A mere snippet of the story...   

The River of Forgetfulness...

So, let’s start at the beginning.  Or sometime even before then.  On the other side of the River of Forgetfulness.  As my soul self.  In deep discussion with my soul family and the light beings working out my soul contracts and karmic blessons for this current incarnation.  Yes, this is where we shall start.

I say discussion, but it’s actually more communication.  It doesn’t happen in a traditional language: like german, or french, or english.  No, it’s not language like we know on earth.  It’s a universal language, universal communication.  Consciousness Communication is a deeper description.  And it’s so important.

Preparing for a human life is a big deal.  It’s such a revered opportunity to get to go to earth.  To get to have a human experience.  Earth is a place of ultimate evolution. A soul does not feel like a human feels outside of a body.  Having the ability to feel is a huge part of the desire for souls to go and have the human experience.  As humans, we can smell flowers.  Drink tea.  Feel the sun on our faces.  Swim in deep salty water.  Eat!

As souls, we don’t experience life like humans - this dense, physical world of FEELING.  What a gift it is to be human - feeling the feelings and mastering them is paramount for evolution.  

This is why medicating, ignoring, escaping, numbing and running away from emotions is so painful and actually pointless.  It’s epidemic on earth right now and keeps you one off the evolutionary path. Be mindful of escaping, of not feeling, your feelings.

So back beyond the River of Forgetfulness, gathered around in Conscious Communication, we planned my impending earth journey as a female landing in a land called Australia. I chose the conditions, opportunities and specific soul contracts across my life.  It was a very large life full of opportunities to evolve.  Full of profound experiences, abundant opportunities, success, abuse, ecstasy, hell and a trillion other things that would try to smash me around until I WOKE RIGHT UP.  

I boldly said:  BRING IT ON.  I’m going in Hard, I’m going to smash out so much in this lifetime, I’m up for it, let’s do it.  {Famous last words}..... Geeeeeeeez.

I chose my parents and prepared my entry; straight in for the combined contracts and blessons I was to receive.

I drank from the River of Forgetfulness, until my soul was ready to enter the world.  By the time I did, I had forgotten it all.


Begin Life

My mother contracted German Measles when she was 3 months pregnant with me.  Her doctor told her to abort me as she could end up with a ‘mongoloid child’, some doctors in the 70s had such a way with words (some still do in fact).  A neighbour convinced my mother to go ahead with the pregnancy against the doctor's suggestions.  I remember hearing this story and the mention of this lady over the years - clearly she was part of the soul contract support team.

I was born on Sunday 13 May 1973, in a country town of Wagga Wagga, in central New South Wales, Australia.  I arrived 15 days past my expected due date and arrived on Mothers Day.

When I was around 18 months of age I started having Bronchiolitis, spending more time in hospital than at home. It was decided to remove my tonsils at age 2.  This is my first memory.  

I asked what the adults what they would do with my tonsils and I was told they would throw them on the road.  I thought how peculiar, why would they do that? I remember being told I could eat a lot of icecream.  I remember driving to the hospital, I was sitting in my mother’s Blue Ford Fairmont 500 thinking I am off to hospital to get my tonsils out which will be thrown on the road and I get to eat icecream.  I remember looking out the window and nothing looked familiar, we were out in the country somewhere.  I remember thinking; should I leave my body when I have this operation and go off? Or should I just stay here?  During many life opportunities, I have always felt I’ve had a choice, to complete this incarnation.  Or to stay. The ice~cream won: I made the decision to stay.  Tonsils out.  No more health problems.


Daydreams and Dancing

During my childhood, I never felt any desire to stay in the present moment.  My life seemed very common to me.  Nothing special.  At times, tedious.  I spent countless hours in my bedroom as a young girl living another life in an esoteric land full of superpowers and eternal daydreaming.  Days were filled with fairytales, other worlds, fantasy, magic and wonder. These thoughts and dreams set me up: a yearning for mystics.  A desire to know MORE.  A need to discover ME.  

I was always stretching the capacity of self.  Seeing how far I could go.  At eight, I began riding motorbikes.  At nine, I was a state champion of high speed race WaterSkiing.  It gave me a sense of freedom, the thrill of activating courage away from my common life.  My natural default: escapism.  

A huge milestone lined up: I took my first ballroom dancing class.  What was this world?  Glamour, beauty and self-expression.  Very quickly I became intoxicated by dancing. Dancing was full body escapism for me.  I got to put on a persona. I got to move my body to emotive music.  Every cell in my body was alive.  Stepping onto the dancefloor I’d be lost in the music. My body would just move.  At times, I would step off the dance floor in a trance-like state and have no idea what had just happened.  (I would come to know this as the dance of no-mind. In full harmony of the moment.  And my first taste of ecstasy state.)

I became very good, very quickly.  I won trophies and competitions.  Over time, I would win Australian Championships, and dancing quickly became my entire world.  

Except it created confusion.  So much confusion.  I had two lives, in two worlds.

My country town; all-girls catholic school, my secretary mother, my small-business-owner father and football playing brother.  It was a place of rules: I wasn’t allowed to hang out with my friends downtown or have sleepovers. I spent time going to local football games with my father on the weekends or hiding in my bedroom, escaping, crafting spells to take me to villages in other dimensions.

My other life; weekends flying solo to the city to dance, a life of freedom and full expression. I spent time with eccentric people that dressed in frills and satin and jewels.  Here, in the dance world, I was allowed to do anything I wanted.  

Living in both worlds confused me greatly.  

On the Outside  

Then some other worlds opened up.  The modelling world - full of fashion parades, fashion shoots and a myriad of promotional functions. It was strange, I adored the clothes (putting on new persona’s) and the adventures and places I discovered, but it all came at a cost.  

The bullies at school.  Oh my, they were relentless.  One day at lunch in Grade 9, the ‘mean girls’ from Grade 10 started circling me on the netball courts, barking ‘you think you’re better than us’ and ‘you’re up yourself’, this, that, this, that….. They tipped a bucket of water over my head then ran off laughing.  I sat there and sucked in my tears. Finally I got up, locked myself in a toilet and cried and cried.  

If only they knew.  I thought very little of myself.  I always felt awkward in this world.  I never thought I was better than anyone.  

I looked confident because I had the courage to stretch beyond, to push limits - and that frightens people.   But my successes never landed on me. I never cared about winning or trophies, I just wanted to be comfortable in my skin.  

I thought I was strange and couldn’t fit anywhere.  I was a floater between groups and never felt comfortable.  I was an awkward person that didn’t like sport or sitting around talking about boys.  

You don’t know anything, I thought, you are all so much better than me.  

I had all these thoughts and I didn’t know how to manage it all.   

Leaving School

Towards the end of school, I knew I had to live in this world, to get a job, to become an adult.  I was told this was the path to success.   But what would I do when I left school?  

For a while, I wanted to be a stuntwoman, my motorbike antics and brave self, thought that was brilliant.  I knew though that would be the same as the limelight I was trying to get away from.  Scratch that. Inside my human self I couldn’t find a place for me to be.  

I searched books, and processed the words of my teachers, parents and other adults and I kept coming back to the same answer.  

When I grow up I want to be ‘Happy’.  That’s it.  And if I had to do something, then I would ‘like to help others’.  That was the entirety of my conclusions, no mattered how hard I tried.

I had no idea how to bridge the two worlds, the world in my mind, and the world I lived in.  Nothing made sense to me…… Nothing.  

Walking to school, I sat on top of a dusty hill.  I took out a cigarette I’d stolen from my father's packet and lit it.  I looked out over my town and I thought, if I stay, this is all I am destined for, a mediocre life.  Full of football games, pub dinners and occasional city trips.  

