The life of Kye Crow

I would like to share my latest feedback with you from Living Now magazine for my book Ghosts & Ghoumas

You know you’re going to be in for a wild ride full of chaos and adventure when you realise that the author of the book you’ve just sat down to read once sold her home, got rid of all her possessions and took a 2000 kilometre trip through central Australia with eight camels, her life partner and a random menagerie of 50 rescued animals.
Kye is a natural storyteller, an engaging raconteur who recounts her stories with wit, warmth and enthusiasm. And there are so many stories. The first chapter is called “Let the Current Take You”, as she casts off her misery and asks Spirit to show her the way to happiness, unaware of the adventures it would bring.
The book is a page-turner as we read about the events of her remarkable life: the time her house burnt down and they escaped with nothing but the clothes on their backs, the visits from “Rainbow Man”, an eight foot tall being who would come to visit Kye, and long-dead old women who offer warnings about imminent danger.
Her writing style is down to earth and colourful, and there are moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity. It’s easy to imagine yourself sharing a cup of hot chai as you swap stories in the morning sunshine.

There is no doubt its a wild ride and if you have read it you will be surprised to hear that it didn’t even occur to me I had a story worth telling until I was writing Long Walk Home ,the story of our journey of trust through the desert with all our rescued animals,destination unknown!!! People kept asking me, what had led me to take such a leap in faith. They were rather gob smacked when I began to recount my experience of living in India for six months after all my money was stolen with no income or finances to back me up, just trusting I would be looked after each day and I was, in miraculous ways! But the magic of Ghosts & Ghoumas did not end there. There were many other times I was asked to trust totally in my life including when I was uncovering a trail of arson,after my home was burnt down by rather a large religious insitituton and would you believe that my guidance came from the ghost of an old lady!!! So many people describe it as un put down able,its definitely a riveting read with never a dull moment,but it offers so much more.

We have reached a time on the planet where its essential that to anchor a new way of living on earth we embrace a totally new way. We don’t create change following the same well worn tracks. Ghosts gift is that through sharing my stories I awaken an awareness in you that will help you believe in your own worth and embrace a life of trust.

Please enjoy chapter one. You can listen to it on You tube or,if your internet is not that great,read it for yourself and if you love it and would like to buy it,click on the links below. Enjoy my friends.

Let The Current take you

Chapter One

One of the best lessons I ever learnt was at the top of a 44 metre Bungi tower, stomach churning as I waited for the person in front of me to jump. She had already been counted down from five to one and hadn’t moved and after a second countdown, was still standing quaking at the top. I felt wrung out with anxiety watching every tortured countdown and I swore then, I would jump first time. There was no way I would need a second go, or a third which is what she’d needed before she finally jumped. If you’ve got something shitty to do, whatever it is, do not falter; get it over and done with. There is far less stress in life when you do!

And that’s why I was walking boldly, even though I felt anxious and totally uncool, clutching my almost new, Dr Marten boots that I didn’t wear because they pinched my toes toward the market. I was a woman on a mission!

This is a journey that began over twenty years ago now in 1991,when my life, a big old mess until then, cracked open. It began in Goa, India on the shores of the Arabian sea in the already sweaty hours of the early morning as the sun turned everything amber. It began in the colourful cacophony of early dawn, as I walked up the beach, passing the menfolk taking there early morning shits, bums hanging over the ocean as they clung to the rocks that buttressed from the shallow waters of the sea, whilst cows that looked to be cut from card, sat chewing they’re cardboard cud.

Even though it was early, the beach was already throbbing with life. The beach sellers were busy, poking and prodding sleeping party goers that had crashed on the beach somewhere during the night before and looked up dazed when a man with yellowed teeth and apricot turban tried to sell them a piece of juicy watermelon. There were women wearing brightly coloured sari’s with huge baskets of mirrored sarongs balanced on there heads and those dodgy men I’d already been warned about, the ear cleaners who often dropped a tiny stone into someone’s ear, to entice them to pay to remove it. They wouldn’t get anywhere near me!

