Bio

Hello dear Reader,

Here is a little summary of the journey: of where I’m from… and where it is that I’m going. I was born in Melbourne, Australia, and moved to London when I was 18 years old. I studied Law with French Law at University College London, graduating with a first-class degree and going on to complete my Bar exams. I obtained my tenancy at Wilberforce Chambers in 2018, one of England’s top commercial chancery sets, and worked on many high-profile cases – even appearing on my own in the High Court. But the piece of legal work I am most proud of was a case I worked on pro bono whilst still at university: compiling the evidence-base for a complaint to the European Commission, on England’s failure to correctly implement the environmental impact assessment directive. I have a deep love of Nature, which I would say has guided me through life, to where I am now.

I was locked down in Costa Rica when borders closed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, back in March 2020. This prompted me to take a sabbatical leave from law to focus on health, having suffered chronic health issues in my early twenties, which in turn led me down a path of spiritual exploration and towards holistic healing methods. It was during my time in Costa Rica that I also reconnected with my heart’s true passions: writing, poetry, and music, and where I met my now-husband Alex Flett, who shares many of my interests. In May 2023 I left my tenancy with Wilberforce Chambers for good, when my sabbatical leave came to an end and I could not figure out a way to reconcile life as a commercial litigator with the new life I was building for myself – out in the Central American wilderness.

I published my first novel Siege in December 2022 with Big Moose Publishing, and have a sequel in the works. I’m the author of two poetry collections published in 2024: Wildfire and Love Letters in the Ether. I also perform music with my husband as the duo “Flett & Goldthorpe”, and in 2023 we toured Western Canada. I am more of a poet/lyricist, but fortunately for me he is a full on “one-man-band” (playing guitar, harmonica, kick drum, and hi-hat all at the same time). We are partners in love, creativity, and life… working together across many facets, from building our home to business.

Besides my creative work, my main focus these days is on developing an educational centre in southern Costa Rica. Once I began living in Costa Rica, I took advantage of the country being somewhat of a health & wellness hotspot – and trained in a number of holistic healing disciplines to expand my knowledge as a practitioner, beyond the learning I had simply acquired during my own experiences recovering from a health crisis. In 2021 I studied Craniosacral therapy, in 2022 I completed a shamanic mentorship and cacao medicine “Dieta”, and in 2024 I completed a course in Mayan medicine (focussed on ethnobotany, traditional medicines of the jungle, Mayan Neurosacral Massage and understanding the Mayan Cosmovision and calendric system). I offer private healing sessions, group ceremonies, and health & lifestyle mentoring. I also now seek to distance myself from many new age spiritual groups/ movements, as I have witnessed what I perceive to be much distortion within them. In my holistic health work, I strive to adopt grounded, practical approaches to health & spirituality, and seek to recognise Spirit in the everyday, the mundane, and the ordinary. I do not believe we need to dive into intense psychedelic journeys to find enlightenment, though I certainly have nothing against the appropriate use of sacred plant medicines, in the right settings, and when guided by the right individuals.

Whilst juggling my land-stewardship responsibilities, and planting lots of fruit trees and herbs, I integrate with my community by teaching creative writing & expression to teens at a local school; and pick up ad-hoc freelance work (in the writing/editing/publishing field) to help pay the bills.

I’ve rewritten my Bio on this website many times over the years: reflective of my growth as a person since beginning this journey, and sharing my work publicly with you. I first started this website purely as a poetry blog, when I was in the midst of suffering a series of intense health challenges for the second time around, and which threatened to put my legal career on halt (before it had even began). That was when I’d say I first reconnected with my creative force, which had been vibrant and present as a child, but which had been brushed to the side to make way for “professional” career pursuits. Art helped me navigate many challenging moments in my life: and to this day, I strongly believe in its power to help us transcend the struggles of the physical and to explore realms beyond our logical mind. I believe art is a profound key to accessing and enhancing our consciousness, and that it is the fuel that keeps our soul’s flame burning bright.

Through my art, I hope to motivate my readers, shed light on social, economic & environmental issues in the world (and perhaps inspire action for how we may pave a way through?), and bridge worlds. I have experienced many dualities in my life, and seek to transcend a binary black/white existence. For instance, I have been “failed” by Western medical care and been “saved” by holistic healers. Yet so too have I discovered many “fake shamans”, and found valuable knowledge from cutting-edge science. What is “right” and “wrong” is not always apparent at the surface, and when we delve beyond superficial differences, we may find that many systems are in reality seeking to uncover the same common truth. I suppose truth-seeking is another one of my goals: not an egotistical truth I once debated over in court rooms, but a heart-centred one, that opens and expands and unravels who we think we are, the deeper we surrender, and the more we let go into the mysteries of nature and the universe.

Thank you for stopping here to read my words and get to know me, and I hope you enjoy walking this journey by my side…

With Love,

Cara Amy Goldthorpe

bridgesbetweenrealities@gmail.com  

Substack: @caraamygoldthorpe