Ok.  I sighed.  I will greet the smallness and I will make a life here.  I will turn out my light.  I will stop searching.  I closed my eyes and blew out the light in my heart with the last drag of my cigarette.  

And it was done. I was staying.  I would make a life here.  I would stop questioning.  And searching.  I felt relieved and oh so sad.  This was easier and there was some space between my breaths now.  Ok. I tried not to listen to the quiet voice in my head softly screaming, Noooooooooooo.  

No Light

And so it began, the unravelling.  I stopped my mind journeys. I told my mother that I was quitting dancing.  And I sank into my world of no light.  She tried to blame others around me, she didn’t understand, how could she?  She was losing a big part of her world too.  I took it all, I let it unfold however it did.  I tried really hard to be ‘normal’.  

What I’ve learnt over all these years, is that there is No Normal.  It’s the greatest Illusion.  This idea that people have it sorted and are living happy, normal lives, is the ideal is the biggest con on humanity.  Everyone has a story, a hard life, incredible circumstances. No one has it sorted all of the time.  And it’s not what we are meant to be doing. At all!

Conforming to other’s perceptions, is what has gotten this planet in such a mess. We are not intended to have a ‘normal’ life.  Our goal is to evolve as a soul through your own unique human experience.  And how we do that is by meeting everything that arises for us on our journey and see it as a gift, not a burden.

After a while I knew (what my heart had always known) normal did not fit me. Living a small life, a contracted life, a life with no light.  It didn’t not work.  

There must be something else. 


Happy

So the quest begun………. ‘Happy’.   Where?

Happy, where are you??

On leaving school, just passing; I got a job in a medical centre doing a traineeship.  Learning how to type, accounting programs and how to run a small office.  Helpful.  

I was blessed with getting every job I ever interviewed for, but found each role boring after a while.   Happy wasn’t in any of those jobs.  I started to travel. I moved to Brisbane, searching searching.  No.  Moved back home, moved to Northern Territory.  I searched in bars, billabongs, nightclubs, national parks, churches, bike gang clubhouses, beaches, caves.  Everywhere.  Friendships, relationships, multiple jobs at once, books, movies and nothing.  Zip. Nothing.  More travel, Cairns. Back to Darwin, onto Melbourne.

I found a challenge, or so I thought.  A job in Air Traffic Control, training new students in the college simulator.  The happy wasn’t in this job, but I did find a husband.  Maybe he had the happy?  He gave me a last name that made me Happy, I became a Starr.  

Just after we got married we moved to Adelaide with my job.  Setting up a new air traffic control centre – transitioning the team from Adelaide to Melbourne .  It was a 6-month contract that lasted 3 years.  

We had baby Ruby in Adelaide. I suffered Post-Natal Depression, I was diagnosed when she was 3 months old and swiftly medicated.   I found the numbness made things manageable.  Yet the neutrality of not feeling, was very odd.   I recognised I had suffered different variations of ‘depression’ throughout my life.  

Back to Melbourne.  Here, we had baby Harley and when he was 4 months old moved to Queensland.  I went into business with my family in a beachside restaurant. My husband was working in the Brisbane control centre, commuting back and forth.  We had 2 children and had glimpses of happy and so much normal.  

Yet after much trying, it seemed that happy was not going to be the end result.  The day after my 30th birthday I moved out of the marital home. I picked up failure as I walked out the door.  Not helpful.  

I vowed from that day to never have a bad birthday again, and I haven’t.  Now I honour myself and my entry point into this life. It’s vital to do a year review and spend quality time with myself on this day.  It sets up the next cycle around the sun for me.  I take a level of seriousness in my birth day that supports the seriousness I have for the purpose of my life.  I generally spend the day somewhat alone and journey deep and wide.

 

The Mother Wound

I was born on Mother’s Day.  For years I thought, Mother’s Day pfffft, that made no sense to my human at all.  Mother’s Day?  It was only recently that it began to sink in – what this actually MEANT.

Over the years I would go months without talking to my mother.   I was angry at her.  I wanted her to be something she was not.  She triggered me and was everything I thought a mother should not be.  

She was not a typical mother.  She herself had a very strong, harsh mother, a german woman that had arrived in Australia and had had a very hard life.  

My grandmother died at age 38, my mother was 17.  It was a Saturday afternoon, my mother had come home from work, she walked into put some washing on and found her mother on the floor.  She touched her.  Her skin was cold. Her mother had died early that morning from an asthma attack.  

A fair amount of mother lineage stuff was created in that moment.   There was not a lot of talking about this, not then, not after.  Writing this book, I was messaging my mother asking details and she told me that her mother (my grandmother) had also experienced the same thing. But she was 15, (my mother 18 when the exact same thing happened), my great grandmother was 15 years old and when her mother died of an asthma attack, she went to work and looked after her 2 older siblings the others were sent to an orphanage. Can you see some patterns here? Some cycles?   

My mother pushed me in ways I did not like at all and we weren’t the hugging loving type of people, I found her mothering confusing, How could I be born on mothers day and this was how I was mothered?

I kept thinking and hoping, one day she would be the ideal mother.  One day.  One day I realized that she was exactly what I called in, she was my greatest teacher.  My mother taught me acceptance.  She taught me resilience.  She taught me strength.  She taught me detachment.  I decided one day, just to accept her for who she was.  And then much later I decided to simply love her, to love her for who she is and this is the day I realized she is indeed my perfect mother.  The exact mother I needed this lifetime.  My mother wound healed.  Wow.


Cheers to Unravelling

But, I was a mother and I had these two little children and I had become a sometimes mother.  Sometimes they were with me and sometimes they were with their father.   My mothering felt like it was always being questioned.  Those first few years of divorce were just awful.  We all had a hard time.  All of us.

My depression escalated again some years later and I found myself in my mother’s car driving off into the distance.   I was managing very badly, high functioning alcoholism and the sheer pain of being in my skin.  Fortunately, that day, my McDonalds hash browns were cold and I lost it.

I called my father.  He told me he would help me.  Hearing that help was available, I decided to drive to him.  He found me in his elevator collapsing.  I could see his heart breaking picking up his adult daughter losing her mind off the floor.  I had spent all my years worrying my parents.  They didn’t understand why I wasn’t happy with all I had.

Stepping into my 30s out of a marriage and into this whole new world I was a bit broken and a bit scared and a whole lot excited.  I started my entrepreneurial journey and was trying really damn hard to find a sustainable way.  This too, was very familiar of the ‘normal’.

Then something totally Not Normal happened to me.  I took my first Ecstasy pill and holy dooley my brain blew apart.  Something in there felt like a (k)new normal and this scared me.  I had always believed that taking drugs would lead to addiction and big fat messes.  I dabbled when the children were at their father's house and although there was some times where I could access dimensions and such, there were days that I cried so hard that my suicide thoughts got very very very elaborate.  This was not sustainable at all.

Spin, spin, spin.  Drink, drink, drink.  Guy, guy, guy.  Fast, fast, fast. Crash, crash, crash.  Up, up, up.  This merry go round was making me sick.  So one day I decided it was time to dismantle my merry go round.  I was sick of the same lessons coming around and the same situations needing to be addressed.  Focus on self, focus on life, focus on happy.


Him

Then he arrived.  It was the early days of Facebook, and I had no idea how we became friends.  

Apparently I caught his attention with my post.  

“Nicole Phoenix Starr is dazed and confused.”

And I was dazed and confused.  Not in a drug-way. More in a debt-way.

Bankruptcy. I had always thought this a dirty word.  I tried so hard to not go there.   I tried so hard to not be a burden on society.  I tried so hard to not do that.  

