So where do I begin with my story? Do I begin with being born in apartheid South Africa at 6:40 one cold highveldt July morning in 1961, to my nineteen year old English-Welsh mother and twenty one year old Afrikaans-Dutch father? Already we have an amalgamation of stories; of cultures. My European ancestors breathed new life into their story by emigrating to the unknown southern tip of Africa. Settings changed, new characters and new challenges were introduced.

Or do I begin with where I presently find myself – in paradise on the opposite of the world – on the balmy weather tropical garden island known as Kauai? Here my story is so different to the one I lived in South Africa. In South Africa I became a teacher where the policy of Christian National Education was lived. The story changed as my then husband and I left Johannesburg and moved to Cape Town. Once again a new setting, new opportunities and new characters ensured a recycled story. I became a corporate consultant and focused on leadership development. With this came exposure to personal development and travel. Once again the character of Sharon changed from the inside out.

My former husband and I decided to resign, sell up or give away most possessions and leave South Africa to travel to different spiritual centers with a sustainability focus. Death to an old way of life. Birth to being learning nomads. Little did we know that the journey would take us to various Vipassana Centers where I learned to be silent for days on end, and through focus on my breath, cultivate mindfulness.

Then living at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur , California, for three years also exposed me to constant transformation. My beliefs about nudity and body image were totally rewired through exposure to the healing waters and rituals of the hot tubs. Learning the techniques of massage, at the same time as my former partner whom I had met when I was thirteen, meant having to look at what touch had come to mean to us . In addition literally hundreds of workshops, many based on gestalt psychology ensured I examined many other beliefs I held, mostly unconsciously.

And then that chapter also came to a close, and we resigned from the sustainability project team and made our way to Hawaii. Why Hawaii? While we lived at Esalen we often commented on how it was paradise. Esalen is tucked on the edge of the cliffs above the vast Pacific Ocean, and has beautiful organic gardens. “Where” we wondered, “could we go that would be as idyllic?” Everything pointed to Kauai: books, conversations, even chocolates we were given came from Hawaii. My former husband was a surfer and had been to Hawaii as a young man. I had read Serge Kahili’s book The Urban Shaman (Serge lives on the island of Kauai) while at Esalen. It was from this book that I took the name Haipule.

Despite Kauai’s incredible beauty and nurturing, our lives totally disintegrated on Kauai. Being illegal aliens created certain pressures, and we found ourselves dealing with having to swallow our pride in order to sustain ourselves. This together with addiction issues finally led to the dissolution of our marriage.

Two years later, I have remarried and once again a new story begins to unfold.

We’re all constantly living a story. The more conscious we become of this, the more we can ensure that it is a story we’re excited to be in, and can experience to the full.

My plork (play + work) is about enhancing this unfolding story: yours and mine. For together, we create the new story. With information and the opportunity to entertain different possibilities we get to decide whether this is a story of repeating what doesn’t serve us or the planet; or whether it is a story of hope and having the courage to try new behaviors that may serve us and the planet better.

Astrological counseling and life coaching are tools to help us with this.