10 Things You Might Not Know About Me

From snakes and witchcraft to my biggest phobia, an odd assortment of bits — and a video you might really NOT want to see…!!

Recently, several people have tagged me to do this “10 Things” list so okay, okay! I give! I write so openly about my life and weirdness, I’m not sure there’s anything too surprising.

Oh wait. There’s that one video in particular 🙄 — but here goes:

1) I adore snakes.

I used to have several as pets. Not long ago, I shared the extremely unusual story about how that unfolded, and the profound relationship I had with one of them. Yes, profound. He was the first one I got and it was because of him that I became fascinated with these amazing and misunderstood animals.

Many people read the entire nothing-short-of-bizarre story, including people who are terrified of snakes, and by the end of it they were in tears.

2) I’m a practicing witch.

Speaking of something being misunderstood…I’ve been a practicing witch for about 30-ish years at the time of this writing. Witchcraft has a bad reputation, thanks to a few thousand years of blaming it for disease, seizures, mental illness, pests, bad weather — basically anything people didn’t like or understand.

Hollywood hasn’t helped, with positively idiotic films like “Rosemary’s Baby” being among the worst. It led people to believe that witchcraft and Satan-worship were one and the same. Um…NOT. Satan has absolutely zero connection with witchcraft. None. Zip. Nada. Nuthin’.

This is not to say that some twisted people don’t tie them together but I can promise you, they are two unrelated concepts. I’ll leave further discussion of the specifics for another day.

Because of my frequent “psychic phone-ins” on BBC Radio for about five years, sometimes I was hired to travel to other parts of England and remove evil spirits or nasty energies from people’s homes. The next two pictures were taken in the midst of a particularly interesting case in Suffolk.

This is my Book of Shadows (that’s “witch speak” for where you keep track of your spells and other super cool witch secrets and stuff like that).

3. My shocking (to me) ancestry surprise.

My birth mother was 15 when she got pregnant. She tried to keep me but that didn’t work out too well and I was taken from her and put in foster care till I was adopted.

Eventually, in my teens I launched a search for her. Eleven years later, I found her. I learned that I had German/Irish heritage (her father and mother respectively) and she told me who my father was — a man who had committed suicide. Apart from his name, she refused to discuss him.

Another long story (filled with soap-opera-style plot twists and one massive shock) made short: Secretly, I found his family. His parents were from Ukraine and had somehow ended up on the Saskatchewan prairies, where I was born.

About ten years later, I went to England (somewhat reluctantly: see story below) to visit a friend. Had zero interest in England prior to that but because of the story behind the decision (and a massively life-altering experience), there I was.

Ten minutes after my friend picked me up from Heathrow, I wept and said, “Oh, my God, I’m home.”

(Here’s the much bigger story behind that one…)

I’d never felt such a powerful sense of belonging in my life and there was no particular reason for it.

Or so I thought.

Fast forward 30 years from when I learned all this birth family information, I did an Ancestry DNA test. As expected, my DNA ancestry was approximately 1/4 Irish, 1/4 German…and — I was nearly 50% English! Yay! I was so excited! Positively elated! Yippee!!!!

And then…😳

Wait, what?? No Ukrainian DNA? Not even a drop? Not a single cell? Nuthin’? But how did —

Ohhhhhh…. 🙄 Methinks my mother had a secret or two.

Well, it explained the way I felt — and still feel — about this country. (Btw, I moved here 10 months after that first visit).

4. I can type 160 wpm.

This was a huge help in taking patients’ cases as a homeopath because not only do we rely on extremely detailed information, a patient’s word choices can help direct us to the correct remedy. I was able to type almost every word they said. They spoke, I typed. They stopped, I stopped. They always found it disconcerting at first but soon got used to it.

It was always fun on follow-up appointments. I’d scroll through my notes from the previous session and ask how this or that ailment was. Sometimes, they’d say, “I never said that!” I’d read back their word-for-word statements and they’d say, “Ohhh, yeah, I forgot about that.”