My entrepreneurial venture ended.  I felt like I was pushed into it and handed over my $26,000 debt and took the bankruptcy hat for 7 years.  I, decided this would be my Richard Branson story.  My bankruptcy chapter, ugh it sat so awful in my stomach.   

So I wrote that post.  And suddenly, he popped up on my screen asking about it. I was aloof. Distanced.  Still, we spoke for a long time.  Over the coming days and weeks, we emailed.  And messaged, a lot.

We chatted for 3 months, before we met in person.  Let’s say re-met.  It was a human meeting of ONE BIG FAT giant soul contract already spanning lifetimes as we were about to discover.

We planned to meet at the Prince of Wales Hotel in New Farm, Brisbane.  After, inhaling a bottle of cider, I sat there, waiting for him.  He messaged. saying he was almost on his way.  Walking distance, he said.  Soon enough I looked up and the door opens and in came this wild haired big energy man, sideways.  

Completely Sideways.   

He sauntered his way over, I thought Wow, that is quite the entrance.  

He opened his mouth and in this deep sexy raspy voice he said, ‘Hello NikStarr, it’s about fucking time, let’s drink’.  

And so we did.  For three days.  I had finally met someone crazier than myself.  More intense than myself.  Far out.  We went back to his place, listened to music of every genre until we passed out on the floor.  Woke up and went out for brunch and champagne.  Dinner, wine, music repeat.  

For months, we saw each other.  We spoke for hours and hours and got lost in the music for eons. We had known each other lifetimes, we were just picking up where we left off.  I could write 10 books about this one relationship.  It was so frickin big.  

And then he died.   I was 35, he was 45.   

Two days before his death, it was his birthday.  I was talking to him on the phone, he was really upset, he was angry, he felt unstable.  He was angry he couldn’t see me, couldn’t see his daughters on his birthday.  How everything was so fucked up.  

He said, ‘I just wish I was dead’.  

I said, ‘be careful what you wish for’.

He hung up.  



That was our last ever conversation, that was the very last thing I said to him.  Two days later, I got a phone call in the early morning.  He was found dead on the floor, choking to death at 3am on some food.  Found cold.  I hung up the phone and sat in disbelief.  He had described his death to me many times.  It was almost to the word.  

I think I held my breath for a week.  Frightened if I went into it - I may not come out.  

After a couple of weeks, I could smell him. I could smell his fragrance. I could smell his cigarettes.  Every time I walked near the balcony chair he would usually sit on to smoke - it was there.  His smell – but no smoke and no sexy man.  Oh my.

I thought I was starting to lose my mind. I was very aware this could be seen as quite concerning.  So I didn’t tell anyone.  

One day it was tripping me out big time.  I went into my room, laid on my bed and cried and cried and cried.  I screamed for help.  I sobbed for him to help me.  

I went into my room and I could still feel something around me. So I said 'just help me I don’t know what to do right now'.  

And I heard this voice (my own voice in my mind) and it said, 'you must let him come in'.

So, I opened up an invitation and said, 'Ok, come in'.

Suddenly, I smelt him in my room. His aftershave.  And – oh my god – he touched me. And he held me.  

So I could be losing my marbles, or it could actually be happening. And I decided to entertain the thought of what was going on, that he was there.  In spirit. And it was real.

I held that space whenever I felt him around and eventually (after several weeks of him hanging around) I was able to communicate with him.  

At night I would light candles and sit and download with him. He told me he didn’t realise he was dead for the first 2 weeks.  He was walking around bumping into things, and yelling at people.

When he realized he was dead, he went and had a life review – taken by someone who was his guide.  He said it was like a book that we’ve never seen, and a movie, all at once, holographic and you can see and hear everything you ever did in this life, all at once (because of course time does not exist outside of this world).  

Being dead doesn’t automatically make you an angel. No, definitely not.

When you die, you become energy, just not contained.  There’s aspects of you from other realms and they can be all played out at different times.  And they can come together after you die, these aspects of you.

You know how 20 people all feel like Cleopatra – some aspect of them was. You know how you feel when you’ve met your soulmate that they are so like you, it feels like home? Some aspect of them is you.  And some aspect of you is them.

We are never ever one person.  Identities and connections – there is part of them within them. (I know, the human mind may not conceive this.  Let it ponder within.)

There was still some aspects of him, I was talking to – it was that lower level consciousness within him, that was sticking around.  These parts can get called in when they or you are in deep mourning. Some energy, never leaves this earth, can be earthbound forever.  It doesn’t mean that their higher aspects haven’t moved on, but the lower level aspects can remain.

We began chatting.  Over the next few months, I learnt about the afterlife.  Transition of souls.  The spirit world.  All about earthbound souls.  Lost souls.  Really really really naughty souls. Angel hierarchy.  And how to communicate with the dead.  Little did I know this was only setting me up for so much more to come.  My spirit training from my beloved.   


And And And (existing)

During this time I had forgotten about Happy.  I was existing. Constant battles with my ex-husband and his world.  The battle with booze.   I had no idea I was a high functioning alcoholic.  Didn’t everyone drink a bottle of wine every night?  I ran successful businesses, I had product lines and held networking lunches for entrepreneurs.   Alcoholics can’t do all that.  Oh yes they can.  

They can do all that, AND speak to spirits and do ceremonies every moon cycle and go to the gym and do a trillion other things. I fit all of that in, and MORE.  I was escaping life and being numb, numb, numb. Escaping life and real feelings with the numb is part of life, And I you fit all of that in.  I fit it all in, I didn’t know how, but I did. Until I couldn’t (more on that later).

A billion other things happened every month; travel, events, personal development programs, business, parties, kids gymnastics classes, life. Tears. Prayers. And and and and….

One day I went to the United States of America and spent a month there with my dear friend.  We travelled around living large.  LA, Vegas (just made it out alive) Grand Canyon, Tuba City (Navajo Reservation), Flagstaff, Sedona (oh my Goddess) and had a profound experience with a Shaman who helped me retire my Judge (my inner critic).  We returned back to life and mothering and the divine plan was starting to gain some real traction and things were unfolding left, right and centre.

An invitation from some good friends arrived - could I come and help on a research trip to Bali?  I didn't think that was possible, yet the universe had some serious plans for me and cleared the way to make that possible.

All the stars aligned and I could go for two weeks.  I didn’t know much about Bali, other than lots of Australian football club went there for their end of season trips and things got very messy.  Plus cheap Bali clothes that fell apart. Then I read Eat, Pray, Love.  The movie came out, I watched it.  Something activated. 

Bali

When we landed my skin became very warm and my senses were heightened.  As I was walking through the airport, smells seemed familiar.  

We drove to Ubud, a place I would end up calling home (funny that).  I was captivated with this strange land.  I was so curious about the people and their customs.  It all felt spacious.  I could breathe deep breaths.  We stayed in the most stunning places, I felt like a Queen.  Things felt normal to me for the first time pretty much ever.

One day we were out visiting the famous Green School and I was filming my friend interviewing one of the founders.  I was so captivated in the whole thing.  The interview finished and I turned off the camera and my mouth opened, out of my mouth came the words.  

I’m moving to Bali.

The strange thing; I saw the words.  A red cursive font, they came out my mouth and around behind my left ear.  I could ‘see’ my middle son running down the path in front of me as a student in Green School. Tears were rolling down my face. Definitely losing my mind.  Reason said, as if you are going to move to Bali!  You have children and you have businesses and you are entrenched in your life!

I was startled, my body felt strange, I felt like the world was spinning, I was standing still and I thought I was going to throw up.  It must be time for a beer, I thought.  

