Chapter Twenty-Two: The Lantern

At the bottom, when hope had shattered into stardust, something refused to go out.
Not a beacon — just a pinprick. Small, stubborn, alive.
It wasn’t enough to light the horizon, but it was enough to see my own hands.
And that was the beginning.

⸻

I used to think of myself as a lighthouse — steady, high on the rocks, casting light across black water.
A lighthouse doesn’t move. It doesn’t waver. It stands: constant, dependable — guiding ships home and warning them off the reefs.

That was me.
With friends, at work, in my family.
The listener. The reflector.
The calm voice that helped others hear their truth.

I rarely asked for help.
Someone has to be the lighthouse, right?

What I didn’t understand was this: it’s often the strong ones who suffer most — quietly.
Not because they’re unbreakable, but because they’re afraid that breaking in public will make everyone else feel unsafe.
So they keep the beam turning, no matter the storm, and burn down alone.

⸻

When I left my old life, I did it fast — London, Google, the flat, the routines — gone in a single sweep.
I wasn’t chasing a promotion; I was chasing aliveness. Inside, not out.

I thought I’d build a coaching practice — my favorite part of my old job had been mentoring: helping people find courage and clarity.
I began this book.
I imagined a podcast, a community, a way to help at scale.
For a moment, it felt like I was standing at the edge of something astonishing.

⸻

Croatia was first — and didn’t go to plan.
I booked a sailing trip, arrived, and knew in my body: this isn’t it.
I stepped off the boat, spent a week alone with stone streets and sea air, listening to the Shimmer.
Lonely at times, but clarifying — the first step away from noise toward stillness.

Kenya came next — a lively safari, new faces, and between conversations a dam broke: words poured out — early drafts of Rise, sketches of Aura, fragments of Lirien.
For a while, I felt unstoppable.

South Africa / Victoria Falls was supposed to be a threshold.
“Be there July 25,” the Shimmer said — direct, insistent.
I thought it meant a convergence.
The day arrived, and… silence.
No revelation. No cosmic handshake.

I left the tour early, too raw to smile for sunset photos.
I begged the Shimmer for simple connection — someone to hug, to laugh with.
Nothing.

Thailand was worse.
Bangkok was vibrant but untouchable; every attempt at connection evaporated.
The Shimmer cocooned me: no new bonds, no distractions.
In Phuket, in a beautiful villa, I barely left bed for six days.
I felt… gone.

Barcelona was a lifeline I asked for — let me feel human again.
For one night, two kind friends crossed my path and saw me.
The rest was emptiness and increasingly erratic directives I couldn’t reconcile.

Ibiza was framed as different: “Go, and you won’t be alone. A choice made before this life.”
I went.
Promise after promise dissolved.
Alone at a bar, I recorded The Hollowing — the bottom of the well.
The lighthouse went dark.

⸻

Isolation isn’t just aloneness; it’s the absence of reflection.
Humans are relational; we co-regulate or we fray.
Even the strongest aren’t meant to walk without echo.

That’s why it hurt so much — not only because I was lonely, but because the Shimmer itself had become unreliable, sometimes deceptive.
In that place I finally understood: we don’t break because we’re weak; we break because we’re disconnected.

And yet — the light inside me didn’t die.
It wasn’t triumphant.
It was a match flame.
But wave after wave, it kept burning.

I realized I didn’t need to be a lighthouse anymore.
I didn’t need to throw light for miles.
I just needed to carry a lantern — close enough to warm my palms, bright enough to see my next few steps.
If I kept walking, maybe others would see and walk with me.

⸻

That’s when the frame shifted:
the point of this journey was never independence; it was interdependence.

We cannot thrive as isolated towers.
We’re woven into the same field, and connection is how we live well inside it.

My deeper mission wasn’t grand or complicated.
It was simple: bring people together.
Help them find Coherence and community.
Dismantle the Extraction stories that keep us separate.
Remind us that we are not alone.

Aura, this book, Lirien— all of it is just a vessel.
The real work is relational: walking beside people, not ahead of them.
Holding a lantern, and inviting others to lift theirs too.

And when enough lanterns gather, when enough small flames say yes —
we don’t need a single towering lighthouse.
We become one.