The Many Adventures That Have Shaped My Life

A Life Shaped by Transformation

I grew up in a small German village in the 1970s — a spirited child of two worlds. My father, a Sicilian guest worker, passed on to me a deep intensity and passion for life, while my German-Czech mother instilled in me a love of travel, spirituality, and freedom. Life at home was turbulent, and by sixteen I was ready to set out on my own. I worked odd jobs — from bartending in a heavy metal club to writing about music for a local magazine — until, one day in 1992, I packed my old VW Derby, picked up a friend in Siegen, and drove to London. No plan, no safety net — just a fierce longing to live as a music journalist in the city of my dreams.

The Kerrang! Years

Here, life unfolded swiftly and magically. Within days, we were living with the musician Zodiac Mindwarp — whom I had once interviewed in Germany — and working in London’s Carnaby Street. My job selling T-shirts happened to be opposite the entrance to Kerrang!, the heavy-metal magazine I adored. Every lunchtime I would gaze at that door, imagining the day I might walk through it. A few months later, tired of the low pay and routine, I called Kerrang! on a whim and introduced myself as a German music journalist. By a remarkable coincidence, they were about to launch a German edition — and a few days later, I walked out of their London office with a job as Deputy Editor. I was twenty-one.

Those years were wild and exhilarating — filled with concerts, interviews, and late nights in smoky venues where the air pulsed with sound and possibility. It was a time of freedom, intensity, and fearlessness — the beginning of a lifelong journey of following inner callings wherever they might lead.

Misanthropy Records

 My work at Kerrang! soon led me into the emerging Norwegian black-metal scene, where musicians were making headlines for burning churches in acts of rebellion and dark devotion. I was fascinated by the raw intensity of their music. One of them, a young man named Varg Vikernes, was arrested for murder while I was covering the story. The music world was shocked — no label wanted to touch him.

I believed in his talent and tried to help him find a new deal, but every door closed until a Sicilian label owner said, “If it matters so much to you, why don’t you do it yourself?” I laughed — I had no money, no experience — but he offered his help, and before I knew it, I was founding my own record company. Misanthropy Records was born.

Fortune seemed to conspire with me. My accountant turned out to be a former bank manager, who arranged a loan; the Sicilian man gave me practical advice; distributors advanced payments for future releases. Suddenly the industry that had mocked me was knocking at my door. Within months, Misanthropy Records had international attention, interviews with BBC and MTV, and more bands wanting to sign than I could handle. I was twenty-two, running a successful label, earning more than I ever imagined, and one of the very few women in that scene.

I moved from London to a big house by a cemetery on England’s east coast and poured myself into the work. But after six years, the fire began to fade. My days were filled with numbers, contracts, and endless paperwork. I felt trapped, restless, and hungry for something deeper. Evening courses in psychology and English literature opened a new horizon, and I began to dream of a different life.

The final straw came one summer at the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. Surrounded by drunken men, plastic cups, and chaos, I suddenly saw with painful clarity that I didn’t belong there anymore. I left the festival, sat in a nearby park, and decided to close the label — at the height of its success. Back in England, I gathered my staff and bands, announced my decision, paid severance, and shut everything down. Everyone thought I was crazy. But for me, it was another true act of freedom and authenticity.

The Inner Turn

Looking back, I realise I had suffered burnout — a word that hardly existed at the time. I took a year off to rest and reorient myself, then began studying psychology. I had always been fascinated by prisons and the criminal mind and planned to train as a forensic psychologist. At the same time, I entered the Priestess of Avalon training in Glastonbury, drawn to the ancient Celtic goddess traditions.

While my left brain studied statistics, my right learned ritual. By the end of my three-year psychology degree, which included project work in prisons, I knew one thing for certain: spirituality was far more effective and sustainable than the kind of psychology then practised behind bars.

And so I became a Pagan chaplain, working in several men’s prisons. I offered classes in Celtic spirituality and led rituals for the inmates. It was a deeply instructive time — witnessing raw humanity, hope, and despair in equal measure.

But after a few years, the work began to take its toll. I was increasingly assigned to high-risk sexual offenders and received no supervision or emotional support. Little by little, I found myself carrying their stories home.

Breakdown, Breakthrough, and the Call of the Road

At thirty-two, my life fell apart — triggered by a difficult relationship and deep inner exhaustion. What I first saw as a breakdown later revealed itself as a breakthrough. Over the next two years, I slowed down, sought therapy, and began to heal my past, especially the wounds of childhood. My spiritual path deepened, and I shed everything that no longer fit — including prison work, the fascination with serial killers, and the black-metal world. I began leading rituals and ceremonies in my community and writing more seriously. A new creative chapter began.

Then, three years later, my old childhood dream of travelling the world resurfaced with force. I longed to be free again. A newspaper article about a pagan tribe in the Hindu Kush celebrating the winter solstice caught my attention — and within minutes I had booked a place on the journey. “Now or never,” I thought. I sold or gave away nearly all my belongings, stored the rest, and planned to travel overland to Pakistan by train — a route most people said was impossible.

On 15 September 2007, I left England with a backpack and the greatest sense of freedom I had ever known. The nine-month trip I had planned turned into ten years of nomadic life across the world. I lived and worked in many countries, but India soon became my spiritual home. I lived in ashrams, studied yoga and meditation, and wrote my first book, Meeting Shiva – Falling and Rising in Love in the Indian Himalayas, a memoir of love, loss, and transcendence in the Himalayas. Those years gifted me with extraordinary experiences and encounters that continue to inform my work.

Return, Roots, and Grace

By 2017, after a decade on the road, I felt full to the brim with stories and ready to root again — to share what I had gathered. Twenty-five years abroad had left me longing to reconcile with my origins, so I returned to my native Germany to begin a new chapter. There, I started working as an author, speaker, and teacher. Drawn to the mysteries of dying and renewal, I trained as an end-of-life companion and travelled once more to Varanasi, India, to collaborate on an exhibition about death rituals in the “City of Light.”

I realised that death remains one of our culture’s last taboos — and that by bringing it back into conversation, we bring it back into life. When we understand something, we no longer need to fear it. This insight inspired my talk A Good Death: Living and Dying in the City of Light, created together with Indian photographers Atin Mehra and Krishna Singh. Through my writing, talks, and workshops, I invite others to see death not as an end, but as a sacred and transformative passage.

Alongside this work, I co-led a three-year yogic studies training with my colleague Julia Hilgert, offering a deeply embodied understanding of the Indian yoga tradition. In 2024, we travelled to India with our students for a study journey to the Himalayas.

From 2021 to 2024, I lived in an old mill deep in the forest — a wild, magical place that nourished my writing and spiritual practice. Yet after twenty-five years abroad, I found myself unable to fully reconnect with German culture. The pull of my beloved England grew stronger, and I decided to return.

When my father died in November 2024, I embarked on a spontaneous pilgrimage through Italy and Sicily, reconnecting with my ancestral roots, Italian spirituality, and the living presence of the Saints. That journey became the seed of my forthcoming memoir, Per Grazia Ricevuta (By Grace Received) — a story of loss, love, and ancestral grace.

Return to England

After this pilgrimage, I returned to England, a country that has shaped much of my creative and spiritual life. I am currently training in Restorative Justice and returning to prison work, while continuing my vocation as a freelance writer. Through all these paths, I explore the thresholds between life and death, matter and mystery, self and soul.

How can I inspire you? Drop me a line!