The vision didn’t go away.  It got bigger and more colorful and more vivid. It had a life of its own.  I told the children, they thought it was a marvellous idea.  My ex-husband told me, he was in fact moving with a new job. 2000 kilometers away.  Our parenting ways were going to be different no matter what.  WOW.

I spoke to him.  He said, OK, go to Bali.  

I could NOT believe it.  

I still didn’t believe this would happen.  I couldn’t just move to another country, to a whole other world.  How could I possibly do that?

There was the large task, or so I thought, of selling my businesses.   I needed the money to fund this move. I had gotten into the beauty business.  I had invested and ended up having to work in it.  I had a large piece of expensive machinery called an IPL machine.  It did permanent hair removal and skin rejuvenation.  I had created my own organic skincare line and mineral makeup line.  This was all fun and helped feed my children and I, BUT I was not happy.

I started telling my clients I wanted to sell my business. Before I knew it I had two clients were interested, and just like that - one of them bought it, all of it.  The business, the clientele and the product lines.   Whoa!!!  

So business sold.  Ex on board.  I walked around my beautiful Queensland house full of all my beautiful things and tried to decide what to keep, or store.  I poured a glass of wine and went on a journey around the house, into each room; touching my furniture, picking up books, gazing at pictures, adjusting childrens beds, hugging their toys, reliving memories of all this stuff.  I sat at the end and thought, I’m going to let it all go.  No storage shed.  No holding on.  That surrender thing.  This is it.  

The beginning: letting go of my attachments.  It hurt.  It was hard.  I kept going. Until everything I had fit into two small boxes. It was incredibly cathartic and I cried 7 rivers of tears.  I felt light for the first time in forever. My ex husband told me he thought it was best the children stay for the whole school term with him, while I settled in.  As much as it overwhelmed me and made me sad, I agreed with his logic.

I left my beloved rainforest rental.  I said goodbye to my parents and my children. My parents didn’t understand what I was doing. See you soon was the only way to deal with it.  I spent my last night with my beloved cousin whom I share the same birthday (she is 10 years younger) and as the sun rose a dear friend came to pick me up and take me to the airport.   

I was moving to Bali.


Oh, Bali

I sat on the plane and exhaled. I had some food.  The first hour passed.  I pulled out my new journal and didn’t know what to write.  I thought, ‘what are you doing?’  

The inner dialogue started. ‘Yes, what are you doing?  What are you going to do? What the hell do you think you are doing?’.  

I asked a flight attendant “Can I please have a Gin and Tonic right now?”  

What the HELL WAS I DOING?  I looked down and I could see I was leaving the harsh barren land of the Northern Territory about to head over sea.  

I had no plan and I had no ideas.  

I had just sold everything I owned.  

I had left my children (for 9 weeks).

And I was heading to a land where I knew no one.

I had no idea what I was going to do when I got there. Another Gin and Tonic please!  I was hoping the Gin would numb me before the overwhelm set in. I looked out the window and could see my new home land coming into sight.  I felt a pull, I saw her energy.  

We landed and instantly I could feel the heat penetrating the aircraft.  When the doors opened the memories of living in Darwin in the Northern Territory overcame me.  I left there because of the heat, it was like being in a sauna.  This could be worse.  I never considered this until stepping out of this plane. Saunaville!

But as I entered the old airport and stood in line to go through Immigration, there was that smell again.  These people.  Bali.  My new home. It felt good.  So damn good.  It felt like coming home. What did that mean? I had no idea.  Yet.

Ruby, my daughter, had booked me a hotel for a few days, somewhere to go when I landed.  She’s always got very intelligent ideas, and I was totally going with the flow. I dragged my suitcases through the airport exit and out into a sea of men with a thousand hand-written signs, all calling out. Taxi drivers jumping up and down looking for fares.  A sea of mayhem and no plan and no idea how to navigate this.  I waded through the sea, found a guy, bartered a fair price and jumped in his taxi.

BALI.  Senses overload.  Everything overload.  Hot and sweaty. Incense burning. Banana palms. Overwhelm was edging in.  I was really truly here. Three and a half months to the day that those red cursive words looped out of my mouth.  How did this all unfold almost effortlessly?  How did everything work out?  And, why was I here? The sense of synchronicity in every step of the way.  All the ducks totally lined up.  

At the hotel, I had something to eat and sent the appropriate messages to children, parents and friends like I was alive and safe.  I passed out and felt the sense of overwhelm pulsing in my bones before I fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, after a quick breakfast, I went back to my room and fell onto the bed.  I was so exhausted.  My head hurt.  My adrenals were plain confused and I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I had a nap.  I thought a swim would help energize me.   I sat in the sun and realized the enormity of what just happened.  The weeks leading up to the moment were so hectic.  Everything had been SO full on.  My body had lifted shifted more things in the last week than it had in a long time.  I really needed to take a couple of days to gather myself and bridge this huge shift.  

It was REAL.  I was really in Bali.  


Bali Life

I went to a party, at Michael Franti’s house.  There were a lot of people wearing yoga clothes and not doing yoga.  Hula hoops. People hugging for a really long time.  I went to the bar and stood there looking for a beer-drinking partner.  I found Joe, a javanese artist who I think everyone meets in Ubud, if you hang around long enough.  I chatted to randoms. I observed the sights, I danced with small children and was in awe that I was in Michael Frantis house and he was singing to this group of mis-matched humans.  Fabulous first night out.  

I thought I should move right into town.  Get in the thick of it and then I could forge a plan and see what was next.  My idea to live right in town was not the best idea for me, I was spending days in cafes and nights in bars and my weekly budget was going down almost on a daily basis.  Not sustainable.

So I moved out of town. Into a cute homestay which would be my home for the next 6 weeks was the perfect haven.  Everything seemed perfect. The plan, the plan, Happy.


Unravelling

When bad news comes, we never expect it.  It’s not part of our plan (although it is part of THE plan).

My exhusband said he wasn’t going to send the children over to live.  

What? WHAT??

He said it was best for them to live with him and new wife and her two children and their newborn.  He would allow them to visit for a week each holiday period, and that would be it. My world imploded.

The voice in my head started screaming, he’s STEALING your children. Disbelief. Stunned.  What was happening?  I cried and sank in the corner of my room.  I have no idea how long I was there.  I thought I was going to probably hurt myself very badly. Possibly die.

My mind went into overdrive. A gazillion thoughts overwhelmed me.  Maybe he never planned on them coming?  I couldn’t go back to Australia. My feet were cemented into Bali, I had to stay.  My mind was going crazy.  I knew I had to stay.  Nothing made sense.  Nothing!  I truly wondered if I would die.  So much grief in my life, this would either kill me or save me.  

Some things I just knew: I had to keep going.  It would work out eventually.  Everything actually always does.


Spiritual Unfoldings

I met a new friend and she took me on my first spiritual journey.  We were purified in some holy water.  We walked around ancient sites.  We lunched overlooking a volcano, and we dressed in ceremonial clothes for a midnight ceremony.  

The ceremony was held in a place that seemed in the middle of nowhere.  Far far far away.  There were many local people and we were clearly in their home.  The family compound.  There was a holy room and the teacher.  A guru.  I had no idea what this was and I had never seen anything remotely like this in my life.  I felt strangely comfortable.  I felt totally safe.  

The gurus mother offered me a cup of coffee, thick black sweet local coffee with ginger.  Sounds reasonable, the thing is I had never had a cup of coffee in my life.  Ever.  Here I was 37 years of age and I said, ‘it would be rude to not drink it, wouldn’t it?’.  

“Yes”, they said.   

So drink the coffee I did.  It was far more pleasant than I anticipated.  The sweetness took away the bitterness and I do love ginger.  Then it hit me.  The caffeine.  Something my body was not accustomed to at all.  I never drank tea.  I had the occasional Chai Latte.  And now with a coffee, I was off my face.  I was pinging out my eyeballs.  

