I was raised with magick and spirituality as part of my everyday life and I continue to walk the path this way, to this day.
My biggest influence was my mother who comes from Greek Egyptian roots. She was a magickal practitioner and was the one who taught and infused my life with Hermetic and Greek Folk Magick and was in turn taught by her aunt who studied in Alexandria, Egypt under a Magus.
Having been heavily influenced by my mother’s deeply spiritual nature, who taught me that a connection and devotion to deity as well as nature is a gateway to higher forms of magick, which not only transcends the physical but lives within it, I developed an appreciation and deep love of the occult early on. As I matured, I sought the connection in other faiths, modalities of healing and divination whilst also working with various expressions of sorcery.
I was free (on the most part) to be a true seeker, unlike my mother and aunt who had to blend their magickal tradition along with Christianity (Greek Orthodox) due to having to hide it for fear of discrimination. I practiced my own familial tradition from a very young age with the guidance of my mother. In my teen years, I branched out as I researched and experimented as a “solitary” magickal practitioner with respects to other systems. At 18, I entered the public spiritual/magickal community to be able to meet with like-minded others.
During the subsequent years with some ascendant highlights and cataclysmic low-lights, I maintained my deep love and appreciation for the Ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian paths whist also skirting other traditions I have a familial connection to.
My first full time job out of tertiary education (DBA) I was working for an agricultural manufacturing company for several years. Seeing how they were manipulating the seeds and grains (GMO) it really opened my eyes to what companies were doing to our food and I developed a fascination with natural and holistic health. I left that role to go back to school and study a Bac of Health Science (Naturopathy) whilst continuing to work in food manufacturing, which included a well known vitamin supplementation company, before finally moving into the education sector. This “working” aspect of my life greatly influenced my magickal and spiritual attributes and I personally wouldn’t have taken any other path since I learned so much.
I developed into a highly intuitive psychic reader and medium thanks to my mother’s guidance, however at the age of 21, I joined the American Tarot Association after discovering tarot at the age of 15 and over time became a Tarot Councillor. My tarot card readings went from reading on my family’s kitchen table for relatives and friends, to a professional reader in various new age stores for clients.
I have also worked as a crystologist for a crystal wholesaler, with various new age and magickal retail stores as a tarot reader (incorporating astrology, palm reading and numerology), an energetic healer as well as workshop facilitator in various occult, spiritual and vibrational medicines and I continue to offer readings, workshops and courses to this day.
At the same age, I joined my first Wiccan coven: Temple of Ka Ibis/Temple of the Wise (Church of Wicca) whom I circled with for 3 years. I took on the craft name A’set and went from being an initiated cowan (seeker) to being an initiated priestess. This tradition of wicca was the Elphame current which has its roots in the Celtic path and was brought to Australia by Rhiannon Ryall whom I was fortunate to meet with a few years before her passing. After leaving our mother coven, myself and a few other initiates created our own coven called Runamaka which we co-ran for 7 years.
Through my Wiccan coven I discovered Reiki and various forms of energetic healing and after much study and practice I became a qualified Tibetan Reiki, Usui Reiki, Isis Seichim and Sekhmet Sekhem Master. These qualifications took just over 8 years to attain because I wanted to work and master each initiation for a full year so I could treat clients and train students in a encompassing and thorough way.
After the Runamaka coven dissolved, I ran my own coven for 5 years called “House of Egyptian Magicians”, which focused on Tamerian and Hermetic ceremonial rituals and workings.
I joined the Fellowship of Isis around the same time I joined my first Wiccan coven but it wasn’t until my mid 20’s that I eventually found a Lyceum to join and after several years of study and practice was initiated to the level of Priestess Hierophant and opened up my own Fellowship of Isis Lyceum of Heka which I continue to run to this day. In 2015, I became a ArchPriest and was inducted in The ArchPriesthood Union of the FOI Union Triad: ArchPriesthood Union.
It was around this time I felt stagnated by the Celtic tradition of Wicca I was involved with. This was due to the fact I didn’t feel the blood connection or aligned to the tradition deep down inside of me so I travelled overseas to Greece for a spiritual sojourn. This is what I needed as I travelled around the sacred sites which inspired and reinvigorated me. This trip also allowed me to network with local Hellenics and find out more about my ancestral history which fed the connections I was seeking to my blood ties.
The other temples/magickal groups I have joined and been a contributing member to over the years (other than the above mentioned) are:
Founding Member and Torchbearer of The Covenant of Hekate running the The Sanctuary of Hekate’s Crossroads . As of February 2016 I resigned from the COH;
Shemsu at a Kemetic Orthodox Temple: House of Netjer;
Member of Haitian Vodou house Sosyete Fos Fe Yo We;
Master Mason in Lodge of The Southern Cross in Co-Masonry (Scottish Rite). As of the end of 2016 my mother lodge has now closed. I remain an upstanding member;
Founding Member of Georgian Wiccan Coven BlueStone Luth. As of the end of 2016 this coven has been closed by its HPS.
I’ve always had a love of reading and writing and after editing and contributing to the “Witchtower”, a short lived in house publication for my first wiccan coven and sharing my poetry at a few of my covens gatherings I realized that my love for writing was being developed on a deeper scale, especially when I often wrote detailed rituals for my coven complete with poetic invocations. I went on to complete several writing courses in order to give me more structure and confidence and after this started my first public foray of writing which was a short event article on the International Tarot Conference in the mid 00’s in the hard copy mag ” Witchcraft Magazine “.
Since then I have been published in several books: Hekate: Her Sacred Fires, Memento Mori, Beyond the Pillars: An Anthology of Pagan Fantasy, The Queen of the Sky Who Rules Over All the Gods: A Devotional Anthology in Honor of Bast, With Lyre and Bow: A Devotional in Honor of Apollo, First and Last: A Devotional for Hestia, She Who Speaks Through Silence: An Anthology for Nephthys and magazines MAGICK, Starlit Path, Isis Seshat, Isian News, Mirror of Isis, Spirit & Spell, Goddess Guru, Axis Mundi, Avalon, The Sacred Circle, The Australian Pagan Magazine, Askei Kataskei, The Alternative Spirit, Brigantia (FOI), Wyld Zine and Mystic Tribe.
In 2015 I was fortunate enough to edit a book which I proposed to Bibliotheca Alexandrina (a small non for profit publishing house which publishes anthologies featuring contemporary Hellenic and Kemetic polytheist authors in honour of the Gods). I also contributed to this anthology as the devotional was on the subject of one of my main patrons – Sekhmet. The book is called Sekhmet Daughter of the Sun: A Devotional Anthology in Honor of Sekhmet and it can be purchased here:
I’m sure there are things I have missed but this is just some information about me and where I come from 🙂
Setjataset 