About Me

Hi, I'm Tigerlily.

I am an experienced Reiki Master, Relfexologist, New Zeland Registered Teacher and Eco-therapist with more than 20 years experience in facilitating groups.

I am a earthcentric, nature lover born and raised in Aoteatoa New Zealand.

Raised on a 100 acre dairy farm,on the lower slopes of Maunga (Mt) Taranaki, I found solace alone in the wild places from an early age. There was much tree climbing, creek combing, horse riding and dangling in branches over ponds, examining the underwater world. I wrote stories in the sweeping branches of my favourite pine tree and day dreamed in my mother's dream creation, a large English Country style garden amongst the roses, love in the mist, poppies and honeysuckle. The fairy zone, where the cultivated met the
rambunctious wild spirit of the native trees taking over a massive old macrocarpa tree stump, was a favourite place.

It was this garden that I was inspired to try to capture in my very first Mandalas. My Mum had passed away in 2000 and when my Dad died suddenly in 2014 we had a year until the farm and garden were sold.

It was early spring time and while I was in the garden picking a few flowers and interesting leaves I was wondering how I could preserve these fleeting treasures that I would not have the opportunity to experience again.

I placed them on the lawn and began to take a few photos. I soon noticed certain elements looked good paired together and, through experimentation, began to create some patterns.

I decided that each month I would travel out to the farm and collect a selection of flowers and foliage to
create these patterns with, as a way of recording the garden and honouring the spirit of my parents who had poured decades of love and work into the place. Many of those pictures are lost now, but I treasure the ones that I have.

Over the next few years I did a few creations, often with beach treasures while I was on holiday from a hectic schedule of full time teaching and mothering. Sometimes I would have a child or two who, like me, would be natural fossickers and collectors of rocks, seeds and fallen flowers. We could sort and shape the finds and create patterns while we were at it. This always brought me so much joy.

It was a move to the country and stepping away from teaching during the pandemic that truly began to
enliven my love of creativity using flowers and natural elements. I was able to plant a new garden on a bare landscape and incorporate many flowers and trees I had ony been able to dream about on a city section.

My fossicking tendencies meant I began collecting interesting feathers, fallen nests and other treasure
gifted to me by this land and river. Soon these began making their way into my Mandalas and my work
became more informed by ecotherapy and a need to re-ground myself to earth and place after the anxiety
of the pandemic.

I always felt very rooted to my home farm, to my tiny community and mostly to the predictable slopes of
the Volcanic Taranaki ring plain, with its undulations shaped by water and lahar. Maunga Taranaki, in particular, with his dominating presence, became so embedded within that to this day I feel a lingering sense of disorientation when I'm in landscapes with 360 degree low horizons. Without a
moutain how does one orientate oneslf?

I've always been curious how the landscape features, the stones, soil, water and trees we are raised with, intersect and shape our stories, our bodies and our cultures. Stories help us to connect, weave meaning and deepen the roots of our belonging, regardless of which culture we are from. When we begin to open our senses to the landscape, when we begin to in-habit both the land and our bodies, we re-member our
place in the bioshphere. We are part of nature not outside it. Our senses and stories will lead the way to reconnection if we allow them.

It is the changing naturescape, both inner and outer, that I aim to capture in my Mandalas. The journey through the seasonal year, with its echoes in the rhythmic arc of each day, each month and each lifetime
provides a rich and sensual expression of this moment in place and time.

These themes of the predictable but ever changing, liminal nature of our own lives and the world around us form the basis of my workshops and courses on earth-centred seasonal living and tea cermony. They aid the reclaimation of a deep awareness of natural rhythms and symbols, with ritual practice and an expanded sense of well-being.