I had just been through god knows what during the day, it was approaching midnight, I was in a very strange place with some very energetically powerful people and just had my first cup of straight strong coffee.

It was time to open my heart chakra.  

Jesus christ.  What did that even mean?  

I had no idea about any idea of what may be going to happen next.  We all prayed and synchronized with the teacher and then some of the people started screaming and crying and going into some sort of trance state with their eyes closed.   I thought this was incredibly cool.  A scene out of some of my wildest dreams.  I loved it.  I wondered why.  I was so far out of any frame of reference I had ever had, yet felt familiar.  All in an entirely different language.    

I was called into the holy room.  There was a young man, a master they called him.  He could speak english.  They put some holy material over my head.  That had symbols on it and was full of sweat and stained from hundreds of ceremonies upon thousands of heads.  He guided me through, touched my chest and gave me a task for the next 21 days, a meditation practise.  

I walked out of the holy room and into the next chapter of my life.

I showed up.  Like I never have for anything in my life.  I went to ceremonies.  I would sit in the corner.  Watch.  Observe.  Participate.  I was so curious about why this felt so right to me.  Every morning and every night I sat in the meditation they gave me.  My legs crossed, my back straight and my hips and feet and knees and neck would all scream in pain.  

I sent them love: my knees, my hurty bits, my pins and needles ankles.  

I sent people love: my children.  My ex and his wife.  My parents.

Everything changed.  I learnt to sit for long periods.  I let go of anger at my ex.  This sitting thing did something for me that I couldn’t explain.  I craved it, I started to feel very very different.  Something was happening.

The plan unfolded.  I found a beautiful house, with a gorgeous spare room.  I could have guests.  Rent out my room, for income. These ideas kept me from completely losing myself at night, when I missed my children so much I thought my heart would break and I would die right there.   

My children had always had two houses.  They were used to spending time away from the other parent.  This was their normal.  Neither of them remembered us all living together.  They were ok with this.  

My mind had other ideas often.  The nights were the worst.  I was so awful to myself in those nights.  I spoke to them every other day.  Thank god, for social media, messages, Skype and such.  Yet, I stayed because I knew I had to stay. It was weird somehow, but not.   

The children came to visit and they went back.  It all felt normal.  When we saw each other, it was like no time had passed.  When they left, they were fine. This was perplexing but very helpful. Over the years, there was hard times for them, when they just wanted their Mum.  There were hard times when their world was really tough.   I now know, there were karmic contracts playing out there too.  Really important ones.  They were exactly where they were supposed to be and evolving exactly as planned in their life plan pre-earth arrival.  Oh, how the cycle of suffering spins us along for so long.  Until we get it.

I got on with it.  Got on with my Bali life. School holiday visits to Australia to see the children.   One day my interpreter said to me, ‘it’s time’.  They said, the teacher has called you. You have never asked.  Many people ask him and want to know all he knows but you have not.  You show up all the time, you sit quietly and observe.  You are not like a foreigner, you are like a Balinese.   

Time for what?  'To be a Master', they said.  

There was no point in questioning this. It was part of the plan, unfolding.   

 

Energy Mastery

A few weeks into my Spiritual Master Training, I’m advised very strongly to attend a ceremony up in this village.  I travel with our group.  We arrive to find a huge gathering of what I thought was around 600 Balinese but later find out it was around 1200.  We watch dancing, story telling through expression. Eventually we go to a local compound for some dinner before returning around midnight to the temple.

We take our place at the back of the main temple a little away from the main arena where all the different parts of the ceremony occur.  Different groups of people come in and pray and present offerings and move on.

Out in the arena area, they are bringing in four men that have been put under hypnosis and are wrapped up like Mummys (on stretcher type things) and are decorated in flowers and things.  They are taken and placed in a Bale (Balinese open roofed area), where several priests are chanting.  I can see that the guys are breathing very slowly and are totally out of it.  They are taken into the main temple and unwrapped and there is a whole lot more chanting.  They are sprayed with Holy Water and slowly they come alive.  They sit and pray for a while and then are taken back to the main arena area.  Another man emerges with a mask on, he puts the guys into trance and gives them Balinese swords each called a Kris.

They are running around looking like crazy men - it’s all very exciting.  They start grabbing men out of the crowd and holding them while the men come at them with the swords, fascinating enough they don’t seem to be getting hurt.


THEN…before I know it, one of the priests I knew has got me by the arm and is pulling me down the stairs towards the area where the men with swords in trance are. I was in the middle before I knew it.  Before going to the ceremony, I knew the premise of the ceremony and was very excited to witness this rumoured stabbing event.  I guess on reflection a part of me wanted to experience it but I really didn’t think it would actually happen to me.  So when I was almost at the bottom of the stairs I recall thinking, oh well, here we go, thoughts create things.  

Everything went into overdrive.  I was in the middle of the arena, there were indeed 1200 Balinese cheering and yelling and yahooing at the Bule (white person).  Two men had each of my arms and I looked up and about 10 metres away a man in trance with a Kris was coming straight for me, full pelt, Kris pointed at my stomach, I started screaming and fighting and saying, Oh My God, Oh My God, I was fighting so hard, I didn’t really think I was going to die or anything but I didn’t really feel like I was in this world, I was just doing reaction.  The guy hit me just above my belly button, Boooooooooooooof, I went backwards, I grabbed the Kris with my hands and was trying to stop it, but his strength was out of this world.  

The cheering got louder and I kept fighting and then all of a sudden it felt like I could see these peoples faces but not really hear the noise.  Then I heard a voice in my head say, well this is what you wanted, you are in it, why are you fighting?  And instantly I knew this was an extraordinary opportunity for me to totally surrender.  

I let go of the Kris.  Allowed the men to hold my arms.  The stabbing man fell away.  I looked up and there was another coming at me full pelt again, this time I knew that I couldn’t fight, bammmmm, he hit me and was jabbing really really hard into my stomach, I was watching the Kris push my stomach very deeply in yet it wasn’t really hurting me nor was it piercing me. Then he fell away, I look up again.  

Another was on his way, he came in just as hard as the last, I then thought about how grateful I was to be getting stabbed in the stomach by a man in trance with a Balinese sword and then he was gone.   The last one just stood there and looked at me and didn’t come for me.  I looked around at the crowd, I saw members of my Balinese family crying, it was freakin euphoric.  I was blessed with the Holy Water and lead back up the stairs to where my spiritual leader was.

Walking back, I had a complete soul breathing shaking cellular orgasm. Every part of my body was vibrating, I could hardly breathe.  I sat down and closed my eyes and felt into the part of my stomach that had been hit, it started to expand.  I felt very flighty.  I was having trouble keeping it together.  I told Jero, I feel like I’m on some weird drug and I can’t ground myself.  He energized a bottle of water for me and I drank it.  I came back into myself and everything was ok.  Another night in the life of NikStarr.

I had a de-brief with my translator.  He said we were planning on sending more tranced men in.   WHAT! Hold on, this was planned? It wasn’t part of the flow that the priest grabbed me?

He laughed, he said, Nicole you are in Master Training.  Ohhhhhh.  Apparently, they were planning on sending more in to stab me but my energy grew too big and they could no longer penetrate my field.  It worked out far better than we anticipated, you did very very well.  I was gobsmacked but not surprised.   Another test, perfect.

Life gives you exactly what you need.  Have trust in the process.  In yourself. Surrendering and having faith, no harm would come to me.  In fact, it expands your essence further.

