I graduated from the Maryland Institute of Art (now MICA) with a BFA in Craft Design in 1966 and an MFA in Art Education in 1975. I never had a passion for teaching, but the flexible post-grad curriculum allowed me to take many ‘elective’ classes in whatever media I chose. After graduation I plied a trade in clay, fiber and metal, dogged by the dilemma most artists face—how to make money without prostituting ones’ talent for commercialism, how to balance a ‘day job’ with other creative pursuits, how to ask for fair compensation. I never resolved these issues to my satisfaction. My one sizeable commission from the City of Baltimore for a ceramic mural on a public building was destroyed by vandals.

Enter my Saturn Opposition. For the astrologically uninitiated, this period, occurring in the mid-forties, corresponds to the mid-life crisis. I was duly discouraged and disheartened. My search for a more hopeful future led me to the domain of a local astrologer for a reading of my ‘horoscope’. It was 1987, year of the Harmonic Convergence, a wake-up call for humanity. Enlightenment at last!

Based on something called a ‘soul mission’ I stepped onto a spiritual path and focused my attention on more cerebral pursuits.

I studied astrology and became a practitioner. I trained in past life regression therapy. I learned to channel from a book. I brought art back into the equation by becoming a SoulCollage® workshop facilitator. I combined all of these modalities into client work. I wrote and wrote and wrote—FREE articles for a variety of online metaphysical newsletters, workbooks for online classes, marketing materials for my business…but up until now, never a novel. Education in this new genre has presented many challenges.  

Channeling Josephine Callot is one product of a thirty-year exploration of my own karmic history, the length and breadth of millennia of incarnations. A personal healing journey, I only recently decided to write about it. I zeroed in on a predominant theme–strong independent women navigating lives in oppressive patriarchal cultures. Early feminists! Josephine’s story fits the mold. It is unique, compelling, emotional, tragic, and inspiring. She wanted me to tell it with the care and compassion it deserves.