Mystical experiences with Gloria Skye

Gloria Skye is a divine woman with a befitting name. She’s been practising evolutionary astrology in Melbourne’s inner north for the last five years.

I usually see her bouncing around at parties (literally, bouncing), leading community events for spiritually-informed creatives, and whenever I need some planetary wisdom.

I wasn’t always into ‘woo-woo’ stuff. I grew up in a very science-based household and have never been to church. This changed overnight in March last year when I had a spiritual awakening - or kundalini awakening, whatever you want to call it. An unexpected, transcendental experience that radically expanded my sense of reality.

Gloria and I love chatting about awakenings.

“On the way here, I was thinking about the word ‘awakening’, and how it’s got this bitter, new-age kind of yuckiness”, she says, scrunching her nose.

“When really, it’s to wake up from something that you no longer believe to be true. And that, in itself, is such an internal, individual experience. Awakening isn’t a yucky word, it’s a beautiful word.”

Having spent the last year and half integrating mine, I like this reframe.

Awakenings aren’t random events bestowed upon the lucky few. They are deeply personal experiences that emerge through the slow work of self-inquiry.

“After my awakening”, I say, “multiple people said ‘oh, I wish I could have something like that’. For a while, I thought it was this random thing that just happened to me and redirected me on a spiritual path. Which completely discredits all the therapy I was doing before that moment.”

My therapist explained my awakening as a product of accumulating awareness. Awareness, she said, is like a light rain. You walk in it for a while without noticing, then suddenly realise you’re drenched.

“I think we can get stuck waiting for an awakening to happen, rather than owning our responsibility in the process”, I say.

“Absolutely”, Gloria agrees, eyes wide, slowly nodding her head. We’re in the zone now.

“It’s always available [to us]. And it’s really beautiful when you can wake up from these constructs of your mind”.

Given awakenings are so subjective, I want to describe how it felt for me (my Rewilding Series captures this, too).

It was like being on acid - for two and a half weeks. Breathwork triggered a surge of energy up my spine, almost like an orgasm. In the days after, I became acutely aware of my body and its energy. A word I’d barely used before and now drop into every second sentence.

My body was cracked open after years of numbness. Emotions poured out of me. I alternated between states of euphoria and overwhelm.

Some of the moments, like when I started doing spontaneous yoga poses and mudras, felt ridiculously cliché.

One long, sunny afternoon of yoga in my Brunswick East courtyard, I reached my version of Nirvana. I saw the world through pure conscious awareness, with no attachment to ‘Emma’s’ personality.

Then I went inside and made Sunday night pasta. It was surreal.

Gloria was one of the few people who really ‘got’ what I was going through. When most western medical interpretations online were pointing towards psychosis, outwardly ‘woo-woo’ people in my community helped ground my experience.

I became the person approaching the yoga teacher at the end of class for a chat.

Gloria has been here, too.

“I was like, thank fuck someone understands what I went through. Because it’s so intense and beautiful”, she says.

“I’m still grieving it if I’m being honest with you. You try so hard to keep [the openness] up, but life continues to happen and you fall from that place. I’ve been trying so hard to get back there.”

I know this feeling.

My awakening left a permanent imprint. A gift and also a tease. Because (as I’ve learned from the gurus) it’s not possible to stay cracked open forever. We are here to have a human experience, in a body. We open and then we contract.

Since leaning fully into the ‘woo’, I’ve noticed more and more people around me having their own brushes with the intangible.

Australian artist and writer Jennifer Higgie talks about this movement towards the unseen in her book The Other Side.

She describes the “groundswell of interest in ways of understanding our world…that accommodates natural, even cosmic rhythms”. We’re tuning into emotions, feelings, instincts. The search for something intangible “that we hope might heal us and soften the confronting thought of “Is this all there is?”.

While the labels differ, I see strong parallels between the spiritual journey to self-actualisation and the way most people of my generation are openly speaking about, and prioritising, their mental health journeys.

Looking after oneself is no longer limited to talk therapy, eating well, and exercise. People are dipping into alternative healing modalities. Like breathwork, acupuncture, ayurveda, bodywork, kinesiology, crystals, tarot. The options are endless - and still growing.

Astrology, whether served by voices on Instagram or through apps like The Pattern and Co–Star, is part of this cultural wave.

Gloria, who lives and breathes the cosmos, has some reservations about the astrology boom. She says oversaturation risks losing the depth of an ancient, reverent practice.

“The planets are these beautiful elders and archetypes,” she says, “sit with their messages, and sit in their medicine. They’ll give you much more than ‘you’re a Gemini and it’s Gemini season’.”

When Gloria read my natal chart last year, I wanted answers. But this isn’t how she rolls.

“The way I see it - it’s a muse offered by nature. I want people to be their own guru”, she says.

As I delve deeper into psychotherapy study, I see astrology as a psychological tool as much as a spiritual one. Predating psychology by thousands of years, astrology is one of humanity’s oldest frameworks for self-inquiry.

I recently learned that renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung was a quiet admirer of astrology, as a symbolic language for understanding the human psyche.

Both Jung and astrology work through archetypes - recurring symbols and patterns that shape our inner and outer lives. In astrology, these archetypes appear as planets, signs, and houses. In Jung’s work, they take the form of the collective unconscious. For example, the caretaker, the jester, or the sage.

Both systems point to something universal and timeless: we make sense of life through frameworks of patterns and symbols, each finding our own doorway in.

My entry point was psychology. Gloria’s was astrology. Yours might be art, nature, or yoga.

“Tapping into your inner world of emotions can be confronting,” Gloria says. “Thankfully we have so many modalities and healers in our community. We’re not meant to do this alone.”

Just this week, I had an oracle reading. My sister saw a kinesiologist for the first time. A friend pulled a tarot card to give her direction after a breakup. Another told me he’s shedding identities.

Something is undoubtedly shifting. And people’s minds are opening.

Pluto has just moved into Aquarius, Gloria tells me. A once-in-28-year transit tied to community, tech, and humanitarian shifts. “It’s death and rebirth,” she says. “We’ll see both the breakdown and the revival of these areas.”

After time with Gloria, I feel lighter. I’m reminded that my breakdowns and breakthroughs are part of a bigger story playing out in the world.

For more planetary wisdom, follow @_gloriaskye on Instagram or visit gloriaskye.com 🌙

Emma / Pooch x