My birth name is Simone Petra Pinkhasova. Petra means stone rock.

I was born the year of Princess Diana and the year the Berlin wall was erected to divide East and West Germany. I was conceived under a cacophony of stars and fireworks that made my mother’s hair glow chartreuse. On the day of my birth, there were no stars or fireworks. The clouds obscured the constellations, and my mother died of postpartum hemorrhage when her uterus would not contract once I was out of her womb.

The atmosphere on that morning was a cashmere curtain with an omen; it would take me many decades to fully receive the stars and my mother. 

My summers as a child were spent swimming and playing in the forest at Barrier Beach, where my grandparents owned a lake resort. When I was eleven, I went out onto the dark with nothing but the stars as escorts on the flat, black lake. I fell asleep in the small canoe I’d taken and woke up to the cold splash of water; I nearly drowned. My body still recalls the grip of fear that clung to my bones as I descended deeper and deeper into the darkness. It was so dark and cold; I didn’t know which way was up or down.

Drowning brought me to my knees. I was humbled by the vastness of the elements and my alignment with the atmosphere. My experience taught me to have faith in the darkness and how to receive without seeking answers. To perceive the light that led me back to my breath, I had to become very still and wait despite the growing fear and discomfort in my body. The more I struggled, the more my body contracted and spiralled downwards. When I surrendered control and stopped grasping, I gained clarity. My intuition surfaced to guide me where I needed to return.