The story

I started my first business at age 20. My overall vision as a business woman has always been one of ethical and sustainable business practise, specialising in the sacred and magickal. In the early 2000s I began facilitating groups and teaching workshops about the seasons, magick, the moon and Women's Mysteries. Around that time I was asked to teach at a local night college. I kept that gig going for a while until I opened my own shop (called Lunation Magick and Occult Store upstairs in Garema Place CBR) and taught from there instead. I was 25 years old.

The following ten years was a whirl-wind of deeper awareness and wild heart living. Closing my shop was a Rite of Passage who's effects lasted many years. I moved to the country with my personal super-hero (aka husband), my two children and a couple of cats. In between we lived with the hound of my dreams, who tragically crossed the rainbow bridge in July 2022. We’re now surrounded by a herd of equine assistants and a flock of unruly chickens.

Rhythm of Life

After I closed the store, I began to blog and write more, and this led to finding ways to express my awareness to many people, all over the world. My work has had many reincarnations to be what you find here today. Previously I was known online and in communities as Hollie B., but after I changed my name for marriage I'm Hollie Bakerboljkovac (it's both our names put together). I continue to hold face-to-face space for women in many ways, and present at different conferences and festivals throughout Australia.

For many years I've followed the map of the Rhythm of Life, which was originally taught to me via modern Witch Craft, and the work of thea Gaia, as well as my shamanic mentor Geir Fokstuen. I’ve sat with Women's Mysteries teachers like Katherine Cunninghame and Jane Hardwicke Collings, to gain a deeper understanding of women's cycles, and had many mentors in alternative health, like Joanne Fuller and Tim Thomas. In 2022 I studied the Certificate of Psychedelic Assisted Therapies with Tra-ill Dowie and Nigel Denning, which brought together all the parts of my work from the past two decades. Cycling with this wisdom for so many years has become integral to my being. It is embodied in how I be in the world.

Everything at the Institute for Self Crafting is found as interweaving and overlapping layers on the Rhythm of Life map. I call the map, a map for Self Crafting.

Wellness

I was ill before I closed my Occult shop, but it took on a new level when in 2009 I was hospitalised with an undiagnosed fever above 40 degrees celsius. At the time I hadn't realised that truly, everything in the natural world could be understood via the Rhythm, instead spending the next few years going from one healing experiment to another, in an attempt to be well.

Eventually, giving up on "The Professionals" who included everyone from the orthodox medical system, all the way through to numerous natural health practitioners and even some woo-woo crazy types, I hit The Threshold (the place of no return, where something must change otherwise live forever in a perpetual death cycle).

I immersed myself into three years of health and wellness study, researching everything I could about evolutionary wellness. This is also becoming commonly known as "Ancestral Health." Becoming my own n=1 experiment, I eventually reversed the chronic illnesses that had plagued me since the time in the hospital in 2009.

Life Informing Work

I discovered a layer of the Rhythm of Life map that none of my mentors had taught before. I wrote a book about it : Self Crafted Wellness Journal, by Hollie Bakerboljkovac which, once the print run ended, became an Expansion Pack on the Self Crafted Life Portal. This layer is called Wellness and it is, undoubtedly the most important layer for humankind. Now, past 40, I am stronger, healthier, happier and more capable than ever before. And I know how to keep I that way.

As a counsellor and coach, I thought I wasn't allowed to teach people about Wellness. Afterall, where did I get my credentials? And then my mentor said, "You ARE your credentials." That was enough to reframe my perspective and open up the pathway for the Self Crafted Wellness work. I know it's some of my best so far!

This page includes ten photos, speaking to maintaining Wellness. It shows how anyone can integrate the Wellness layer into everyday life. It's true that I am blessed to live on a large, pristine property on the edge of the mountains, a choice we made when in response to the Wellness layer. Now, my daily life incorporates everything I need to be well and stay well to an old age.

You can do this too

But you don't have to live on 100 acres to do the same. There's plenty of ways to incorporate the layers of the Rhythm of Life into your own daily practise. You can learn all about it through the Wellness stream of articles, courses and books here, or go off and spend your own 7 years studying for yourself (wink, wink).

Check out the Self Crafted Wellness Bundle of Expansion Packs for all the content you need to radically change your health.

Walking As the Best Form of Exercise

My day begins with a walk. We live in a mountainous patch of bush, in Australia, that was once famous in the gold rush of the 1860s. Our property is covered with rocks dug up by miners, providing #vitamintexture for barefoot walking.

Skoolie Life

We live in a skoolie, and there’s no room for furniture! Although there is a small bench I find myself preparing most food on the floor or outside.

Eat Food that Sings

We eat from our landscape everyday, whether it is something I’ve grown in our garden, or foraged nearby. Autumn is wonderful in our region, with mushrooms in the paddocks and plenty of fruit trees on the roadside.

Dynamic Loads

Our water collection bottle is heavy enough to be a small load, yet light enough for the children to contribute as well. Sometimes water collection will happen with the milk jugs, and I’m constantly carrying water in the garden.

Mountain Cold Water

With the ongoing research into cold thermogenesis, the waterhole is a central part of our life. The mountain water is cold and amazing and this has become my most sacred practice of the day.

Long Aim

Shooting the long bow has a lot of meaning for me around reaching toward my Big Wild Dreams, taking aim and getting closer / more precise each time…

Get Outside

I aim to spend a minimum of four hours outside everyday, and most of this happens in my garden. Yard work includes so many human-appropriate movements, contributing to my Wellness, and my family too.

Dynamic Spaces

I’m always on the floor. I use inside time as dynamic space. Stretching, bending and constant movement is a remedy for boredom, as well as pain into the future.