ARABELLA THAÏS
I’ll start with the details. I’m a 5’11 misfit from London, with a penchant for rare books, fat candles and crescent moons. I was born in 1990, I’m a Leo (can you tell?), and was consistently expelled from schools because I questioned authority - and they didn’t like it. I hope to breed horses one day, because they are so special, but cats are my spirit animal. Their honeyed purrs are delicious, like dancing, and I live for the dance.
My dancing career started when I was 16 with drum n bass in squat raves, but evolved into house music on dancefloors all over europe. I chased deep beats and big sound-systems because dancing was one of the few times that I truly felt free. The truth is that a lot of the time I felt trapped, anxious and confused as I grappled with undiagnosed bipolar and a f*ckton of trauma in a sick society devoid of meaning.
Despite the looming existential dread that haunted me for quite some time (lol - just being real here), I always had an irrepressible zest for life. I found meaning in music, laughter, and the power of love. Most of all, though, life made sense to me in the presence of Beauty -- I could not explain it with my intellect, but I felt it in my soul. I am, however, finally coming to understand the reason why.
ACADEMIA
The Library is my happy place, and contemplation is my spiritual practice. My PhD is at The California Institute of Integral Studies, my supervisor is Matt Segall, and - as it stands - my thesis is on Time and Four Quartets. Find out more about my research interests here ...I hold a Bachelor's degree in English literature from Bristol University, where I graduated with First Class Honours, and a Master's degree from University College London, in comparative literature and Modernism.
I am in collaborative dialogue with several esteemed academics, such as Professors Leslie Combs, Bernard Carr, and Ralph Abraham, among others. I am published in multiple peer-reviewed journals, and an authorised reviewer for The Journal of Applied and Theoretical Physics. I am also involved with various academic organisations - such as the Society for Chaos Theory and The Scientific and Medical Network (SMN), where I have presented my research on time, consciousness, beauty, and new paradigm cosmology (2021 and 2023, respectively). I work very closely with the SMN as a 'New Paradigm Navigator' - a younger generation subset of the Network. We recently held a symposium for students of the spiritual sciences.
SPEAKER
I am a keynote speaker, and speak publicly about my research on various platforms - from academic conferences and inter-disciplinary symposiums, to festivals, podcasts, and other live events. I have moderated panel debates on futurism and the redesign of planetary civilisation (Re:Build Global), and regularly participate in evolutionary forums (such as World Unity Week) on behalf of myself and other organisations (EarthWise)
My areas of expertise are time, beauty, consciousness, new paradigm cosmology, metaphysics, mental health, awakening, systems science, matriarchy, and eros.
As well as speaking, I also recite poetry and perform spoken-word
WRITING
Literary art is my life’s great love. I found my kindred spirits not in living people, but in writers long since passed - in Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and William Blake; in F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Hesse and the Romantics. The poetic beauty of their words was a glimmering light in the darkness; but not only that, it was the Truth, and I knew that it underscored the reason and meaning of everything in existence. This is the premise upon which my PhD is founded
Regarding my own literary career: I was runner up in the Vogue Talent Contest (2015), and had a blog on the Huffington Post from 2014--2018... Various poems, essays, and articles of mine have been published -- in magazines (AnOther, HERO, Vogue), peer-reviewed journals (such as The Journal of Conscious Evolution), non-academic publications (such as Kosmos), and in a recent book by Ervin Laszlo and David Lorimer on the evolution of planetary consciousness. My chapter is on how Beauty can change the world.... To read my writing, click here
I am currently writing a non-fiction book that is part memoir, part cosmological treatise on the meaning of existence.
MY JOURNEY
If there is one thing I have learned in my life so far, it is this: the journey is the goal, and the goal is the journey
We are here to BECOME, and becoming is a process -- it is the winding road of self-discovery, as Source consciousness experiences the magnificence of its own creativity, and the joy of remembering itself all over again. Life, then, is ineffably beautiful and exquisitely profound. It is also incredibly painful - at least, it can be, and has been for most of humankind. But, the truth is that there is meaning in the madness; in the bad things and the sad things - even if it does not make sense at the time.
With this in mind, then, my journey has been a tumultuous one. It has also been rich with beauty, depth, wonder, and feeling - from the deepest pits of suicidal despair to the most exalted heights of ecstasy and mystical revelation. I have danced with angels and demons, courage and fear, addiction and recovery, mysticism and madness, and, at the end of it, I know that I am here for it all - for the rich panoply of existence. I grew up in London feeling lonely, and with a sadness that burned, but I found sanctuary in books, computer games, and the cathedral like domes of my imagination. As I grew older, things became more painful, and if it weren’t for the stars, laughter, and the power of music and words, I absolutely would not be alive right now.... 2017-2018 was the axial moment upon which my whole life spins. I had a Kundalini awakening of gargantuan proportions, which that lasted an entire year, wherein the gates of heaven were opened unto me and I realised that I had been sleeping. You see, this life is only a dream, and the architecture of utopia is contingent upon our awakening. In 2019, I heeded the call of the Wild. My heart had yearned to live wild and free for a very long time; finally, itt was Costa Rica who called to me... so I moved to the Jungle, where I spent three transformative years. It was there that I finally set myself free. At the moment, I am nomadic. My current constellation of places is Italy, Ibiza, England, California, and Mexico.
