The Mission

So I guess this is the big one. The place where this begins. The introduction to myself and the mission statement for this small part of the internet...

Hello. My name is Ava Caitlin. I am a tarot reader, life coach and writer. I currently live in a small town called Worthing in the South East of England, right by the sea. My physical body is 2 months off turning 26 years old, but my soul is much, much, older than that. I am what some may call a Star seed and I have lived many, many lives; I have helped tortured creatures in Atlantis, been married to an Egyptian Pharaoh, been an Italian aristocrat during the 1400s, I was a friend to Anne Boleyn, a socialite during the roaring 20's and have been a storyteller around a campfire many times. My main role during my incarnations, have been to help assist with change and at times be a consort and adviser to those in high positions in the world during moment of more significant change. The best way to do that is through telling stories. However in this day and age, we don't really have many moments around the campfire anymore.

What we do have though are vast libraries and shops full of books to read, cinema's to watch movies in and televisions to watch episodes of our favourite shows, right from the comfort of our own sofas. We are at an age where consuming stories has become so widely accessible to all. Whether that's being able to read and take in stories both factual and fictional with traditional books, or watching moving images on a screen, or even non moving pictures like in colourful children's books or comics.

I always knew from a young age I was different. From the days spent buried in books, deep diving in my bright red dressing up box to act out my own stories and even performing on make shift stages for people for most of my childhood years. I knew deep within me there was something within me that needed to get out, lessons and stories to share and that I would need a platform in which to do that from. As I've gone through my late teen years and even into my early 20s I have played with many platforms from attempting to write books, having a YouTube channel, to even contemplating whether to get into acting and what the best way to do that would be. However I've found that I much prefer to be on the back end of things writing, teaching and guiding with a bit more control in what I want to say. Over the last few years I have fought to write and maintain many different blogs, but I never found my voice and I didn't know what it was that I wanted to share. That was until the end of 2020 when I reclaimed some of my emotional trauma from my teenage years and began my first spiritual awakening.

Since then it has been one heck of a rollercoaster. Back to back awakenings. Almost two whole journals and, as of this moment, half a self help book worth of emotional lessons and trauma healing; and now I am ready to really start sharing it all with you. However I think we can all agree that non-fiction books, biographies and most historically accurate stories are a bit boring and can feel like a chore to get through. Good thing I've always leaned into fiction. As a wise gentleman once said during a video interview with GQ magazine a few years back "I think the truth, is in fiction".

When I discovered said interview and heard the sentence for the first time at the start of 2021, during one of my many YouTube video hopping cycles (procrastinating writing my first screenplay since college), my whole world was changed. A truth that had been buried deep within my soul, a core piece of my spiritual path and DNA was awakened and a memory from my childhood, I had been fighting with for decades, finally made sense.

When I look back on my very early school years and think of that first spark that really began to feed the fire within me regarding stories, I always think back to the time when I was 6 years old and our class was taken to the school library for the first time. It was a tiny library with a small space in the middle where we all sat, ready to listen to the librarian. She began to talk to us about the different books and how they were divided up by genre, but most importantly they were split between Fiction and Non-Fiction.

She went on to teach us that the way you can tell the difference between the two. is that Fiction means Fairy Tale because it was made up, just like the fairy tale stories we all grew up with and love; and that Non-Fiction meant, by default, “Non-Fairy Tale” the things that were facts, like history books, biographies and world maps. I remember this moment so well because of the feeling that this statement sparked deep within my chest, within my soul. If the movie Inside Out was in fact real, it would have been one of those core memory moments. There was an uneasiness, something about the statement didn't fit right with me at all. Her words stuck with me and pulled at me for years, every time I was faced with defining stories from fiction and non-fiction, the two were forever jumbled in my mind. It was a phrase I couldn't let go and I didn't know why.

As children we take everything adults say as gospel, it's what we are told to do and is how we learn. We are fed this narrative that the adult is always right and because they have been alive and around longer, that they have all the answers. It makes us idealise the “adult” experience, however it also serves as a way to divide us. When I think on this idea, it reminds me of the story of Matilda and in particular a certain line from Mr Wormwood. He says “I'm smart, your dumb. I'm big, you're little. I'm right, you're wrong and there's nothing you can do about it.”

