About Hilary’s Holistic

As a child, I lived very much in my imaginary world – my creative writing teachers always praised my vivid imagination! I loved to create stories and visualise my dreams. I believed in magic (then and now), and the elementals of my storybooks were very real to me. As I grew up, I suppressed those creative means of expression to fit into the corporate world. But my inner space cadet eventually took over as I discovered Reiki and animal communication and re-trained as a dog groomer, grooming dogs holistically.

My Bengal cat, Jess, was one of the first animals I communicated with telepathically. She taught me that animals do not always use words to communicate. When I asked her if there was anything about her life that she didn’t like, she showed me a visualisation in my mind’s eye of soldiers, the old-fashioned red-uniformed ones with bayonets, fighting on a battlefield. The meaning of this jolted into my mind, as I realised, she was telling me she didn’t like fighting! She had suffered several nasty wounds from catfights. The way she communicated with me was through images, conveying a meaning that I could understand, without words.

My journey continued as I learnt more about house healing, land healing (also known as geomancy) and botanicals, and the seeds of Hilary’s Holistic were sown!

I completed a year-long apprenticeship in Contemporary Animism with Animate Earth Collective. This involved a deep dive into Animism, a beautiful nature-based practice involving deepening our connection to the Earth and the idea that everything has a spirit and consciousness, including the Earth herself. Through “Contemporary” Animism, we explore how to bring nature-based practices and the “old ways” of being with the land into our modern lives.

During the year, I explored, with a small group of apprentices from all over the world, many ways of connecting with the land, including participating in two residential retreats at Embercombe on Dartmoor. Whilst in this beautiful landscape, I experienced a life-changing all-night vigil, steam ceremonies, shamanic journeying, writing, singing and listening to storytellers of folklore and myth. It was a transformative experience and one which has enriched my life.

My teachers on this journey were Angharad Wynne, a writer, storyteller, speaker and heritage specialist with over 25 years of experience, and Colin Campbell, a diviner, teacher and public speaker who is one of the rarest-known custodians of ancient sacred African knowledge systems.

At the end of the Apprenticeship, I was ready to dedicate myself to the study and practice of House and Land Healing. I trained with Tim Walter of KnightsRose, who himself was mentored by Hamish Miller, the famous Master-Dowser and author of several books on dowsing including The Sun and the Serpent.

This training course not only taught me how to dowse, communicate with the spirits of the land and clear energies, but it was a deep spiritual practice which was life-changing for me. It opened up my intuitive and psychic abilities and started me on the road to knowing and trusting myself and my connection to the land, Mother Earth, the cosmos and “All That Is”.

My house healing reports are often interwoven with stories, which can help people to connect more deeply with their homes and land.

I am a student of botanical self-healing for dogs and cats, also known as zoopharmacognosy. I am training with Rachel Knott of My Animal Matters on her UK Rural Skills-Accredited 1-2-1 Practitioner Mentorship programme. I am fascinated by the power of plants and the intuitive ability of both animals and humans to “tune in” to the healing properties of plants in order to self-heal.

I love to facilitate sessions and hold space for dogs, cats and their humans to experience the plants through the offering of essential oils, hydrosols, herbs and other natural substances from plants, such as powders and clays.

My love of astrology led me to discover that the planet speaking the loudest to me in my natal chart is Ceres, the Earth Goddess. I am therefore in my element when connected to nature, working with the elementals and spirits of the land to harmonise homes, gardens and land and working with botanicals to guide self-healing sessions for dogs and cats. I have been studying astrology for many years and I hope to add astrology consultations to the list of Hilary’s Holistic offerings in the future.