Davina Mackail: The Dream Whisperer

For those who may not yet have encountered her Davina Mackail is a shamanic life coach and healthier home and business expert, an experienced teacher, writer, presenter and inspirational speaker. She is also a Master Practitioner in Hypnotism, Time Line Therapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. She has had a syndicated astrology column in over 100 regional newspapers and has appeared on many local radio stations providing Feng Shui tips and healthy home information.

Her television work began with advising on Ann Maurice’s programme “House Doctor” on Channel 5; she has been on ITV1’s “This Morning” as well as a monthly guest appearance on Channel Five’s “The Wright Stuff”.

Davina has worked as a travel journalist and is a contributing author for Do it Yourself Psychic Power by Natalia O’Sullivan, and Janey Lee Grace’s Imperfectly Natural Home. Her new book “The Dream Whisperer” was published by Hay House in May 2010.

She has made the human mind her life-long study, drawing information and inspiration from the fields of metaphysics, quantum physics, the nature of consciousness, philosophy, psychology and of course shamanism. She discovered Feng Shui when working in the Far East in the early 1990s and now holds a professional Diploma in the practice and spirit of Feng Shui.

In her corporate years she was known to bring a little of the parallel universe into the boardroom, introducing energy work and even a little Peruvian magic. However, over time the call to energy work became so strong she could no longer ignore it and she gradually made the transition to working in the field full time.

She loves to travel and part of this transition led her to the foothills of the Himalayas and the glacial peaks of the Andes. In fact she practices Peruvian shamanism and has worked with some powerful and gifted teachers.

Her real passion though is to translate often complex esoteric information into pragmatic solutions that work in the modern world.

She lives Chiswick with her husband, composer and trumpet player, Guy Barker. “It’s our perfect compromise as I can still access the green fields and forests that I need and Guy can access the international transport links he needs for his work. I love the energy of London; it may have something to do with being born here. Although I grew up in the country ever since I came back to London in 1999 it has felt like home. Providing of course I manage to escape the city regularly enough for my nature fix.”

Her hobbies include a love of music and books, meditation, spending time in nature and Bikram yoga. “Guy and I both love good food, so our treat is definitely dining out or cooking something fabulous and decadent at home followed by a fabulous old black and white movie. We watched Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday by Jacques Tati last weekend which was entirely mesmerising and enchanting.”

We asked Davina to tell us how she first found out that she had Psychic ability and at what age. “I have always known that I was Psychic but I believe we all have this innate ability. It’s like a muscle that we need to exercise. It gets stronger and more attuned with use and throughout my life I have consistently exercised this ability.”
We were interested to know why, out of all the work Davina does, she chose to focus her new book on dream work and interpretation, and why she felt that this was particularly important.

“Dreams are moments of truth that reveal something of ourselves. It is this extraordinary relationship with the unconscious mind and the world of dreams as a source of both truth and inspiration that continues to fascinate me.”

“Although I’m not what I would call a natural dreamer I have trained myself to be able to dream when required and have used my dreaming mind to seek information on resolving client issues particularly when working with homes. After finding both my father and my husband through the power of dreams it would be hard for me to ignore their influence on my life.”

“It is their mystery and simplicity combined that I love. One moment they’re nonsensical fantasy the next they offer their ‘aha’ moment for the dreamer. A moment of deep truth passed from our unconscious to conscious mind for action and resolution.”

Davina believes that the role of dreams in everyday life are more important than people have given them credit for, “their purpose is threefold; they are a process of re-organisation of the self, a means to understanding who we truly are and an infinite source of creativity and inspiration.”

Through the book and her work Davina seeks to encourage us to proactively engage the dreaming mind to seek solutions, saying that the “Idea, of exploiting their creative potential, is the most unexplored and potentially evolutionary and exciting way of using our dreams. The idea that dreams are sources of creative genius is not new. Our world would not be as it is without dreams, from Einstein’s’ Theory of Relativity to Paul McCartney’s Yesterday dreams have exerted their magical influence upon us.”

She points out that we often say that something will seem better “if we sleep on it” without wondering if there is more to that statement than simply the restorative power of a good night’s sleep.

Her concern is that we tend to dismiss dreams because they’re meaning isn’t immediately obvious rather than working to interpret them and receive the messages emanating from our dreaming mind.

“We don’t consider what’s spoken in Chinese to be meaningless just because we don’t understand Chinese. It’s the same for dreams; they have their own language which, when we learn it, allows dream meanings to become abundantly clear.”

In the book she offers a myriad of different techniques to enable the reader to discover the language of their own dreams, thereby accessing their own creative and healing powers.

As we’ve mentioned, Davina’s other great interest is Shamanism, which she says found her during an extraordinary adventure that started in Moscow in 1992 and took her through the Mongolia, China and Hong Kong, across Tibet into Nepal, India, Bangladesh and ended in the Andaman Islands. This life changing trip took 7 months and included at least one near death experience (what was she up to we wonder), which is seen in many cultures as the Shaman’s mark of initiation.

She met her first official teacher, Alex Stark – a Peruvian Shaman – in 1997, and never looked back. For Davina Shamanism is a way of being, a trust and belief in the interconnectedness of all living beings, and a belief that all life is sacred.