We are fed this narrative so much, that when younger people do come of age, it comes as a culture shock to find out that, just because you turn a certain age and are seen as an adult in the eyes of the law and society, you don't feel any different to how you did as a child. You don't feel like you have the answers and can function in the way you have seen your elders do your whole life. You realise you don't magically have all the answers to all of life's questions like you think adults do at a young age; and it puts a new spin on the phrase "you'll understand when you're older".

You discover that a lot of it, is about winging it, continuing to ask questions and learn in your own way. This becomes exceedingly true when you or the people around you, start having their own children and they start asking you questions as they see you as their authority, and you feel a duty of care to supply them with answers to the point you sometimes guess and or pass on information you think is true, but you don't fully know for sure. But that's something to dive into deeper another day.

But back to the matter and discussion at hand. Had it been any other phrasing, I probably would have accepted what the librarian said and been at peace with the distinction I had been given between the two categories of books; but for anyone who has ever been through a Spiritual Awakening and started to notice the signs around them, you come to realise there are no such thing as coincidences. When I found that video and heard Pedro Pascal say the statement that he believed that 'the truth is in fiction', it took me back to that moment with the librarian and with my adult brain, I was able to piece together what it was that had bothered me so much.

I have been listening to, watching and ingesting fairy tales ever since my parents could plonk me in from of the telly with a hoard of Disney VHS tapes to choose from. I had multiple fairy tale books on my book shelves, I would continuously reach for; and had audiobooks on tape and CDs I would listen to when I went to bed. I could recite the tales of Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and even the Emperor's New Clothes from memory and still can, amongst many more tales.

Fairy tales are the stories we tell kids when they are young, to help teach them the hard lessons of the world in a fun, engaging and visual way. They include just enough whimsy and magic to make them feel removed and allow you to sleep at night, but also have the right amount of truth to make them believable and even plausible. As you grow, you begin to realise certain parallels in these stories even more.

Take Little Red Riding Hood for example, a tale about a young girl who goes to visit her Grandma. She is told to stay on the path where it is safe and lit; to go straight to her destination and to not talk to any strangers or tell them where she is going. As girls grow older, the parallels to that story and the tales of many women and girls who get harassed and even attacked by predatorial 'Wolf' type men, makes this story and it's warnings very much real.

Tales such as The Frog Prince and Beauty and the Beast, teach us to never judge a book by it's cover; and just because someone looks one way, it doesn't mean they can't be completely different on the inside. Another particular fond favourite story of mine that fits into this category would be Shrek, with it's famous line describing ogres to onions because they both have layers. But it's not just those classic fairy tales that have underlying truths built into them.

When you do in fact look at all works of fiction, from TV shows and movies; to your favourite novels, each one of them is laced with truths and real life lessons; and draw inspiration from things that have happened in real life to make peace with events and so writers and audiences can work through thoughts and feelings. Many writers will pepper events and conversations from their own lives to add a sense of realism and believability to their stories. They at times present hard topics in an easy and relatable way; and true to the classic fairy tale model, allow just enough of a separation from our own reality to be palatable and keep our attention, and our bums in our seats, so we can see the lessons acted out for us without us actually having to go through said hardships ourselves.

As we go through this journey together, I hope to look back at some of these stories and uncover the truths and lessons hidden beneath them. We are living in a time when these stories are so important to bringing us out of the current darkness in the world and inject just a bit more hope an optimism into our lives. As we journey and investigate, we even uncover some long lost truths that have been hiding in plain sight all along.

No matter where you are on your healing journey, I hope these posts will feel like having a chat with an old friend, catching up on the entertainment you've been watching lately and revelling in some old favourites along the way too for positive reinforcement; because who isn't a sucker for the serotonin boost that comes from reminiscing about the good times growing up. And who knows, maybe you'll find a new way of seeing the world...