Thea Hollett

I was allergic, so my path led me away from the increasing use of chemicals that defined the rest of the world. While others were happy to use an aspirin, I wound up always looking for alternatives. I took off to go around the world when I was 21, searching for a place without the American 'chemical' influence. It was hard to find.

I sailed the south seas, toured New Zealand and eastern Australia. Witnessed war in East Timor and Communist takeover in Laos. Arriving in Nepal for Christmas 1975, I was now 3 years on the road. Trekking in the Himalaya, seeing the children walking in the snow without shoes, I began to see the world before consumerism. Off to Calcutta, Puri, Rishikesh and Kashmir, I was halted in my tracks by the Dalai Lama giving the Kalacakra initiation in Ladakh... and fell with hepatitus A: a purification, big time!.

My lovely nurse was a student of Tibetan Buddhism. I lived 3 months on vegetable water, saffron honey and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. As the stages of death were described, I recognised I was dying: no strength, lips cracking, no body heat. Ladakh would close for the winter months... I had to leave. Kopan, a Tibetan monastery in Nepal where they offered vegetarian meals to westerners, was the only option and off I went.

Traipsing all over the Himalaya, to monasteries, the Everest base camp, to holy caves and retreats centers, to meet great Lamas and search out special teachings, visiting the holy sites in India and Nepal, sitting at the feet of brave Tibetan Lamas who had to escape the Chinese to bring their wisdom to the world, meditation for months in silence, following Lamas to South India, and eventually to Thailand, I arrived home to Canada 7 years after I had left, never crossing the Kyber pass to Europe.

My entire adult life had been in the East. It was not better, just different. The lessons were the same whether you had shoes or not: love, compassion, caring, sharing. But nobody read my mind back here in Canada... and culture shock was huge. The Tibetans taught me the trick was to see it was all my own creation, an illusion... nobody thought like that in Canada... how was I going to relate?

In 2013 I work 4 water. I am an author, a channel, a metaphysical life coach and a Reiki master. I study and learned from Tibetans, Puruvians, Native Americans, Egyptians, Mayans, fellow brothers and sisters, the Earth, Ascended Masters and my own crystal skull, Za'ak.