In Corralejo’s old city center, just behind the small ‘Muelle Chico’ pier, there’s this shop called Isis Boutique. It doesn’t look much from the outside, but behind the beautiful door, it tells an amazing story. One of the three oldest shops in Corralejo is filled with unique jewelry and clothes from all over the world. The heart and soul of her shop is Margarita, a charismatic American lady who was guided here to the island 38 years ago and stayed. Now she’s as famous for her shop as she is for her inspired tarot readings, but she’s so much more than just that. If you’re interested in more spiritual, esoteric Fuerteventura, she’s the one you wish to talk to.
“I’ve been on the island for 38 years. At the perfect time, in the 70’, I lived in San Francisco, but then the 80’ came, and everything started to change. I decided I didn’t want to be in America anymore, so I sold everything and started traveling Europe for one year. I went to Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, and Greece for three months, looking for a place to live, but I couldn’t find it; then I went to Germany for a long cold winter in Munich. After an interesting but challenging time, I needed to go somewhere warm. People said – go to the Canary Islands. First I went to Gran Canaria, but I didn’t like it there, then to Lanzarote and then I found Fuerteventura. I fell in love with the town (Corralejo) and the island, and the first week, I had met everyone. The first day I went to the only beach bar in town, and this black guy from Gambia asked me my name in Spanish. I didn’t understand him, and he said “OK, you are Margarita”, so since the first day, I was Margarita.”
Which is not your real name.
No, my name is Jill. But here they call me “Margarita Americana.” I really liked it here, and someone also offered me a free place to stay, so I went back to Germany, got all my stuff, and came back, and I’ve been here for 38 years. After staying here three years, I found one of the oldest building in town and opened the shop and have been here for 35 years. It’s one of the oldest running places, besides the Surf life and a Kiwi bar. I started with nothing and worked on building it up.
When you were traveling in Greece, you had this strange dream about Fuerteventura without even knowing the island.
Yes, during my time in Greece, I had a dream about an island with angels coming out of the volcanoes, and it was magical, and I knew I had to be there. It showed me an island with a long name starting with an F. When I woke up, I said to myself – I have to go there – but I couldn’t remember the name. I looked all over Greece but couldn’t find it there, and then I forgot about the dream. After I had been here for a few months, I remembered it, and yes, I found my island. The spirits brought me here, and after three years, I started this ISIS temple; my shop’s name is ISIS, and I’ve been doing my spirit work since.
Where did this interest in spirit work come from?
I started my spiritual studies back in San Francisco. My bachelor’s degree is in Japanese studies, and I have a master’s degree in esoteric psychology; I studied tarot, yoga, Hinduism, Buddhism, psychology, channeling, healing, meditation, and astrology, all these things. I could have worked as a psychologist, but I decided to come to Europe to do something more creative. I started making jewelry, and then people from all over the world started to bring me pieces for my shop.
Do you still practice, or maybe even teach, all these things here on Fuerteventura?
No, I don’t teach. Fifteen, even ten years ago, times were very different. We had amazing meditations; we did so much work in groups, did mandalas, went around the island, did rock formations, and opened up galactical portals. We were like one big group of interesting people who wanted to elevate the vibration of the planet and the island. Then 2012 came, and after that, our group dissipated; for many people their work was done here, and this era was over. Now new people are coming, doing yoga workshops, sound healings, and other things. Now different activities are going on, not so much like going to the dunes to meditate, but more like workshops. Since 2012, everything has gone a bit more individual where we have to work on our personal spiritual evolution. There are new people doing meditations here, but now I’m only doing it once per month in the Hindu temple here in Corralejo.
I didn’t realize we have a Hindu temple here.
Yes, there’s a temple, and it’s pretty inside, with decorations and statues, but it doesn’t look like a temple from the outside. It’s just an office building, in Bristol, on the main street towards the port. It’s not always open, but they do different activities there. Once a month, usually every first Thursday at 6 pm, Carina and I do meditations learning new techniques there. Do you know Carina?
I’m afraid I don’t.
She’s a wonderful Hindu woman, living here in the Canary Islands, and is kind of a ”spiritual mother of Fuerteventura.” She’s very psychic and good at teaching people how to do different techniques.
There are some incredible people living on this island.
Yes, there are. A good friend of mine is a Spanish man who does his workshops on Akashic records, he’s also doing personal healings, and he’s doing a workshop here in December. He’s phenomenal, one of the best healers I know. You lay down, and he sees what’s happening with you, then he works with your angel guides, giving you messages and healing. And there are also many other good healers on the island.
And you don’t do that?
No, I’ve concentrated on tarot readings; I’m good at giving people guided information. I became very famous for that in the last two years because I did all the digital nomads people here in Corralejo (laughing). There are a lot of interesting people living on the island at the moment, and I believe that everyone who lives here on Fuerteventura, more than just as a tourist, has been pulled here for some reason.
How so?
Fuerteventura was part of the old Atlantis, and it’s one of the parts of the Atlantis that’s still above water. People are returning home.
Before we continue, maybe a quick word about Atlantis?
Atlantis was a big continent, consisting not just of these islands but here is their southern edge, and Bermuda is the western part. England, Ireland, and Iceland are the northern part, with the Azores as the middle point. Lobos and Fuerteventura were the feminine, spiritual, softer side of Atlantis, where people had more meditational, spiritual powers, while the more scientific, masculine part was around Bermuda.
So why are some people pulled here?