Becoming a Hindu

In less than a month I had been taken to scared ceremony and immersed in the Hindu and local culture.  This was never on my mind, how could it be, I never knew anything about it, (not until I remembered).  I had no idea why I was moving to Bali, I thought I would blend into expat life, my children would go to Green School and maybe I would take up yoga.  No, this was not the divine plan at all.  Not one bit.  Nothing like that.  I was in for a ride I could never imagine, not in my wildest dreams.   I was to embark on a spiritual journey that would not only blow my mind but every single thing I had ever thought.  And more.

For the first time in my life I felt safe, accepted and clear.  It was a most odd experience.  I showed up to every single ceremony and practise, without ever considering not.  I found a new way of contemplating life and all that was happening to me which appeared like a living hell in my mind, was indeed my world showing me the way.

People started to enquire after my doings and beings.  I had to reframe everything and the unfolding occurred and the request for 'showing my experiences' evolved into group spiritual journeying.  Much to my surprise I became a guide for others and a new me was awakening. A natural evolution evolved for me. I travelled to Java to see my teachers’ Grand Master.  I sat for hours on cold floors.  Only eating, when I was given food.  Days were so hard. So harsh.  But then so free. So beautiful and so so so profound.

I learnt humility.  I learnt how to be humble.  I learnt the depth of reverence.  I learnt how to use a squat toilet and I learnt to follow the energy and there never is actually a human plan.  There is only a divine plan. Soul contracts. Karmic connections. Learnings.  Blessons. The divine plan we devise before we cross the river of forgetfulness.

If only we surrender and get out of the way -  it unfolds effortlessly.  

Retreats

One day a divine idea came to me.  To create retreats and bring others through a process to try and awaken them.  I told my teacher and he said the vision was clear, this was the next step.  

I sat in meditation, with my legs crossed and my back straight and the ideas came flooding through. I moved from Ubud to a seaside town where the energy was more grounded and neutral.  My Balinese Retreats began. Groups and groups and groups of people came and joined me.  It was another natural evolution – and I stepped into the role of spiritual guide. Guiding people in meditation and connecting to source.  They kept coming and they wanted more.  What’s level 2? What’s next?

At times this all got very very very overwhelming.   I found this mass expansion and mass changes and mass everything very intense at times.  I wished for a pause button.  This awakening process was fierce.  I was doing all of this stuff and evolving at starbursts and it hurt a lot at times.

I drank alcohol during the tense times mostly when I was alone.  I needed an opt out.  To have a break.  To feel familiar in a world so far from my entire life.  At times, I would go on benders and drink myself into a corner and stay there for many hours.  The weight of all of this was huge.  I couldn’t tell if it was self sabotage or mind induced suffering or what, it was a living hell in the most beautiful world I knew.  The path of awakening was so brutal at times.   

Then one day it all changed.  I was in the holy room, that funky holy material was over my head.  And it happened.  I started travelling, it felt like the moments before an ecstasy pill kicked in and then the explosion happened and every cell in my body disappeared and I passed bliss and hit pure ecstasy, a state of consciousness that I knew I could never take back.  

Remembering.

This was better than anything I have ever experienced in anything ever and I have experienced pretty much everything.  I was relieved.  I was free.  I could reach states and everything was going to be ok.

I would never ever have to take drugs ever again.   

The man who lived in a cave.

I was due to go and do my final mastery journey onto another island with the Grand Master, then travel over to Java.  
Inconveniently, (or so I thought), I got the call to go meet a Swami just before midnight, I was due to catch a boat at 7am.  Why did everything happen at midnight at these temples?  A deep sigh and I jumped on my bike and off I went.   

He lived in a cave.  Well a somewhat cave. More of a man-made cave to simulate a cave of an old sage.  You have to crawl into this cave, you can’t stand up at all.  It’s dirty, dusty, there is no windows or airflow.  At the end of the chamber I found a little old man.  Draped in cloth, he was quite the sight.  I found out later he was 68, he looked 101. He was very very small.

He had a wild life of teachers and experiences; begging by the ganges to zen masters in Japan, incredible things.  He gave me a Durga blessing.  Then he told me he would die soon and I would be his last student in his ancient tantric lineage.  I sat there suckerpunched.  Tantra.  Oh crap.  (Holy Crap).

But now I knew.  No fighting.  Just Surrendering.  It was part of this divine plan of mine, remember BRING IT ON.  Yeah, this is Bringing it all on. 

It was 3am.  He called out, 'goodbye Durgaji' (the only name he would ever call me).  I rode home and had one hours sleep before getting onto the boat to head off to mastery graduation.


Tantra

Tantric teachings and initiation started as I returned from Java.  I was still running retreats, level 2s and whatever else was arising.  I was always deep in my own process, learning, expanding, practise.  More than ever.  More than any lifetime.  I didn’t sleep a lot.  Part of the training.  I was called at all hours to go and do things.  I learnt what faith and trust really meant.  I learnt that faith and trust is something that eliminates fear.  Embodying faith and trust brings certainty that this whole universe is not only conspiring with you, it is you.  Back to the we are all consciousness thing.

My next role was to help Swami prepare for his death.  He wished to go to Varanasi in India to die.  A noble place to complete life.  During this time, I learnt about preparing for death.  I learnt that preparation for death was a brilliant idea.  A huge part of the soul journey.  

The stories humans tell each other.  The stories we tell our children.  The stories that encourage sufferings, separation and stagnancy.  Weird.  It was of no concern.  Who knew.  

I kept going to the cave, especially when I didn’t want to.   I hated it so much at times.  It was awful.  It forced me inwards, to silence, to the places inside me that I had forgotten. Closed up.  Overlooked.  I had to pick up food and make sure he ate.  I had to sit for hours and listen to the teachings.  I had to do hours and hours of arduous things that I just did not want to do.  

I kept showing up.  You can see how fortunate it was that I didn’t have to make school lunches nor did I have to check homework.  This divine plan was so clever that it broke me down to put me back together.  Genius.  I didn’t like it – but I didn’t have to like it – that is THE PLAN.  

At night, I loved sitting in my temple in my simple balinese house, one block from the beach.  I reflected on everything.  I talked to the gods I had come to know.  I listened.  I would follow the energy.  

One day I had a visitor.   She told me to come visit her on the next full moon.  I recognised her, yet I couldn’t see her face.  

In the meantime, it was time for my final initiation with Swami.   I sat at the doorway to the cave.  There was still part of me wondering if I was being taken for a ride, even though I knew I wasn’t.  Parts of me that were screaming and begging me to run.  I sat still.  I was reminded of the state of innocence and how before we are conditioned we come into this world in childlike innocence.  This is what I needed to get through this initiation.   

Hilariously at the time when Swami was chanting and all very serious, I tuned into Sesame Street in my memory bank and there I found a self-state of innocence and it totally worked.  I eased into it.  After a long time or what seemed like eons, my eyes started to go funny, or so I thought.  But what I was witnessing was Shapeshifting.   

Swami, this tiny little man was shapeshifting into Shiva right in front of me.  Losing mind?  The good old mind, still piping in and questioning itself, questioning myself.

I became very aware of my arms doing weird things and then I start singing unlike me, and then I realize that if I’m seeing him like that there must be something happening to me.  Durga had awoken in my body and had taken over my human.  I had been in trance many many many many times before, but this was something else.   It lasted 3 days.  

I met with my energy master regarding a matter on a house lease, I couldn’t function and I was trying really hard to keep it together.  He taught me how to integrate the energy and embody it.  Holy Guacamole, what a ride that was.  When you learn to embody a Goddess, you become one.  It’s insane.  You walk different.  You talk different.  You can sing when you couldn’t before.  It takes a little while to catchup and then the next thing comes along in the unfolding of the divine path operating at this level.

