How it Began

Looking back, I can almost smell that crisp autumn air of 1990, as if it’s still swirling around me. There I was, plonked in front of my son’s computer, not having a clue what I was doing, but my fingers were itching to play on those keys. And then, as if the universe was having a good giggle, the characters I’d only dreamed about started popping up on the screen, full of cheek and life. It felt as if the universe itself was nudging me, whispering stories straight into my heart and out through my fingertips.

“There are hundreds of “life-changing’”’ self-help books on the market; what makes your Language of Light workbook and the Awakening to our Ascension novels any different?”v

The Language of Light workbook is very close to my heart, because it shares a mind-drawing technique I stumbled upon through my own doodling adventures. Back in the nineties, I found myself teaching Art Analogue drawing classes, and oh, what a joy it was to watch people’s own symbolic language come alive on the page! When we let our hands wander, our inner world starts to speak, and suddenly, we realise that our mindset can shape our reality. Mind drawing is not just a method; it’s a gentle journey inward that helps us untangle emotional knots in minutes or hours, rather than dragging them out for years.

“What are your credentials, and what makes you feel you have a right to write books on ascension?”

When I was 28, with both my children off at primary school, something extraordinary happened to me. I had a psychic experience that I just couldn’t brush aside. It turned my world upside down in the most wonderful way.

Not long after that, my dreams felt more real than ever before. I found myself diving headfirst into the worlds of spiritual science, theology, and philosophy during the late seventies. Rudolf Steiner’s work, especially in Dutch, absolutely fascinated me and opened up new doors in my mind.

I was hungry for answers about our connection to the Divine. This longing filled me with such passion that I couldn’t help but want to share what I was discovering. I wanted to help others see that, no matter what stands in their way, they can bring their dreams to life too.

Slowly but surely, I realised that the only real path for me was to follow my heart, no matter where it led.

“In your debut novel, ‘My Love We Are Going Home’, later re-released as ‘The Reality Shifters’, you describe “true love” as a delicate equilibrium between joy and agony. Can you elaborate on this concept and elucidate how individuals experience genuine affection?

When life throws its usual curveballs, I find that curling up with a good story is like giving my soul a warm hug. Stories have always been my teachers, whispering ancient wisdom in the gentlest ways. Sometimes, we get swept up in the idea of perfect love or polite smiles, only to find ourselves nursing a bruised heart. I’ve learned that the way we think paints the world around us. In one of my tales, Ingrid learns to bring her dreams to life, all while staying true to who she really is.

“I’m curious, what inspired you to set your novels in Holland? I gather that you were originally from Holland but moved to Australia at age 21 and eventually settled in South Africa, where you discovered your spiritual calling.”

Being dyslexic and once called ‘lees-blind’ (oh, the labels we collect!), I found my own way to share what matters to me. Teaching drawing and using art as gentle therapy became my way of reaching out. My years in nursing and counselling gave me a peek behind the curtain at all those hidden beliefs we pick up before we even know how to tie our shoes. Through mind-drawing, I discovered how these old patterns can trip us up, but also how we can lovingly untangle them. Writing my story helped me step into my own shoes, and I found myself living as Annelies, learning to belong in my own skin.

“To come back to your question, why the Holland setting?”

When I write, I pour my heart onto the page, quirks and all. My Dutch roots are always with me, even in my accent that still sneaks in after all these years in South Africa. I have grown to love this country deeply, and I cannot imagine leaving it behind. Yet, when I set the scenes for my stories, I often find myself wandering back to Holland, painting memories with words. As my stories unfold, they travel with me, moving gently from the familiar streets of Holland to the lavender fields of France, the wild beauty of South Africa, and sometimes even far beyond the stars. My imagination knows no borders, and neither do my characters.

“Regarding the recipe, are you referring to the five stages or levels of consciousness? You mentioned planning to write five novels when you began your first one. Can you share the reasoning behind this decision?”

When I teach drawing, I love watching how our minds come alive the moment we let our pencils dance from one point to another. It’s as if our perception wakes up and says, ‘Ah, now I see!’ In The Reality Shifters, I share how the very first step on our journey to ascension is finding that spark inside us—the longing to create and manifest what our hearts truly desire. For me, ‘mind drawing’ is a gentle, magical way to help us reach for those dreams, one heartfelt line at a time.

My second novel, Orphanage of Souls, is a gentle gathering of the whispers and ideas that float to us from the spiritual Astral Realms. I must confess, I am a vivid dreamer—sometimes my dreams are so colourful and wild that I wake up laughing, or even scratching my head in wonder. I always keep a notebook close by, ready to scribble down whatever I remember before it slips away. You see, I believe we all take little journeys away from our physical bodies, and the memories of these adventures are tucked safely into our Etheric body, like treasures waiting to be found. In my Language of Light workbook, I share exercises that help us unlock these hidden gems from our unconscious, gently building our body of light—our beautiful, eternal, etheric self.

Ah, the third novel, Vanishing Worlds, feels to me like the trickiest part of our journey. It’s that stage where we’re asked to let go of all those old mistakes and the jumble of ideas we picked up along the way. I know from my own path how those hidden, programmed hurts can sit quietly in the corners of our minds, waiting for a gentle light to shine on them. Before we can step into the next stage, that beautiful place of integration, we have to face these shadows with honesty and love. After all, we can’t soar into higher realms if we’re still carrying heavy, tangled baggage from the past.