There was no doubt I felt nervous as I entered my destination, the Anjuna markets with its smells of cumin and spice and the sizzle of samosa’s and bhaji’s cooking in oil, laced with the smell of cow shit and pigs and sweet chai bubbling everywhere and endlessly on single gas burners and mud earth stoves. The market was a feast of colour, lurid green saris next to shocking pinks, piles of embroidered and mirrored blankets, the apricot robes of a sadhu who had a long grey beard that trailed to his knees.

As I walked up the aisle a couple of bony yet holy cows sat chewing their cud , blocking the flow as people waited to walk, reverentially around them, whilst a gypsy seller, wanting me to buy some beads, jabbed me so aggressively in my arm with her finger, she left a small pea size bruise.

I was looking for somewhere I could sit and I finally found a tiny patch of free ground between two stalls. On one side three younger women, with huge elaborate nose rings and wearing ornately mirrored and embroidered choli tops looked down at the ground giggling shyly whenever I looked their way. They sat, bums in the dirt with they’re tribal wares spread out on sarongs in front of them

I felt so foolish as I placed my almost new Dr Marten boots on the sand in front of me, arranging my hand drawn for sale sign, at their toes. I only had one thing to sell and all the other stalls were laden with goods. To make matters worse I had become the centre of attention, nothing happens in India without an audience, and more often than not, its men

A group had gathered around me and they starred at my boots and then at me, almost as if they were waiting for my show to begin, only I hadn’t got one. This is it folks, one pair of boots! I felt ridiculous for even thinking I could sell them for a decent price in India, but I had to trust, the feeling to sell them had been so strong.

This was not how I’d imagined my first week in India to be; yet if I wanted to stay I had to sell something and the only thing I had left of value besides my boots was my camera, I was not parting with that.

Even though I felt vulnerable and unsure what was going to happen next, even though I felt way out of my depth and very much alone, I could feel I was sitting on the pulse of an experience that was too big to ignore or run away from and everything in my life was whispering softly,” Just let go, just let go Kye” and as I surrendered to the moment I had never felt so free.

I was so absorbed by the scenes around me, it was hard to focus on what I needed to do and that was sell my boots! There was a tiny pig rolling in the dirt, playing with a scruffy puppy. A holy man walked pass wearing bright saffron coloured robes, his long grey dreadlocks trailing below his bum, his body lithe and muscled. He was carrying a three-pronged trident and a bright red shiny bucket which made him look as if he was on his way to fight a fire.

As the sun rose higher, the tourists began to leak in, some looking as if they’d come straight from one of the dance parties that Goa was famous for, with they’re faces painted, trailing glitter and wearing psychedelic body suits. A couple of gruff looking men, black leathered and testy with grey pouchy faces, were parking they’re hired Enfield motorbikes at the back of someone’s stall whilst some other tourists haggled over the price of a sarong. My audience had soon dispersed and apart from the odd glance most people walked past as if I wasn’t there which didn’t exactly reassure me I was going to make a fast sale.

The wafts of curries and other Goan cuisine being cooked in all the ramshackle huts that edged the market was making me ravenous, but I couldn’t eat until I’d sold my boots and no one had showed the slightest interest…yet.

When I had originally booked my ticket to Delhi, an older man in the travel agents had asked me if I’d ever been to India before. When I replied no, he offered the best advice anyone could have ever given me. ‘It’s like a river. ‘ He said. “You just have to throw yourself in and let the current take you.’ And that’s what I was doing, sitting on the sand hoping to sell my lonesome pair of Dr Martin boots. I had thrown myself into the river but I hadn’t expected the current would be so strong

I had been in India less than a week when my bag was stolen. It contained my travellers’ cheques, a large amount of cash, the opals I’d brought to trade and every single rupee I had. I was left with nothing, except my camera. I had been washing at a well, with my bag right beside me. As I lifted up the bucket to rinse my hair, someone must have slithered in and snatched it.

The moment I realised my bag had gone I went into a panic. I raced around hysterically for half an hour, searching everywhere I’d been, asking everyone I knew if they’d seen it—even people I didn’t know—and the whole time I had this knowing ache in my gut that told me it had gone! As I collapsed onto the sand, I had no idea what I would do, and for a while I sat there feeling absolutely stunned.

