I am a woman from Scotland, UK, where I live with my wife and two cats. This section introduces me personally – see About for links to information about my business, skills, qualifications and practice.
A number of years ago, in my late 30s, I experienced a challenging life event that led to my questioning the meaning of my life. I’d mostly spent the first 3+ decades focusing on education, relationships, stability and security. I didn’t know I was neurodivergent, but I’d always felt different. At the outset of middle age, I developed a powerful drive to seek to understand myself and my life.
A major part of my journey up to that point was studying and researching, including earning three academic degrees in Humanities disciplines that incorporated scientific methods. I had learned and internalised ways of systematically building and referencing established knowledge, querying sources, argumentation and questioning assumptions. I was trained to find as much relevant information as possible, synthesise it, analyse it, and contextualise it with previous generations of knowledge.
When I had the experience that changed me, though, I began to seek further and deeper answers. What does it mean to heal, or to be whole as a person? How does a person reconcile with their past and meet their future? Is there inherent meaning in life, or must we create it? What does ‘spiritual’ actually mean? What did I want my life to be for? Was academic knowledge really the only valid way of knowing?
I wondered: how could the entire cosmos be simply random and devoid of meaning, apart from a handful of species on Earth who accidentally evolved self-awareness? The idea of consciousness as a pure illusion generated by the brain just didn’t ring true for me, and I later learned that there is absolutely no evidence for this.
Most cultures throughout humanity’s existence seem to have had an awareness that there was something more than just a largely empty, mechanistic universe. A spirit world, gods, angels, guides, archetypes. What were the chances that the mainstream modern Western world has the one, true way of seeing reality, one based solely on the physical?
This worldview with its presumed supremacy is not just the outlier because of its nihilistic view of the universe, but also it is the one that has led to devastating exploitation of the physical world as well as widespread dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Our inner emptiness and over-emphasis on materiality has led to capitalism and perpetual growth, which is now colonising the mental world and is leading humanity down a dark path.
During that difficult time, I remembered my interest in esoteric subjects such as tarot and astrology when I was younger, and began reading everything I could find. It turned out that this was a lot, because such subjects had seen a resurgence while I had been cocooned in the comforting order of academia. There were more books than ever before, plus podcasts, lectures, and now respectable schools teaching online.
Since then I have been applying myself devotedly in my spare time to learning and practising astrology, reiki, and tarot. I also did a long course in counselling skills and a short course in coaching skills to enhance my ability to hold space for people. As of end of 2025 I am a qualified Reiki Master, and am studying for a Diploma in Psychological Astrology.
Now my goal is to bring together these knowledges to heal and grow and offer support to others to do so. I am grateful to all of the mentors, therapists and teachers who have done the same for me and my dream is to pay something of this forward. My life’s purpose is to devote myself to my studies and to be a resource for others who are navigating a difficult stage in their life journey.
To learn more about other aspects of my business, see:
Heliodora 