Introducing AWAKEN
Dear spirit sisters,
The final chapter in my last book, Love Never Dies, is called “The Path Winds and I Follow,” which describes both the trajectory of my daily walk around my neighbourhood—with its hills and curvy footpaths—and the trajectory of my spiritual life.
I suspect that I’m not alone in feeling that the path unfolds before me, and the universe, in perfect divine timing, places signposts to guide me on the way. I’m directed where to go next, step by small step. And so it was that one day, maybe in late 2013, I was flicking through Oprah magazine, and an article about her seven favourite soulful reads caught my eye. I shared it with my sister, Natalie, and we decided to read every one of the spiritual books on her list …
I am not sure if we could have imagined then, that some three years later, Natalie and I would be publishing an inspirational book of our own. It’s called AWAKEN: The Search is over, and it’s full of insights that we’ve gleaned during the last few eventful, eye-opening, heart-expanding years of finding our way back to our true selves—of heeding the call of the soul.
A proof copy of Awaken, hot off the presses!
I find it extraordinary because, even though, ostensibly, it was reading Oprah’s list of soulful books that eventually birthed AWAKEN, if I travel far, far back into my memory, I know this is a path I’ve been on since I was a child. As a little girl listening, entranced, to my mum’s stories of premonitions about the deaths of loved ones, I was on the path. As a child fascinated by spooks and mysteries, I was on the path. As a schoolkid who yearned to connect with something vast and all-encompassing that I felt lay beyond our world of the senses, I was on the path. As the first-time author who published Spirit Sisters, a collection of women’s experiences of the paranormal, I was on the path. As the magazine journalist who had the chance to interview Deepak Chopra and see Wayne Dyer on stage a week before his passing, I was on the path.
My first book, published in 2009.
And so it continues, and I am happy to surrender to the Divine Intelligence steering the ship—AWAKEN, the first book Natalie and I have co-authored, represents the manifestation of our joint decision to allow this Divine Intelligence to flow through us, unhindered. Many of the insights it contains arrived via Nat’s meditations, from a realm beyond the three-dimensional plane of our everyday lives. We call it a little book that creates big changes, and our ardent hope is that it helps put you on your own path back to your soul.
With my sister and co-author, Natalie.
Love,
Karina x
Stories, stories everywhere …
By the side of the road on my morning walk today in a quiet, bayside suburb south of Sydney, beneath an unblemished summer’s sky, a treat: a mirror, tall and rectangular, plain if not for the words scrawled in pink lipstick down its centre. Sadly, of these, I can only recall the beginning: “Dear mum and dad, I am going away in search of love …”
I paused briefly, surprised, before continuing on my walk, but then, just metres down the road, I had to turn around and take another look. My dog, Remy, looked at me as if to say, ‘Why are you going the wrong way?’ By the time I’d returned to the mirror, it had reeled in another passer-by. I was going to take a picture to try to record the words but I wouldn’t have been able to make them out with the light reflecting on the glass. Some of the words had also been wiped away, but one part described how the writer wouldn’t have mobile access wherever she was going, so anyone wanting to get in touch would have to take up old-fashioned pen and paper. “God forbid,” she wrote, cheekily.
On the top right-hand corner of the mirror, there was a note written on white paper. It said “free to good home,” but asked that whoever claimed the mirror see “the family” first as the mirror had much sentimental value and they wanted to make sure it went to the right place, with the right people. In all of my years as a connoisseur of kerbside treasures, I’d never seen such a thing!
For the better part of an hour, as I trudged the well-worn route home, I thought about the mirror. Who was the author? How long ago had she written her lipstick letter? Why did she write it on a mirror, instead of paper? And where did she leave it for her parents to find? I was tempted to knock on their door just to find out.