Most interestingly she says that it is about learning to trust wisdom rather than knowledge. “Wisdom is the source, the knowing, without knowing, and knowledge is the attempted interpretation of that knowing. In my work I use these fundamental principles as a basis for accessing wisdom directly from Spirit and using the information I receive to work with the client in resolving whatever their issue may be. I work with clients across a wide spectrum of both business and personal issues. Wisdom is not biased or judgmental as knowledge can sometimes be and is always available to harmonise personal and community issues.”

It is very interesting and encouraging to see how Davina mixes the esoteric with the downright down-to-earth in her approach to life and living, and heart-warming to realise how these ancient and diverse attitudes and beliefs can enhance and strengthen life in the 21st Century.

We noted on Davina’s website that she mentions a Despacho Ceremony and we wondered what it was and when and how it is used, and whether it is something that can be done at home or requires a special place and an expert to run it.

“In Andean cosmology embodiment plays a significant part in the manifestation of ones intentions. The despacho is such a ritualistic embodiment - a microcosm of the macrocosm.”

“There are over 200 different types of despacho for many specific purposes - a cure all gift to the earth used to ask for a specific item such as conceiving a child, buying a house, getting a relationship or purely as a thank you for the gifts you have received. They are a specialist art and part of the Curandero’s (Peruvian shaman) toolkit. Because they are ritualistic in composition there are elements of that ritual that need to be learnt in order to create the right conditions for the power of the intentions to become manifest. So from that perspective it is best that someone who has learnt the process conducts the ceremony.”

Moving on to something more every day – as is always possible with Davina – we asked her about her healthy home work and what she feels the benefits are.

“William Morris saw the home as the metaphor of the Self and I completely agree with this. The majority of my healing work takes place through helping clients see their unconscious patterns. By their very nature they are unknown but their effects can still create a debilitating effect on our lives.”

“In my experience working with homes and their owners it becomes clear that a home can reveal much about the physical, psychological, spiritual and emotional state of its inhabitants. If these states are less than beneficial for the occupants we can make changes in the home that will allow resolution of unhelpful patterns or emotional blockages. Simply by changing furniture, colour, shapes, texture, artwork, placement etc can create the space for the personal healing of the occupants. That’s truly exciting in my view.”

Who though inspires a person such as Davina to put her feet on this path and make such an incredible success of her work?

“Many, many people have inspired me along the way, my patients when I was a nurse inspired me with their extraordinary courage in the face of so much pain My clients today inspire me not so much in the face of physical pain but for their bravery in facing themselves. My mum inspired me to believe in the power of truth and good manners in life and my husband constantly inspires me to be my better self through his humour and infinite kindness. Alex, one of my teachers, was an inspirational study in impeccability of thought, word, deed, and action. I’m still practising walking in his shoes!”

As an inspirational person herself we asked Davina what saying or concept has helped her most in her life.

“Again there are many but perhaps, for me, a key perceptual shift came from turning round the old adage of ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ to ‘If I believe it I’ll see it.’ ” This for me sums up the difference between knowledge and wisdom and is a powerfully life affirming way to live.”

“The other key piece is truly understanding the holographic nature of this world we inhabit and seeing the gift of life that is constantly reflected back to us whether positive or negative. Truly, if we ever need to know how we’re doing in life then we need look no further than the state of our closest relationships. They will perfectly reflect back to us any issues we’re choosing to pretend don’t exist.”

Davina says that she is “very blessed” in her work and has good memories of most of her working days. “Each time I receive a card, text or email from a client saying how they’ve benefitted in some way from us working together creates a good memory for me. I use these to encourage me to keep going on those days when things aren’t running quite so smoothly.”

Her funniest memories seem to revolve around the “cosmic jokes” that may be “playing out at the time in relation to the issues we’re dealing with. This produces the kind of humour that can be extremely funny, poignant and often revealing in the moment, but not the kind of humour that is easy to describe – you really have to be there.”

She has some wonderfully exciting projects in the pipeline. The first of these will be sharing her passion for dreaming at the Hay House, ICANDOIT conference in London the weekend of September 25th & 26th. She is also teaching a variety of shamanic, Feng Shui and dreaming workshops at both the College of Psychic Studies in South Kensington and the School of Intuition and Healing also in London. You can also see her dream column in “The Daily Mail” each week, and don’t forget that she also sees private clients.

“In amidst all this I’m contemplating the form my next book will take and planning a pilgrimage to Peru in November to revisit the Q’ero Indians I’ve worked and been taught by over the years.”

She seems to move effortlessly from the office to the television screen and into private homes and we wondered how she maintained her own equilibrium and energy. She told us that she is helped and moved by “The extraordinary, miraculous nature of life that surrounds us every day. Considering all the possibilities and potentialities that exist it is truly a miracle that we exist at all. To have been given the consciousness to witness and experience this miracle moves me to experience deep gratitude for all of my life.”

Davina comes across as warm, thoughtful, inspirational and extremely down-to-earth. Through her it is possible to see the esoteric married with the practical to produce a successful life that anyone can recognise whether or not they are on any form of Spiritual path. That practicality has clearly reached into many hearts, homes and offices than she might otherwise have reached, and helped to inspire more people to think about the truly rich and deep nature of this life and how it might be lived on two levels that can comfortably coexist.

We look forward to seeing her work in the future and wish her good luck with all her endeavours, and a very happy trip to Peru.

 © Deb Hawken - First published in Eternal Spirit Magazine Autumn Equinox 2010