The whole Canary islands are part of Atlantis, but in my opinion, Fuerteventura and Lobos have even more energy than any other islands. It’s very strong and very pure because there’s less development here. And it’s also a lot older than the other islands, so it’s got different energy. From 2000 to 2012, we worked together with a clairvoyant English couple, who had started the Atlantis society in the 50’ and 60’ in England, before this was even heard of. For years, we worked on the chakra system of Fuerteventura and the Canary islands, with Fuerteventura as the heart chakra; it’s the mother energy. I call it “the washing machine” because it cleanses your karma, but sometimes not in an easy way, but more like spanking you (laughing). With the movement of the air, the ocean, and the wind.. everything is moving around; it’s not stagnant. Even though sometimes it’s very slow, everything is moving. Sometimes you’re in the spin cycle, sometimes you’re in the gentle cycle, swimming in the ocean, sometimes you’re just drying out in the sun, and sometimes things are rough, with the seas raging. For me, this is what’s happening in Fuerteventura.
Is this island attracting a certain kind of people?
Yes, it’s definitely pulling people who were once in Atlantis, and people who really want to work on themselves and clean their karma. People, who are searching. Sometimes people are pulled to the island even though life is not easy, but they just stay or keep coming back. People either love it or they don’t. But if you love it, you love it, and you keep coming back, and even if you don’t, you keep coming back (laughing). People come and think they want to live here forever, but it’s not for everybody all the time. I think the best way to do it is to come and go because then you get the perspective when you’re not here. But if you have a business like mine, I can’t come and go. But it’s fine; my heart is here, I’ll go down with the ship. If there’s a tsunami, I’ll go with that, and it’s fine. I’m an “earth-keeper,” and I was sent here to hold the energy of the island, together with a few other people.
What does this mean, how do you do that?
It’s not that I even know how I do it; I just know that I do. My father was a very famous nuclear geologist in America, he also studied the moon rocks for NASA, so I come from this lineage, but I’m not as scientific as he was; instead, I do the spirit work. The volcanos here are very strong, but they’re also inactive. There won’t be any eruptions unless something crazy happens, whereas, in some other islands, they’re still active. So the energy here is ancient and has so much power. La Palma is still a baby, and Fuerteventura is kind of a grandmother. From 2005 till 2014, we worked really hard, opening up the portals, but now we have to work on our own personal growth instead of group growth, but the island is special. You either feel it, or you don’t. And everyone here has a story of how they got here. Some people just went to the airport and ended up here without even knowing where they were going. It’s magical; it’s like a magnet; if you resonate, it will pull you in, you don’t even have to try. Many people come, even only as tourists, and they keep coming back because it’s a wonderful place.
Would you say, generally, the island is in a good place right now?
I’d say yes, I think it’s in a good place, there are some problems, but I think it’s good. It’s international, there are people, and there are enough things around. In the beginning, there was one small supermarket with hardly any food; I lived on tomatoes, potatoes, and fish, and the little magdalenas, there were no vegetables; sometimes you could get some green beans. Now it’s not the easiest place to be, it’s transient, people come and go, you might make a friend, and they’re gone, it’s very expensive right now – the salaries are quite low, and the rents are very high. But it’s becoming more hippie-like, which is nice. Before, it was more ‘package-tourists,’ and now it’s more yoga retreats. Back in the day, it was very primitive, but it was special. And now it’s not primitive, but it’s still special.
Do you think it’s getting too commercialized?
But if we didn’t have anyone here, it wouldn’t be nice, either. I’ve been here at that point, and it was too slow back then. It was beautiful but too slow, things took a million years to happen. I’ve been through Corralejo for 38 years, I’ve seen good times and bad times, but I think it’s pretty good right now. It’s got some interesting people; if you want to just have a holiday, you can do that, if you want to go to workshops, you can do that, you can go surfing, you can get fresh air and sun also in winter, when many other countries have zero degrees, it’s friendly and safe, I don’t feel afraid here, I feel protected here. If you’re a good person, you get treated nicely here. If you start causing trouble to people, you can have some problems, but if you keep your intention good and you have a good heart, you can make it. But not everybody is supposed to stay here forever.
Let’s go back for a moment to the portals you mentioned a couple of times today; how should we understand them?
You can feel them. When you go to volcanoes, the beach, or to the dunes, the dunes are really powerful; the energy there is very strong, and whatever you do there is magnified. I spent a night at the bottom of a volcano once with a friend, who is a real earth-keeper, he works with the energies of nature, while I do more meditations; however.. we were in separate tents, it was not too comfortable, and I finally fell asleep, and then I had this really weird dream, and all of a sudden I woke up and I felt liquid spraying my face. I checked if it was raining maybe, but it wasn’t, my friend was sleeping in the other tent, and there was nobody there. That was kind of strange, and it was real. In the morning, when he woke up, I asked him – did you notice anything weird last night? And he said yes, I saw a vision of seven birds, and they came to you, gave you a blessing, and gave you an initiation. So that what I felt was the birds, and I really felt it. Here are these energies around, but it helped to be with him because he’d opened this portal for me. There’s a lot of magic, a lot of creatures around Fuerteventura and Lobos, and a lot of very special places, like Tindaya, Pico de la Zarza, Vega de Rio Palmas – Fuertevenura’s heart chakra, then Montaña Cardon, the Calderon Hondo crater… The island is full of spirits; some are good, the others are strange, so just trust your intuition.
Let’s speak of the good ones.
They’re where you feel good. In the dunes, on top of your favorite volcanoes, or in the ocean… you can find special connections in the ocean, or walking in nature, or just having fun at night. But you’re more of an earth person. Do you take people on excursions? That would be a good job for you.
I sometimes do, actually.
You could find people who really want to go deeper than just take a ride to Betancuria, which is lovely, but there is so much more going on on this island.
You can find Margarita at Isis Boutique, Calle Iglesia 3, behind the “Music square” and by the small harbour. Open from 2 pm – 5.30 pm and 9 pm – midnight. Closed on Sundays
