I have heard this adage many times as people chortle about how they came to some great understanding in their life and how the perfect mentor guided them through. "When the student is ready the teacher appears". It is no doubt true, however in my case it was even more true that when the teacher was ready the student appears. Quite a few students actually. I never wanted to be teacher, I never wanted to be a healer, I have clawed my way along this shamanic path and at every juncture I have been ready to give up in a huff! Its not an easy business this long dark night of the soul, and my long dark night has seemed like an arctic winter night at various points with no dawn on the horizon for months at a time. But I made it eventually despite my absolute resistance and having to completely restructure my thought processes and the automatic reactions of my nervous system and I got a place of peace. Why oh why would I want to shatter that peace and start raking through all my shit again in order to haul some other poor should along the same path? I wouldn't, or I didn't think I would, I just didn't feel called to teaching, despite having written a book about my adventures. I guess I just thought anyone interested in the Q'ero teachings that I have followed could read the book and that would be enough. So what happened? I was invited, along with four others, by my teacher of seven years to take part in a Masters course, one that initiated us as teachers ourselves. Having wondered and secretly hoped for those seven years that I might one day be invited I was just pleased to be there. It was the next natural step in the training, a completion in part of the path we could take in the UK, further teachings would likely be in Peru with the Q'ero themselves. I might dabble a little in teaching I mused to myself, we all chatted about perhaps running the courses together and supporting each other through the ordeal of teaching a group of students and initiating them onto the path. I was even more unsure about how teaching would ever happen when I realised while on the Masters course that I was not going to be taught how to be teacher. I had assumed for years that the Masters course would be all about how to teach the teachings. I thought I would be going through each different part of the teachings I had been given with a fine tooth comb and learning how to impart them to others. Not so. The Masters course involved a whole new set of initiations and teachings just for us, to help us grow further, to work with new archetypes and cosmic energies and alignments. Then off we were sent back into the world, back into our little lives and I had no idea what I was going to do with myself. I suppose I had had a little foresight though, I had been casually asking friends if they wanted to be my guinea pigs while I practiced being a teacher on them. They all seemed to come out of the woodwork at the same time and start reminding me that I had mentioned a course. Clients and friends of friends expressed an interest confiding that they knew they were a bit 'witchy' and wanting to learn more about that. Well I wouldn't call what I teach witchy but I new what they meant. I was suddenly emboldened to pick a date and miraculously several people could make it. I felt some new energies swirl around me like an invisible cloak and settle upon my shoulders and it felt absolutely right. Who would have thought? I felt even more emboldened and booked a second introductory weekend and the first initiated course weekend. So now I have become a teacher, just by putting some dates in a diary and letting some people know about it, and the students keep appearing. I even found myself replying to one of the dog walkers in the park a couple of days ago that I am a teacher of shamanic practice. I surprised myself in how quickly I replied and owned what I do when she asked. Well I guess that settles it then, if that's what I am telling people I do for a living. I haven't even started teaching the workshops yet but I am not nervous. I was rather horrified at the idea when I was on the Masters course myself but something in that invisible cloak of teaching that now sits on my shoulders teaches me that my courses do not have to be perfect, they just have to be honest and kind and ongoing to allow people to return as many times as is necessary for them to get everything they need. So with love and gratitude I look forward to all the students I have yet to meet, some of whom I hope to inspire to be teachers themselves.

If you are interested in coming on a course, please check the Workshops page of the website.