Then I became aware of someone standing near me. I have no idea who; I was totally submerged within myself. As they spoke, I listened —’you must feel terrible losing everything’—and something within me began to change. I thought about their words for a while, really letting them sink in. I knew how I was supposed to feel. Most of us divide experiences into ‘good’ or ‘bad’—a common language we all understand. But what I discovered once I got past how I was programmed to react was that I didn’t feel terrible at all. In fact, I felt absolutely amazing! I was astonished to discover this.

Getting in touch with how I felt, instead of how I was expected to feel, opened a doorway to one of the most treasured experiences of my life—one that I would not have given up for anything. Yes, adversity can be transformed. What I was to discover was that having all your money stolen in India can be a wonderful experience if you are open to letting go of programmed responses that simply block the flow of abundance in your life.

One thing was for certain; I didn’t have to worry about my bag anymore. The stories I had been told about how some Indians parted travellers from their cash had included sending monkeys in to collect bags while people slept, drugging food that knocks you out then stealing everything as you lay unconscious, and putting bamboo poles with pads soaked in ether through your window as you slept to etherise you, then breaking in and taking everything. Stealing in India was a fine art and I had begun to feel so paranoid, as if I was dealing with a corrupted spider man who had all these magical abilities he could use to free me from my cash. I would not have been at all surprised to be told they could slither through bars on a window and manifest like a freaky apparition inside. Every moment, every second of every day, so far, had been heavily laced with the fear of being parted from my bag. Well, it was over, the deed had been done, and I felt utterly and deliriously free!

I could have travelled by bus or bike the forty kilometres to the nearest phone and put one of my loved ones into a panic as they tried to stretch funds I knew they didn’t have to help me. Or I could have spent two days travelling to Bombay to get my traveller cheques replaced. But I didn’t feel to do that. I only had a couple of hundred dollars in cheques anyway; the rest was in cash. For sure that money would have helped, but I found myself feeling so deeply immersed in the moment, nothing existed outside the reality I was in. And in that space, for the first time in my life there was absolutely no fear.

As I sat on the warm sand at the market trying to ignore the endless stream of nomads all touting their wares, trying to separate me from cash I no longer had, I could feel the innocence of the sun on my face, the smell of chai and spice and sweaty bodies basking on the beach and I felt infused with a knowing that I was looked after. In the next moment, holding up my boots was a smartly dressed Indian women calling excitedly to her husband and kids. For many Indian people West was always best. I had experienced this several times already in only a week. The first time was when I’d gone to buy some ayurvedic soap and toothpaste. The shopkeeper had been mortified I didn’t want Lux or Colegate. He had tried, rather emphatically to dissuade me from my choice several times and much to his distress, without success. As I’d paid for my purchases he had looked at me with such pity, completely unable to equate my choice with that of a rationale human being. It was the same with my Doc Marten boots. They were from the West and therefore revered like the Holy Grail. Hubby eagerly pulled out his wallet and with barely a haggle freed me of my market stall.

I was elated as I headed off to find myself something delicious to eat. I had done it, I’d braved my insecurities, sat feeling foolish and a trite lonely for hours on end, but I had dam well done it! I’d sold my boots! Nothing about my trip was turning out liked I’d hoped. I had expected to be immersing myself in the sacred chants and sanctuary of an ashram and instead I had landed right in the midst of the Goan party scene and even though I didn’t like parties and always tried to avoid crowds, everything in my life felt perfect, even loosing all my money. I was exactly where I was meant to be and I knew that because I felt full of love.

Selling my boots had been my initiation on the miraculous path of living a life of trust. I thought it was all about love; all innocent and balmy like a meadow of flowers swaying in the breeze and I had no idea then that my journey ahead would take me straight into the depths of darkness from which I would return with jewels so bright they would be a guiding light in all my years to come.

and here is an impromptu reading from our car as I sit waiting for Gill,my partner to go and get fuel..we ran out. This is a love scene from the chapter Sacred Love and here I recount my meeting with Gill …oooh its so beautiful !!!!