5. Be careful what you wish for…

I’m terrified of water and swimming, thanks to my parents’ negligence when I was a toddler and a near-drowning incident. In Grade 3, I learned that in Grade 10, I’d have to take swimming lessons as part of gym class. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t! Which would mean I’d fail.

How the hell do you fail gym class? The only thing worse than that was — well — taking the bloody swimming lessons!

For the next seven years, I kept praying there would be a way out for me.

But nope. It was Grade 10 and the chilly, highly-chlorinated death trap was waiting for me. I was doomed. After the first (awful) class (during which I couldn’t even put my face in the water), I was rushing through the locker room to get changed and to my next class that was wa-a-a-ay across the enormous school.

And yay!! I slipped on the wet locker room floor and broke my elbow. Woohoo! I got out of dang swimming lessons and managed to fake my way out of several weeks of the next miserable section, floor hockey, too.

6. I am massively phobic about vomiting.

I mean…I would literally — literally — as in the actual meaning of that word — rather die. Just the idea of vomiting is its own special kind of Hell for me. I haven’t “hurled” since March of 1977 despite “all-day/evening sickness” with all my pregnancies and despite flu and food poisoning. My body tried throughout those ordeals — oh, how it tried!— but, um, NOPE! Ain’t nothing comin’ back up once it’s down!

I suspect this phobia might have its roots in my childhood. All too often, I was rudely awakened by the terrifying sounds of my alcoholic father being horrifically sick on the other side of the wall beside my bed. At times, he sounded as though he was dying. I still shudder at the memory.

I’ve shared the first three chapters (broken into smaller sections) of the manuscript of my life story, And No One Stopped Them, here:

This manuscript got the attention of five literary agents in London. The one with whom I signed a contract wanted to turn it into a film after publishing. He said it was “too much story for a film and would need to be a TV series” because in his words, “This is a story that needs to be told.”

When the reality of publishing — and oh, my goodness, a TV series?? — hit me, I panicked. Even with fake names, people in the book would be identifiable with chronology and circumstance. I’m safe in publishing the first three chapters (in that list above) because everyone else from those early years of abuse in my life is dead.

But when I get into relationships and insanity with a couple of my kids and other people, I would be divulging personal information about them that could get me sued for libel and/or defamation of character.

Plus…after a lifetime of trauma and over-the-top situations (the whole reason this manuscript was such a hit with literary agents), I really did not want to stir the pot anymore. There were a few dangerous people, too...not worth the risks.

I hadn’t written it to hurt anyone; it was meant to explain how abuse — especially emotional abuse — has long-term consequences that lead to things like, oh, those six marriages I’ve mentioned, and some of the other bizarre experiences I’ve had. I didn’t think it would actually be picked up anyway. Much less be made into a TV series.

I asked the agency to take it off their list until I could rewrite it as an autobiographical novel and mix things up a little to keep everyone safe. But every time I tried, it felt so watered down I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It wasn’t my story.

7. A few weird birth/baby stories in my family.

7A- The doctor who delivered one of my babies fathered the next one (I was divorced before my involvement with him…just sayin’!). He dumped me immediately and began making deeply disturbing threats. A police detective friend investigated him and said, oh, dear, dangerous man, better stay well away from him…

7B- My eldest daughter took to the streets when she was 12. I never knew if she was dead or alive until the police would pick her up for one thing or another (criminal activity, prostitution, drugs). When she was 14, she’d been gone for months (again) till the police found her one day. She was pregnant. And so was I. 🤦🏻‍♀️

7C- That particular pregnancy (for me) resulted in my lovely daughter, Willow. Seven months later, my first grandchild was born. My daughter had an adoption plan with friends of ours but it blew up when he was three days old. Willow’s dad and I adopted him (and what’s happened to him is a devastating movie-worthy story all on its own).

