* This post is the Forward to The Dragon Book
In 2020, the infamous year of covid (which I refuse to capitalize), I felt a fundamental shift—a positive, energetic change in frequency. In actuality, I started to experience it before the onset of the pandemic—I seemed to experience everything just a little bit sooner than those around me. In fact, the week leading up to government-imposed isolation, I came down with a very uncomfortable flu that laid me out in bed for several days. Did I actually contract the acute illness and recover from it before I became acutely aware that I even could contract it and possibly not recover from it? Who knows.
I do know that I had, only a few weeks before, openly asked the universe for a reprieve—I asked and wished for a break, a time in which my family could simply live together, without all of the usual commitments, responsibilities, and stresses—some down time, not just for a week, but for long enough for us to truly rest and relax into life. I only wished it for my family personally; I could never have imagined how it would play out for humanity collectively. Be careful what you wish for.
Six months into this new pandemic-enforced isolation, I felt deep, fundamental shifts in reality. But, on the surface, my family grew bored—we sought leisurely entertainment like TV shows and movies, anything to bring a little excitement to an otherwise tedious stretch of time. At first, I indulged in a variety of distractions—re-watching Downton Abbey for the sixth time; binge-watching eco-home, tiny home, and off-grid homesteading videos at twice the normal speed; attempting unsuccessfully to introduce my kids to Lord of the Rings; following my favourite YouTube channellers like a new religion; and signing up for more free or almost-free online courses than I could possibly complete—everything from unified physics, to Ho’oponopono, to horse communication.
But, I felt increasingly antsy—nothing satisfied me anymore—the books I’d revelled in repeatedly fell flat; videos from my favourite YouTubers lacked substance; movies and TV shows I had enjoyed in the past and attempted to revive now seemed downright dumb, or worse—violent and angry, overwhelmingly victim-based and dystopian to the point that they turned my stomach. Why did I respond so differently to them now?
And then I realized, they no longer matched the frequency of my new energy. I had shifted; they had not. I needed something new. I felt that all of humanity needed something new—something to both reflect and inspire a new reality, a new perspective. The time for dystopian stories had passed. We needed a utopian story, a story to focus us optimistically on what could be—Visionary Activism. After all, consciousness always comes first—you have to imagine it before you can manifest it. I sat in silence, searching to articulate what I yearned for.
I yearned for starlight under an open sky; for wood fires in open hearths. I yearned for graph paper, compasses, and sharp pencils; I yearned for circles. I retreated into my own imagination, conjuring and combining images of everything I had been contemplating, from off-grid homes, to mythical creatures, to sacred geometry, astronomy, astrology, and way beyond. And the place I architected within the depths of my inner vision resonated more clearly, more harmonically, more fluidly than anything I experienced outwardly, to the point that retreating into it felt like a trance. In short, it felt like coming home.
Welcome home. Freedom lives here.
* A section of Chapter 1 of The Dragon Book is available at the end of the post, Architecting Thrivival.