Slow to exit
Inspiration shot March 2026
Special Mystery School edition
The past seven weeks I have stayed in one place! At the beautiful Highden estate in New Zealand, for the Temple Training. I only left the land twice, once to get groceries and once for a small excursion.
Therefore this inspiration shot has a slightly different format than usual.
I slowed everything down, really landed, am less in my head and more in my body. Still deeply connected to Highden, the Mystery School. At the same time I already notice how the transition back to the ‘normal world’ immediately brings a few rollercoasters and tests. More on that below.
I will try to translate what I learned into something that is also useful in everyday life. I hope at least one of these reflections will resonate with you, make you think, and perhaps open up a new insight.
Magic along with me for a moment?
My stay at Highden felt like a journey inward, through layers I did not even know existed.
How do you describe something that can only truly be experienced? I tried to capture it in a blog, not to explain it, but to give you a glimpse.
You will read about the balance between masculine and feminine energy, not as theory, but as I encountered it within myself. About meeting my “dweller”, the part you would rather avoid, yet turns out to be the gateway.
About three layers of consciousness slowly revealing themselves. About initiations you cannot plan, only surrender to. And perhaps the most remarkable moment of all, a deep, almost unexplainable experience in which my father made himself felt, exactly when it mattered most.
Even my dreams changed. From running and surviving, to staying. To wanting to stay.
If you are curious about what happened during the training, and what it did to me, I would love to take you into my story.
Inspiration bites
I would love to share a few quotes from the chakra gates at Highden:
“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing;”
“…there is yet faith
But the faith and the love
and the hope
are all in the waiting.”
“In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way
in which you are not.
And what you do not know
is the only thing you know”
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive
where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
Did you know...
…that my father walked me down the aisle in New Zealand, while I was not even getting married and he was lying sick in bed in Miami?
During a “sacred union” ceremony, shaped like a wedding, something happened that I could never have anticipated.
Suddenly, my father was there. Tangibly present beside me. As if, in that moment, he did what he had never been able to do in real life. That moment opened my heart in a way I could never have achieved by forcing it.
👉 Read this story on FB. Or check the blog with many more stories from my Highden experience.
Waar is Esther?
I am writing this on my way to my father in Miami. Over the past weeks he has not been feeling well, so I decided to interrupt my RTW trip and go to him. That turned out to be quite a journey in itself.
My original route with Qatar Airways got cancelled due to the closure of airspace over the Middle East. Alternatives fell away one by one.
I decided to stay at Highden a bit longer and helped with the new website. It was beautiful to remain in the calm of the land a little longer and contribute to this unique community.
The Hawaiian Airlines business class ticket I found, with a symbolic departure on my father’s 78th birthday, unfortunately did not work out. Due to a delayed domestic flight I arrived just too late at check-in.
Frustration, followed by hours of discussion with the helpdesk, a night in a questionable airport hotel, more calls. In the end the ticket was cancelled and I had to book a completely new one. Economy class, and even more expensive.
It felt like a test in the “real world”, right after seven weeks at Highden:
- From calm and support to chaos and uncertainty
- From flow to constant switching
- From business class to economy
After hardly leaving the land for seven weeks, the outside world felt strange. As if the magic does not quite fit the pace of daily life.
And still, I am almost there.
Sometimes the real initiation is not inside the gates, but in how you move once you leave them.
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