The discovery made me think of how stories surround us, how everything and everyone has a story to tell, from A-list celebrities to lovelorn teenagers living in redbrick houses in a sleepy, leafy suburb. Over the years, I’ve written about both kinds of folks, and everyone in between, and am always honoured to be entrusted with their stories … In my new book, coming in July, I explore the idea of stories as powerful healing tools. In the face of heart-cracking loss, the story of a loved one reaching out—in myriad magical and personal ways—can become a steadying, grounding force, whether the experience is shared with others or simply kept private and close.
I am fortunate enough that many wonderful subjects shared their moving stories with me for the book I’m excited to see published this year. It will be the last in the non-fiction paranormal/spiritual trilogy that began with Spirit Sisters in 2009, so now, being a storyteller, of course my thoughts are wandering in the direction of finding new stories to tell. It’s already inside me, I know, it’s just a matter of uncovering it.
Lucky, then, that there is inspiration everywhere. “Dear mum and dad, I am going away in search of love …” If I follow her, I wonder, where might she take me?
My walking buddy, our four-year-old rescue dog, Remy.
A weekend in Melbourne
Hello again, and welcome to my revamped website! For this wonderful transformation, I must thank the lovely and multi-talented Allison Langton, from Big Print Little. Allison did an amazing job of somehow intuiting exactly what I wanted for my website, and making it come true. I can’t thank her enough.
Speaking of Allison, though she’s based in Melbourne, I had the good fortune of meeting her at one of three library talks I gave there this past weekend. Allison dropped by Mill Park, but I also spoke about Spirit Sisters and Where Spirits Dwell at Eltham and Watsonia libraries (both attended by my supportive friend and fellow author, Wendy Dunn). Thanks to my kind friend Suzanne, Queen of Non-Procrastination and marketing and media coordinator at Yarra Plenty Regional Library, for organising this, for driving me around and for the endless laughs … it was so much fun!
Thanks to Lyn, the lovely librarian at Watsonia for promoting my appearance, and for the beautiful gifts!
Here I am alongside a bronze statue of I Can Jump Puddles author Alan Marshall, at Eltham Library.
It had been a while since I’d gotten out “in the field,” so to speak, to discuss my work and meet readers. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy this. One of my favourite aspects of this is how me talking about my interviewees’ experiences often opens up the floor for people in the audience to reveal their own stories. I love sitting back, listening, as others unspool a personal story that, up until then, they have usually kept close to their hearts. It’s a privilege to know they feel comfortable enough in that forum to share it with us.
On the topic of sharing stories, it’s time for me to go, as it’s Halloween eve and I have to prepare to tell a yarn of my own tomorrow night, at a live storytelling event at Cronulla’s The Brass Monkey. Despite the date, there is no spooky theme to the evening, but when I noticed that it was Oct. 31, it seemed I was fated to take the stage (gulp). Wish me luck!
Halloween is here
A family "like" the one Amy saw?
I’ve never been one to celebrate or even acknowledge Halloween, unlike my fellow author, the lovely Tara Moss, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing recently. For Tara, it is one of the key dates on the calendar. That’s not me, but I’d still like to honour the occasion, so I’m sharing one of my favourite ghost stories from Spirit Sisters. It’s called The Family, download it as a pdf at the link below.
Enjoy the chills! And happy Halloween.
Belief in the afterlife: the gift of hope
An artist's impression of the sun consuming the earth
It’s amazing how often stunning synchronicities edge into our lives, though we usually give them little notice. One happened just then, as I was readying to post this link to my guest blog on the lovely Rebecca Dettman’s website (Bec is my former WHO colleague and a talented journalist and intuitive).
The subject of my musings in the guest blog is how a belief in the afterlife affords, above all else, hope. In the post – and in Spirit Sisters – I share the story of how as a child, I’d read a text book which rattled me for months. I’ll never forget how starkly it described how one day, the sun would obliterate the earth. It was a case of when, not if, and I couldn’t sleep afterwards, trying to imagine this vacuum, this vast nothingness.
Only my budding interest in the paranormal assuaged, to some extent, my fears. The promise of something existing in some distant realm, beyond the reach of the wrecking ball sun, was a wonderful gift.
You can read my entire post here:
