About

I was born in Johannesburg in 1963.

What became my life’s work in ceremony only truly began in Cape Town in 1992/3.

I arrived in Rustlers Valley in December 1994, thirty years old, camping there as a guest for the Xmas festival. When the festival ended and everyone else went home, I stayed, and to justify my place in the community I was given the title “master of ceremonies” and one job: keep the fires burning. Make sure there was always wood. Make sure the valley, cold as it could get, always had a place to gather around the fire.

In 2004 I was initiated as a Sangoma — not trained in the conventional sense. This initiation came through dreams — it is a ceremony, not a course of study. There are many kinds of Sangomas: herbalists, maternity specialists, those who work with the spirits, prophets who read the future. I was initiated because the traditional healers recognized my work as spiritual work with the ancestors, and they wanted me protected within the African lineage. My physical initiation was in Zululand.

The fire has always been at the centre. Over the years my role grew into sound journey, sweat lodge, drum circles, ayahuasca ceremony, vision quest, and sacred dance. I have never called myself a Shaman but was often referred to as one by my peers.

I have sat in ceremony with plant medicines many hundreds of times — sometimes as a participant, and in the past fifteen years as facilitator of the ceremony.

Ceremony is still very much part of my life. It’s just no longer public. What I do now is for the circle of people already close to me. This is not a retreat from the work. It’s what has been asked of me at this point in my life.

I’m writing these stories down as they actually happened — thirty-five years of this needs to be put somewhere. I’m looking for people who want to walk alongside me in this work.

Right now, I live simply; a small place in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica, with all the basic necessities for life — a small kitchen, a modest workshop, not much like-minded community around me, making an effort to study Spanish. It is a time of solitude for me, a time of reflection while I observe what is going on in the world. I’m searching for my purpose in a fast-changing chapter of my life. My dog Aquila keeps me company.