Writing Parallel Realities, my fourth novel, has truly been a journey of the soul for me. I often picture two walk-in souls from a parallel universe, peeking through the curtains of our world, eager to whisper their secrets. Tulanda, who quietly entered my life in the nineties, feels like an old friend now. Sometimes I even wonder if she is more real than I am! She is not just a character on paper, but the wise spirit guiding these journals, or as I like to call them, my heart’s stories. It always makes me smile to think how patiently her story waited, only coming forward when we were ready for the next step in our ascension. Life really does have its own perfect timing, don’t you think?

Right now, I am having fun with my fifth novel, The Profits Game. What a wild and joyful journey into the world of spiritual power this is becoming! I have already scribbled a few chapters, sometimes laughing to myself, sometimes letting out a big sigh, but I can feel there is still so much magic waiting to come through. I am even considering inviting a dear soul friend to join me on this creative adventure, so we can weave our dreams together and see what delightful surprises the universe has in store for us.

Yes, it really is a recipe, and it works! It has shown people how to draw, waking us up to our true Soul potential. My first book, The Reality Shifters, was written as a cosmic romance, a love story that so many of us long for deep inside. Falling in love with ourselves is the spark, the gentle nudge that starts us on our ascension journey. When we discover what true love really means, we suddenly see that we are always surrounded by it, everywhere we look.

“You mention an idea you call “Divine Order” regarding our Soul, Oversoul, Group souls, etc. Why do you use these terms?”

Back in my nursing days, I found myself completely captivated by Rudolf Steiner’s work. I devoured his books like a hungry soul searching for answers, and his words about “Divine Love and Order” struck a deep chord in me. Steiner believed that only a handful of people ever truly experience this beautiful, ordered awareness, but for those lucky few, life is never the same again. Years later, when I picked up his books once more, I felt a gentle nudge from within, urging me to set out on my own quest. I wanted to find a way, not just for myself but for others too, to discover and truly feel this divine order that quietly weaves through our lives. I began to see that our thoughts are like little codes, much like the language of mathematics, quietly shaping the world around us. Once you catch a glimpse of this, it’s hard not to be amazed by the magic of it all.
It doesn’t matter to me whether you look at life through the eyes of science or faith. What matters is that there is a gentle order quietly humming beneath the surface of our everyday lives. It’s all about the language we speak to ourselves, both in our minds and in our hearts. That’s why I created my workbooks—to guide others towards this beautiful state of awareness, so we can all share more moments filled with peace and love. After all, isn’t that what we’re all searching for?

“It seems that you frequently mention feeling grateful for the magnificence. However, with so many people experiencing suffering, how can you still see the magnificence?”

I’ve come to see that every crisis carries a hidden blessing, and every setback is really just a gentle nudge forward, even if it doesn’t feel that way at first. When I look at my own life with a sense of balance, I start to notice the beautiful synchronicities and the quiet order that weaves through my days. Why wait a whole lifetime to discover that the tough moments are actually hand in hand with the most wonderful gifts? I like to think we can tap into that ancient wisdom right now, without having to collect too many grey hairs along the way! We live in such a magnificent universe. Sometimes I just pause and marvel at the miracle of a single living cell, or the sparkle of the stars above, and I remember that we are all part of this intelligent dance. We’re here to shine, each in our own unique way, and to let our true magnificence light up the world.

“You mention how people can awaken their true Soul purpose. How does someone do this?”

When I was in elementary school, my first-grade teacher told my parents that I would probably never be able to write, nor would I go very far or amount to much. I had a learning disability and couldn’t comprehend language. Years later, an English grammar teacher in Port Elizabeth helped to re-edit my first novel so I could enter it in a competition. I transformed my life into that of a writer/author. This inner voice, which I called POWAH in my novels, told me to awaken the language of my soul at every moment for the rest of my life to awaken my soul’s purpose. All my drawing and creative writing activities have led me to awaken my truest nature: my inner, inspiring genius, which we all have within us. Thousands of people have transformed their lives by believing in themselves. What we think about ourselves absolutely does make a difference.

“In your books, you refer to awakening to full consciousness; what does that mean?”

Looking back over the past five years, I’ve been on quite a journey with myself. It’s funny how, whenever I start getting a bit too big for my boots or, on the other hand, become my own worst critic, the universe seems to send someone along to give me a gentle nudge—or sometimes a not-so-gentle one! It’s as if there’s a cosmic balancing act at play, reminding me to keep my feet on the ground and my heart open. I’ve come to see that humility is a precious companion, and pride, well, it can trip us up when we least expect it. I’ve read about these lessons in spiritual teachings, but living them is a whole different story. When I take time away from the noise of technology and really listen to my own thoughts, I realise how important it is to take responsibility for what I think and do. That’s where the magic happens. I truly believe we can shape our reality and bring our dreams to life simply by becoming conscious creators of our own experience.

“Toon, one of your characters, believes that the quality of one’s life is determined by the quality of the questions they ask themselves. Can you suggest some quality questions for people to ask themselves?”

There are days when my mind feels like a crossroads, with two signposts pointing in opposite directions. One whispers of not-enoughness and lack, while the other beckons me forward to where my heart longs to go. I see this same dance in Toon, the hero of my stories. He bravely steps onto the path of possibility, while I, Nadine, have sometimes tiptoed down the road of self-doubt, wondering if I’m good enough. But here’s the magic: by sharing these journeys, I hope my readers can spot their own signposts and know when it’s time to pause, breathe, and choose the path that feels true to their soul.

Setting out on this adventure called growth doesn’t mean the road will always be smooth. Oh no, there will be potholes and the occasional muddy puddle! But if you hold onto your vision and, deep down, trust that you can reach your dreams, you’ll find that the journey itself is what fills your heart. That’s where the real treasure of being human lies.

This Interview was typed out from a tape I found. – 2003

Nadine May