiverse. My writing process I imagine is not unique, many writers channel their consciousness existing across the lines …