“ I was born in London, trained in London, travelled widely and came to Australia as a young nurse in 1986. I arrived in Sydney and thought the streets were paved in gold. I never came with the intention of immigrating and even though I’ve been back to the UK Australia is my home.
The first time I went to India was 1988. A girlfriend and I travelled all through South East Asia and we spent 6 months in India. That’s when I had my first love affair with India and came across Tibetan Buddhism. I met some beautiful Monks and I remember sitting with one and having the feeling I had come home somehow. It took me a while, there’s been a lot of sex, drugs and rock n roll over the years, still a tiny bit of that but with a good mix now of Tibetan Buddhism which I consider is my path as opposed to the other.
I spent 10 years in Sydney working as a nurse in Intensive Care and I had a shift where I decided I didn’t want to work with people on the end of ventilators anymore. I wanted to work with people in education and groundwork and I wanted to work with people who were more marginalised.
I went for a job at the Kirkton Road Centre which was a new primary health centre in those days. It’s huge now. This was in the late 80’s, early 90’s when HIV just hit. All our friends were dropping like fly’s, the grim reaper was on TV, everybody was freaking out they were all going to get AIDS. The Kirkton Road Centre was set up to address the health care needs of injecting drug users, sex workers, street kids and transexuals. I started working there and that’s when I really found my calling. We did street work and we were some of the early pioneers handing out needles, doing the needle syringe program, handing out condoms, going into brothels, sex on premises venues, doing a lot of community advocacy, educating people that giving people a needle or a condom doesn’t mean that they’re going to have sex more or they’re going to inject more, it just means they are going to do it safely. I did that job for years.
I read the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and it changed my life. I suddenly had this feeling that I had to go and find my future so I actually left Kirkton Rd which was a difficult decision as I loved it and it was a good job. I went to Dharumshala. I met the Dalai Lama and totally immersed myself. I met this Belgian guy and we ended up living there together, usual story. I was on my spiritual journey (laughs). That lasted 5 years actually. We ended up having a crazy wedding and he came back to Australia with me several years later.
I came back to Australia about 18 months later and I had met a guy in Dharumshala who told me about this Tibetan Gumpa in Kyogle so we moved up to the North Coast to find it. I had decided that I wanted to live up here as I had come up many times for holidays. We found the Gumpa and moved up in 1996 to Georgica. We had chooks and a couple of donkeys, kind of living the dream but a bit too isolated so we slowly moved over to the coast. In the meantime I started working in Lismore as a drug and alcohol counsellor and then in the Sexual Health service. I was also doing some work in Family Planning.
I separated from my partner and bought a house in Bangalow. Later that year I went to India and I met Bobby. We ended up in a geographically impossible relationship where he was living in Oslo and I was in Bangalow. Travelling back and forward. In 2002 I packed up my house, rented it out and bought a one way ticket to Oslo. I lived there for 6 1/2 years. I was so lonely and so bored. The summers were great but the winters were difficult.
I started working in a Tibetan Buddhist centre there and met the most beautiful Lama. Lama Changchup who still remains my good friend. I told him I was going out of my mind so he told to work in the bookshop. I loved it and in the meantime I forgot to tell you I had gone to India to meet my Guru and it wasn’t till I came back and moved up here that I met Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche who is my Guru.
I went to India a lot while I was in Oslo. I started doing retreats there and I met Dr Rob and said ‘Hey if you need any projects doing, I’m available.’ He said, ‘Actually we need a health care centre and a vaccination program set up in Rinpoche’s Monastery.’ I said ‘I’m your girl.’ I used to do the Hep B vaccination programs in all the Aboriginal communities in the Northern Rivers. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. Not long after I went over and I met a beautiful Tibetan nurse who spoke excellent English, Hindi and Tibetan. Together with the help of Dr Rob and another friend Maggie we set up a whole Hepatitis B Vaccination program. We managed to test over 600 monks at the Monastery and a lot of the working staff as well. We vaccinated all those who hadn’t already been exposed to the virus. Hep B is a huge problem in the Tibetan community and in South East Asia generally.
Basically with Hep B you need 3 injections so we went through the process of registering all the monks which is difficult because they all have the same name and none of them know their date of birth. They need one injection then another after a month and another 6 months later. That time was the happiest I’ve ever been.
I spent a lot more time in Oslo and Europe and finally in 2008 I cam back to Australia and started work at the Liver Clinic here in Lismore. We were instrumental in treating people with Hepatitis C. I left there and did some volunteer work in Bhutan where I set up a health clinic for the Monks in a place called Dewathang. It’s very remote and there’s very few facilities. I took over all these supplies and set up a curriculum with a friend who was an Osteopath and a teacher. I lived with the Monks for 5 weeks and I taught them all about anatomy, physiology, health care, nutrition and hygiene. They all made posters about how germs are spread. We made up songs and we talked about food safety because they have no idea about germs. We are all taught here from such an early age. Again I was so happy.
Bobby and I spent a lot of time after that in Sri Lanka doing pilgrimage. My father had a massive stroke and we went back to help my mother with his funeral. I was asked if we would go back to Bhutan and we would teach. Bobby was going to teach Chemistry, Physics and Maths and I was going to teach Biology. I was already training up some Monks to be health care workers.
We were having trouble getting our visas and the day they came through my mum was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer so I went back to England to look after her. I was there for a year and then Bobby’s mum had a stroke and we looked after her. I never got back to Bhutan. It always sits quite heavily on my heart.
We came back here 2 1/2 years ago and I’ve been working in sexual health. I’ve also been working at the staff health clinic at Lismore Base and now I have this feeling that I want to go back to India. We are going in October and planning on living there for 3 years in the foothills of the Himalayas. There is a little house being built and we’ve kind of put our name on it. We’ll go to Kerala first through the winter.
I’ll go to the Monastery again and see how the clinics running. I want to see how the vaccination programs going. Who knows? It’s all open.
A friend of mine has approached me. She is Australian but living in England and she runs workshops for health care workers in SE Asia on HIV and discrimination and stigma. She and her girlfriend have just had a baby and she has asked me if I could continue her work for her. It looks like I will be running some workshops in SE Asia which is an area I have been working in for 28 years on and off.
I have been working very closely with Siddhartha’s Intent in Australia for many years and I’m in charge of all the logistics that go on in Australia. I oversee all the programs and have teams of people working for me in each state of Australia. They host our different teachers so that’s my other hat which I continue to do.
I sing in a choir in Bangalow with Imogen Wolf. I also love boxing. I get up at 5.30 every morning twice a week with our amazing teacher Heidi who lives between Bangalow and Newrybar. She’s converted her shed into the most amazing gym and boxing studio.
I’ll come back. I always come back. I love Lismore. I’ve seen so many changes here since 1996 when I first arrived. So many great, cool people who have moved here, lots of awesome things going on all the time. I love it! I’ve been coming and going now for 22 years and I’m always drawn back. Everybody’s hearts and arms are always open and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I feel very connected here.”