I met the mystery woman on the full moon in my temple.  Turns out it was my future self.  I was pleased to see she had long hair still, she looked the same just older, deeper wrinkles and was strangely dressed in all white.  I used to get white so dirty, it was a colour I rarely wore.  She sat me down and spoke to me very seriously.  She knew me well and I couldn’t really hide anything from her/me.  She gave me a harsh talking to.  Something I appreciated very much.  She looked me in the eye and told me things that I will never forget.  At the time, I was fascinated, she seemed so far from where I was at the time.  I wasn’t sure what was really going on.  Was this even real?  I couldn’t imagine how I could get from where I was to there.  

It was time for Swami to leave.  He went to Varanasi to die.  That was very interesting.  I was left to process it all, understanding attachments and what they mean in life. How dropping the body and the soul shifting to the next dimension and the journey I knew so well from my beloveds death those years before.  

There were some challenges coming up again with my exhusband and the children.  About visits and timings and chatting and general communication.  It was messy at times and felt hard.  I was propositioned with the consideration of letting it go.  Perhaps my role as mother was to bring them into this world and through early childhood and part of our contract was for me to leave and complete out.  They would learn a lot from that.  As would I.  Perhaps I was to go and sit on a mountain top and really let it all go.  Surrender totally to pure consciousness.  Gosh, that was a huge ask.  I could go live in a cave in India and drop all attachments and sit forever more.  After a life of glamourous activities.  Illusions of white picket fences.  Business, fast life, crazy fun to simply let it all go and go sit in a cave.  Far out.  It’s always so damn huge.  It’s so hard.  (Bring it on, she said).   

I considered the whole thing.  I went through a process of releasing them, freeing them.  I was willing to go and become a full renunciate.  Complete renunciation.  I had been through various long processes of fasting.  Long practises and sadhanas.  Spent long periods of times in far off villages learning the teachings of Black Magic removal and recovery.  I had activated volcanos.  Bent time and managed to not get stabbed again by more men with swords.  Could I take this next step?  

I let go of my broken heart and desires and attachments to being a conventional mother to them.  I sat down in meditation and had a conversation with their souls.  I came out very surprised in fact.  This contract was not over.   In fact it was to change quite dramatically.  

The lease on my safe sacred space completed and the owner wanted to move back in.  I was homeless and that was a very interesting place to be.  I had a month in a room in my friends villa, house sitting for him and then I was answering a big giant call to Thailand.  

I packed up my room in Bali and headed to Australia to visit the children again before I headed off to Thailand on a one way ticket.  I didn’t need to be back in Bali for nearly three months.

Before I left I was asked by one of my dearest Balinese friends to meet someone.  An important person.  He was the spiritual advisor to the Governor and these types.  I had no idea who I was meeting that day.  A meeting arranged to meet that white hindu mangku woman.  I had become a mangku by then.  A trainee priest(ess).  There are no others that have done this.  I meet Guruji that day and promised to meet again.  I wondered whether I would.  Famous last words again.  Little did I know.

I had some pretty big talks that visit to the children in Australia.  I spent time with Harley on the beach teaching him some energy work.  I spent time with Ruby holding her hand listening to her school stories.  We watched Gossip Girl and ate whatever we wanted. It was normal, it was always normal.  The same.  It was our normal.  They told me about their days and the trials and tribulation.  I told them about my days, they found it fascinating and some.  I asked them if they wished I was in Australia with them, they said no.   They knew Bali was where I was supposed to be.  I asked if they wished they were in Bali, they said, they didn’t know.  They wished we could be different but were not desperate or manic at all about it.   It was most peculiar but worked just fine.

I went to Thailand with no plan and no idea.  Well that’s not entirely correct.  I had a plan to go to an island to a Yoga and Tantra ashram where I would meet my friend living there and spend time with her.   I didn’t really know why, it was just one of those now very common things.

My world totally turned upside down in Thailand.  Imagine that.   I was in a very different environment with many different people from all over the world.  In a very different dynamic to what I had been in.  It was a welcomed change, rather amusing in fact.    I sat in a tantric course and wasn’t really sure what that was all about.  I found that the premise was Divine Union.  Not with another person but within.  Nice.  Hello up-levelling on it’s way.  Some fairly profound things happened and then one night we went into the evening Satsang with the head Swami of the ashram.  He was rather intense.  He was rather serious and he was in fine form that night.

He was talking about the seriousness of the spiritual path.  How we have one foot in and one foot out.  Dance around a bit.  But rarely are we ALL IN.  

Oh crap, the time had come.  I knew it was here.  I held my breath and suddenly it felt like his eyes were piercing mine and then he yelled…. STOP FUCKING AROUND.  My eyes nearly fell out of my head.  This was it.  I had to draw a line in the sand and step ALL IN.  I was leaving alcohol, cigarettes and meat at the altar.  I was picking up the totality of my commitment to this incarnation.  I was ALL IN for this life and all its divine unfolding.  ALL OF IT.

I stumbled out of that satsang and I was in a daze and my friend said, ‘and now we go into this hall and do yang spiral meditation’.  All I wanted to do was go home and revel in my line crossing.  No, no, no, that was not happening.  I was about to meet the demons in that hall.  So I did that.  I met them.  I saw them as the souls they are.  Then remembered they are pure consciousness and then my heart exploded and compassion blew me to smithereens.   Big night that one.  Full Moon.  Fitting.

I spent a few days working with the energy and doing some deep work within on the Sacred Union teachings.  I left that island hoping that I would maintain all that occurred.   And then it was my 40th birthday.   I had a download, the new terminology for divine ideas dropping into my human self, about my online temple, a (k)new way of operating, a global reach.  

I returned to Bali and was to work in a friends retreat, before doing two of my own.   I had a room in my friends old place for a month to work out my next move.  This gypsy life was good for my Taurus stability practise.  I became more at home in my skin.   Actually my skin started feeling weird.  Everything started feeling weird.  Especially my breasts.  I thought oh, this must be those hormones that happen when you are 40, (feels like pregnancy, NO WAY).  No menstruation.  Oh.  

Ok, so, there really isn’t much chance of me being pregnant.  I’m 40.  

I was willing to go and sit in a cave.  A baby. NO. Far out.  That could not be what’s going on here.  

Ok, what if it is?

No, please, please, please, no.  I don’t want that.  (hears gods laughing).  This is too much.  This can’t be happening. Ok.  I have to go meet Guruji.  I will get a test after that.

I meet Guruji.  We talk for a very long time.  I don’t think about the ‘baby test’ at all.  I listen to him.  I see what’s going on.  Hello new teacher.  He tells me about the few times we had met before.  He talked deeper about those times and what had occurred.  He gave me some work to do.  He told me that something had happened to me while I was in Thailand.  I told him yes, there was a swearing swami, so I crossed a line and now I’m ALL IN.  We talked for many hours more.  Hours and hours pass.  He says to me, it’s time to be a Guru and he will teach me how to do that.  I thought, oh god.  I don’t want to do that.  I nodded, thanked him and went on my way.  Remembering I was to buy a test.  As this was surely just a test.  I bought three. I rode the hour home and sat and looked at them.

I knew that it was best to do in the morning.  Greater chance of an accurate read.  I thought, a glass of wine would help.  Oh that’s right I don’t do that anymore.  How strange.  It was like it all just got turned off.  Again, effortless.  To go from a high functioning alcoholic a lot of my life.  Smoking on and off all my life and part time vegetarian all my life.  To nothing.  Switched off. Would probably drink petrol before I would drink booze again.  Ok right.  So, wait.  No.  Wait, No, Do it… voices in my head again.  My bladder was full.   Ok, so now, I grabbed a glass.  I caught my urine.  I put a test in it and walked away.  I came back. Two strong lines.  

