A Synopsis of My Steps This Life...
My current life can be divided into two distinct segments:
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| Portrait of Sylvia Kay by Daniel Osborne Le Studio Photo - Gatineau QC |
THE UNUSUAL - DIFFERENT
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THE USUAL - MAINSTREAM
THE USUAL - MAINSTREAM:
I now know, I've been on this inner journey for my whole life, but it first began to break through into my conscious awareness almost twenty years before the first draft of "FOOTSTEPS..." was completed, while on a trip to Fiji. There I suddenly saw my life through different eyes and I didn't like what I saw! Two years later what I saw in Fiji crystallized into the break-down of my marriage and a radical shift in direction for me. My inner journey was becoming conscious and I was on my way... Before this, my path took me fairly common places.
I was born in Orillia and have a Master's degree in Philosophy from the University of Manitoba. Although I've certainly never matched any ideal of perfection, I've always given my best to each of the many occupations at which I've been employed. These have spanned the spectrum from: picking strawberries and vegetables for a local grower; to working in the sales office of The Canadian National Institute for the Blind, watching how people navigated through life without the vision I found so essential; to living as a nanny looking after three young boys; to property manager of a Student Housing Co-op managing two buildings with more than 200 apartments; to working as a secretary/accountant for an environmental consulting firm. I continued working as an accountant for fourteen years, finishing with more than five years as Comptroller for an Architectural Company. While here, I tried to squeeze my inner work into evenings and week-ends. However, as my inner work was insistently demanding more of my time and since I was completely sick of working with numbers and wanted to work with people, I quit this job to begin what I thought was just a new career. I began my "new career" and unknowingly the second segment of my life, by studying aromatherapy massage and taking courses in Cranial Sacral Therapy with The Milne Institute, based in Big Sur, California. Although I wasn't able to take the final two courses with the Milne Institute or complete my training, time clearly revealed I wasn't meant to be a therapist for anyone but myself...
Throughout this first segment of my life I was running. I didn't know what I was running from or why, but I knew I was running from something. Only now do I know. I wanted to get as far as I possibly could from anything with the faintest scent of my last life about it... However, suddenly as I approached mid-life, I just couldn't run any more. I had to stop. Although at first, I wasn't consciously aware of what I was doing or why, I began to slow down, to stop, then turn around and face what I'd been running from all those years...
Most of the steps I've taken this life, I can see in retrospect, were necessary to trigger memories from my three past lives. I have lived only in Canada but this has included: a village, a small town, in the country and in cities. I have also traveled to Europe, Hawaii, many places in the continental U.S., Fiji and throughout Canada. In my travels, I have spanned the spectrum from camping alone in the wilderness without even a tent, to staying in luxury hotels. I also owned a sail boat – a 26-foot Contessa. Although she wasn't big, as she'd already crossed the Atlantic to Portugal and back, she felt like a REAL boat! Sailing her fueled my desire to live meditatively, working with LIFE's winds and currents. Sadly, she was left behind with the end of my marriage, but I've taken what I loved and learned from sailing her and learned to sail me instead of just a boat, during the next segment of my life...
THE UNUSUAL - DIFFERENT:
The second segment of my life has been unusual. I took what I loved about sailing my boat and applied this to how I lived my life. I did my best to focus inside, listening for what my inner guides wanted to tell and teach and to let go and let LIFE’s winds and currents carry me where I needed to go. I’ve staked my life on following what felt “right” inside, which is where I could feel the presence of my inner guides most strongly, no matter where this led or how frightening it felt. I’ve learned to be with what came; working to understand what each experience has had to teach me. I’ve used tools and methods I developed myself as well as those I learned, studying with The Milne Institute, Ipsalu Tantra International and from books. With The Milne Institute, I began to explore bodywork and therapy. In their courses, working with my bones and muscles, I began to get a sense of how my body and soul were connected and how to work with this connection. I also learned that it was possible to work out in the world very successfully, with an inner focus in meditative consciousness. I knew I didn't want to just do Craniosacral work this way... I wanted to live my WHOLE life this way!!! This experience, which opened a door to possibilities I'd never imagined was a REAL life changer for me!!! With Ipsalu Tantra International, I learned Tantric Yoga practices for building and promoting the flow of my own internal energy. Their courses also showed me that underlying everything I did and said were "issues" I was working through – things I was puzzled or confused about and was in the process of clarifying. With their courses I began to see the paths these "issues" traveled and the extent of their roots. Both The Milne Institute and Ipsalu Tantra International, each in their own way, began to open doors inside to my past lives, where so much confusion lay in wait for me. The path of my life's work was becoming clearer and clearer... I could not have done the work I've done without the help I received from both of these human groups and most importantly from my inner guides who guided me toward and prompted me to take these courses and workshops!
Although I’ve lived as much as possible in “meditative consciousness”, the result has been an adventure with big contrasts. Sailing my life, I’ve lost almost everything connected to my mainstream life and faced how it felt to be penniless and homeless, living in Shelters for homeless women for three and a half years. Living there, I was surrounded by many people, with little privacy and saw a side of life in Toronto very different from the one I’d known as Comptroller of the Architectural Company. My guides and LIFE’s winds then carried me to a small village in Quebec, where I lived almost completely isolated and alone; immersed in déjà vu – working through inner material from eight past lives that surfaced as I faced what was presented and followed the threads of my thoughts, beliefs and feelings to their roots.
Although I've always been interested in living life "well", for this second segment of my life, I've focused most of my energy on working to understand what this means, then practicing with the steps I actually take. I've worked too, to understand my parts and faces, so I could build with them, an inner space where my body, mind and spirit could meet and function in harmony, I've used every experience as grist for my inner mill; where I've mined them all to get the fullest possible value from each one. My books document my steps and efforts to learn as much as possible from all I’ve experienced, through all four lifetimes. In them, I share why the steps I’ve taken were necessary and how each one has helped me on my journey of learning, self-creation, self-exploration and discovery as I've worked toward self-understanding, integration and improvement.
The intensive work delving into my past, which I’ve documented in my books, feels almost completed now, so I expect, my inner guides and LIFE’s winds to blow new lessons my way; as I continue learning and growing by living the adventure that is my life. I have no idea what the next “right” steps will look like, where they’ll lead or what I’ll learn from taking them...
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