8. I love doing stand-up.

Out of all the things I’ve ever done with a microphone in front of me — from readings as a medium on stage, to inspirational speaking, to psychic phone-ins on the radio — this is by far the most comfortable I’ve ever been. Why?? Because it’s me being myself — an observational smart@$$.

Now…I have to warn you…I debated about sharing the only public video of one of my performances because…well, it’s VERY naughty — and NOT for the faint of heart.

You’ll also get a completely different view of me, too, so…be forewarned. Once you see it, you can’t un-see it!

This was a competition. It was also my first time doing stand-up (go big or go home!).

I made it to the final, which is the rather rushed bit you see in the last minute. I came in second, and only missed winning by a hair.

9. I love semi-automatic handguns.

I was so excited to get my Restricted Firearms License in Canada. Soon, I discovered that guns are like snakes and peanuts. You can’t have just one…but of the guns I eventually owned, my first and my favourite was a Colt .45 Gold Cup National Match. It’s said to be “the finest shooting semi-automatic in the world” and “the standard for competitive guns” (as it says below).

It was the envy of all the guys at the shooting range.

And then…I moved to England. No handguns allowed. Not even if you keep them at a shooting range. I could have long guns but I’m not interested in those.

10. At 4 yrs old, I taught myself to read and then how to play the organ.

I was 4 when we got an organ that came with an instruction book. I spent hours on the bench, learning how to read the music, play chords, work the pedals (had to stand up for that). I blew through the couple of music books we had and then taught myself to play by ear.

We got a piano eventually, and I taught myself to play that, too.

At 9, I was finally allowed to take lessons. Eventually, by the age of 12 I was playing publicly, whether entering competitions, playing on radio, TV, at the Calgary Stampede — and even playing piano in church at 13 (with a youth group and we did a lot of Jesus Christ Superstar).

I ended up being a church organist and choir director (and no, I never did get struck by lightning!). And that’s yet another long story that was part of my complicated spiritual journey with its various twists and turns.

In 2016, my friend, Frank Moffatt, and I were having coffee one day when he suggested we write a song together. I’d never written a song — other than some instrumental free-flowing pieces.

But Frank is the father of The Moffatts. They are his four sons who were an international boy band in the ’90s. Frank and the boys wrote many hit songs together.

You might remember this one…if it isn’t immediately familiar, wait for the chorus. It’s still one of my all-time favourite songs ever:

Scott, the eldest (the one seen writing at the desk in this video), was just 11 months old when Frank and his (now former) wife had triplets (consisting of a set of identical twins, Bob and Clint, plus Dave, a “singleton” and fraternal triplet). Oy vey, can you imagine?

These little kids were outrageously talented and were already performing publicly at the ages of 4 (Scott) and 3 (the triplets). Frank was their manager throughout their successful music career together.

Today, they are still performing and making music. Scott and Dave have highly successful solo careers, and Bob and Clint are blowing people away as “Music Travel Love.”

Anyhoo…Frank came over one night and we had just barely started trying to work out what to write about when the conversation went elsewhere. After he left, I carried on writing. I sent him the recording of what I did and he pushed me to put it online. I was terrified. HUH?? I’m not a singer.

He was relentless. So I made a video to go with it and here’s what happened (and bear in mind, I have never professed to be a singer!! So…please forgive me):

Annnnnd…then my dear friend, Dave (seen playing the piano in the above video with his brothers), and I thought we’d try our hand at writing spiritual music. I was driving when these lyrics started coming fast and furious one day.

I did lyrics, Dave did music, together we tweaked the whole thing and then recorded. Here’s our conversation with God (or whatever word you’d like to use):

Blow your doors off with the incredible current music of Dave Moffatt on YouTube.

And along with their 3.68 million subscribers, you can further delight your soul with Bob and Clint’s musical genius here as Music Travel Love

Sorry. I tried to keep this short. Hope you didn’t nod off partway through my rambling…

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Spiritual Arts Mentor and Master Teacher, Liberty Forrest, guides you in discovering who you are, why you’re here, and how to follow that path. Visit libertyforrest.com