SHIT. I did the other tests… ALL same result.  

I dropped to the fall and wept.  Far out.  No. OMG.  This can’t be happening.  This can’t be real.  Yes, I had an abortion when I was very young.  I can’t have an abortion now.  That goes against everything about me.  How can this be happening.

ALL IN.  BRING IT ON.

FAR OUT….. FINE.  I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS.

So, I took a deep breath and I said out loud, “I accept this gift of a divine child.  I will be it’s divine mother and I will live at the highest version I have available at anytime”.  I put my forehead to the ground and I stood up and got on with it.

Guruji was quite surprised.  As I told him I was.  

It was very apparent this was my next chapter, solo Mumma, here we go.

LeoAnanda

My pregnancy and birth were very different to my other children, no doubt.  I birthed my little boy at home in an outdoor huge bath with sacred music planning and flowers in the water.  I spent the next 42 days at home, as per Hindu tradition and cared for my baby and me.  We never left the perimeter of our home.  We had everything delivered and were cocooned in, it was one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever gifted myself.

Awhile after I got a call from the High Priestess telling me that I had been through quite the journey, I had risen above so much, that I had indeed embodied grace.  It was time for me to come do ceremony to become a Priestess.  Be at her place on Saturday at 9am.  

“Ok”, I said.  I best go shopping and get a new outfit.  Ceremony outfits are always fabulous.

Then a miracle: my exhusband had to move for his job, circumstances had changed.  He asked me if Harley could come and live in Bali.  Ruby would stay and finish school and live with her best friends’ family.

Oh my, a teenager.  I had just started working again.  I had a spare room in another building on my property and using my divine planning process came up with an Immersion process as well as the beginnings of a the new online temple space.

Everything we had dreamed of a few years back.  And just like that Harley arrived.  We went out to the school and he walked down that track and there exactly was that vision I had that very day.  I’m moving to Bali.  Far Out!  A vision in action before my very eyes.

For years I thought my exhusband was the meanest person I knew.  I know he didn’t hold the highest impressions of me either.  It was such a difficult thing for all of us.  I now realize that he has been playing out our soul contract perfectly.  He could have not showed up more divinely.  My gratitude for him is beyond words.  Every single thing he has ‘done to me’ has been profound.  And I to him, no doubt.  This is high level soul contract work.  Such massive evolutionary outcomes. Two souls dancing this life exquisitely, looking rather horrible at times. 

We are polite to each other.  We have very little human contact or communication and we navigate this co-parenting thing with relative ease most of the time.  It’s a peaceful existence.   I spend part of my daily practise in gratitude for this, every day.  He gave me grand gifts and opportunity dressed as pain and trauma.  I cannot thank him enough for how it all unfolded.

I now had to get a little more organised.  International school is expensive.  More visas. More food.  More everything.  I saved up the next instalment for school.  $5000. And a divine idea came up.  I needed some help.  So I got a business coach for 3 months and gave her all the money I had saved for school.  I systemized my business, I monetized my offerings more feasibly and I added to my streams of income and got aligned with seriousness here. And made more than the school fees by the time they were due.

Another miracle.  I saw ‘it’.  An opportunity.  I contacted my exhusband.  I told him about what I saw.   He agreed.  And it was divine timing to the day and I was in Australia and I took Ruby for a walk down at the beach.  I told her she was moving to Bali and finishing her last two years of school.

She said, ‘ok’.  No arguments, no buts.  ‘Ok Mum’.

Within a week, we were home.  Me and my three children.  All living together in Bali.

Wow, wow, wow.  There was quite an adjustment period. It was full of rapid growth for us all.  Learning to live in each others energy and our dynamics.  With huge commitment we got there.  All so very aware that we were all living in this situation that we never thought would happen.  I asked them did they ever think I abandoned them.  They looked at me like I was an alien.  They always accepted where they were.  They said, ‘Mum, you moving to Bali was the best thing ever’.  Staying with Dad taught us how to be independent and how to be strong.  They had some incredible things happen to them in their lives and they have no resentment.  They have no story around their childhood.  They have no mother wound, no father wound.  I find it so fascinating to observe.   They treasure that we had this time together.   Extraordinary experiences. Soul contracts.  Divine unfolding.  They know this.  They are children, and they know this.

 

And then the Bali chapter closed.....

I could write a trillion words of what happened over those middle years of this last 7 year cycle. I have had hundreds of people journey with me and since I took my teachings online, there are now thousands who have experienced the work.

The stories of what occurred over the years are mind blowing, yet they were my experience.   I tell these events and watch peoples jaws drop and the Wow's follow.  Sitting at the feet of Gurus, activating volcanos, shapeshifting in caves and endless extraordinary things happened.

I learnt more in this time than I ever anticipated possible in this lifetime.  I learnt how to navigate life beyond dimensions and how to be in this realm.  I said, YES and the entire universe conspired to meet me there.

And so it began, again much to my surprise I was in a massive process.  It lead to me becoming a Hindu and then going through the process of Master, Mangku, Jero (priestess) and High Priestess.

Hindu Ceremony and Hindu name.  Putu Widiani... A homecoming.

I had embodied Goddess Durga in a cave with a tantric swami and this whole new world opened up.  Then a billion other things happened and then for my 40th birthday I got a most surprising gift.  Hello LeoAnanda Ganesh Starr.  The divine mothering path as Durgaji.   

We hang out with the High Priestesses.

The original plan seemed ready for ripening a few years later and the big kids came to live our not so much expat life.

As my work and my teachings got more refined and more potent, my practise of divine mothering got a huge workout.

Chop Wood, Carry Water.

So many endings were presenting themselves.  "Much to my surprise", 'seems the constant theme'.  The mind is always up for surprising things.  I was being called to other lands.  Strongly.  I started the search across the planet and the whisperings became very loud.  My beautiful daughter graduated high school valedictorian of Bali Island School and our exit plan was well underway.

The last big journey where 11 courageous souls joined for a karmic contract was beyond anything any of us anticipated.  Including me.  The final NikStarr Bali Retreat was a sacred container of my time in a journey.  Guiding this group as I was saying goodbye simultaneously was so much more than words can convey.  An absolute honour and a graduation of sorts of self.  

Just days after, I went through High Priestess and a huge completion and embodiment occurred.  My preparation to leave Bali was complete and I was free to go.  It felt like a natural evolution.  I was not sad to leave my beloved island at all.  Contrary, super excited to continue into the next chapter.  The last few days were incredibly beautiful.  Beyond anything I could have wished for.

We boarded our plane and as I turned my phone off, it was 11:11pm, I smiled.   And onwards we went, up up up into our visit to Australia.  Having 2 events to say farewell to my beloved students and anyone else who wanted to play.  To celebrate Ruby's 18th birthday and spend time with my parents.  And then off, to the other side of the planet, literally and into our new life.

Beloved Bali, I had no idea what you had in store for me.  I'm so glad I answered your call.  I will be back to visit as promised.  The unimaginable unfolded and you taught me all about surrender, humility and embracing divine plans.  And so onwards we go.  You are embedded into our hearts and part of our souls, we will share your wisdom and wonder wherever we go.   

North America you are next and we embrace your big plans with a knowing and beyond. Divine Divine Plan.

The High Priestess ceremony completed, it’s time to use these wings.  It’s time to go, it’s time.  It’s time to move to the other side of the planet.  

The unfolding continues; and the next adventure is certainly sublime.  I'm adoring this (k)new chapter.

I shall write so much more soon, another mass array of unfoldings have occurred.