Old habits and mimicking the relationships we observe in our formative years show up in the most innocuous of ways. One of those is fully displayed in this story: preparing a special meal for someone to placate them. I won't apologize for coddling Kevin. Regardless of our agreement, I was the one who chose to uphold equitable treatment between the habitats, and the way I did so directly impacted our time and relationship. I'll admit to feeling guilty, and I tried to atone in small ways, like trying to re-create a favorite meal when I knew he was aggrieved.

Our garden was another matter; no matter how much he grumbled about how it looked, I wouldn't let him touch it, neither the plants nor the stones around our home itself, at least not until after its necessity was over. They were the first line of protection against whatever I had felt on the day I estimated a vague timeline.

I wasn't worried about a physical threat to the habitat; the shimmer gave me that much. I was worried about what would happen when collective energies were released, both by immediate deaths as well as the agony and anguish of those who remained. I knew the pain I experienced then would be nothing compared to what I might experience during the actual event, and I realized there was a chance I could die. And while I understood I was acutely sensitive to those energies, I would not be the only one to experience them.

Trying to persuade the Foundation Board of the presence of energetic issues was beyond my abilities, at least until my timeline proved true. So, I turned to those liaisons I had met at the conference, each a follower of a polytheistic spirituality, acknowledging the animating spirit that connects us all, and we began to organize.

Collaborating with every spiritual group and tradition across the habitats with a mutual belief in shared energy, we created what would be called the Pan Pagan Alliance. Our members contributed surface funds to supply each habitat with the materials needed to develop energetically protective refuges on every residential floor. Within the alliance, the members of the various spiritualities also brought down the tools and supplies necessary for their long-term practices. I needed materials for my sanctuary, which were unavailable in the habitat, and so I added my orders to these.

As materials came in, we cleansed everything of outside influences and negative charges before storage, typically through the cleansing nature of the moon. Of course, we were unable to bathe them in actual moonlight, so we used the principles of correspondence and association. Above a yard, a canopy was raised, consisting of a double layer of loosely woven fabric, with small selenium chips thickly scattered between. On the full moon, we arranged every item needing its cleansing energy underneath this canopy and let it all bathe in our version of moonlight. (1)

Those were the stones I arranged around the structure of the building containing our home and office space. Larger stones of hematite, obsidian and clear quartz were set systematically, while smaller stones and chips of tourmaline, angelite, calcite, tiger-eye and amethyst were scattered to create an unbroken line. Through the rest of the front yard and close to the house in the back, I scattered seeds associated with the same correspondences of protection and those enhancing psychic awareness. And the plants grew and became a wild profusion, some pleasing, some not. There are too many to name here, but I remember the nettles growing around the jasmine and dandelions nestled beside the rosemary, as roses grew alongside mugwort.

From the time I laid the first rock and scattered the first seeds, I made it a habit to walk around the structure containing our home, willing my energy into the stones and plants as they grew, sending in my intent to protect those within our walls. I suppose you could say I willed the rocks and crystals to be batteries, storing my intent until it was needed.

It's the reason why I couldn't allow anyone to clean up the garden; it was necessary for the plants to undergo their continual cycle of life, death, and rebirth, with all the energy I passed in returning to the soil and enriching the next season's growth. The only plants removed were used as I worked on my sanctuary.

I knew I needed a physical space where I could be protected from what I feared while also giving my introverted self the stillness I needed to recharge my personal energy. I was finding it harder to find the quiet I needed; even virtual meetings were draining. Kevin had introduced me to some helpful activities, like the treadrooms and pools, but nothing provided me with enough respite since I had little time to devote to self-care.

Trance work and meditation in a quiet space were especially helpful in replenishing my energy levels. While I needed as much protection from harm as possible, I also wanted my intuition and empathy to have unfettered access and range freely outside those protective boundaries. Over the course of a few months, the requirements for my sanctuary evolved into a plan.

The liaison conference, held three months after we signed the Charter, was the first time I assumed my role as a non-voting member of the Foundation Board, and so I was able to present my proposal in person. I told them everything I had experienced as we discussed the situation around my "estimate," as they had begun to call it. While I didn't bring up the concepts of energy to them in the way I would later, when they learned to trust me, they understood my need for a place of stillness and respite, which I found necessary in order to continue in all my roles.

They had already approved the idea of remodeling my office space; what made for a fine home was not as useful for a growing staff and multiple meetings. I shared with them a digital representation of how the room I called my sanctuary could fit into the remodel. We agreed the Board could fund the physical construction of the space itself, and I would take on responsibility for funding any special construction.

My approach to building my sanctuary was to layer my intentions onto the room's surfaces, always beginning with a space cleansed of all energies but my own.

I did so, little by little, paying for everything out of my renumeration, only scheduling outside work when I had the funds to do so. What began as a sixteen-by-sixteen-foot room, set along the back and exterior walls of the office, evolved into a half sphere once initial construction was completed and my work began.

"I ward this room thrice about, keeping all harmful energies well without."

Naturally, the first layer was one of protection. I created incense from the plants I grew alongside those I had purchased. As I burned this incense within the room, I entwined my intentions with the smoke, allowing both to rise and permeate every surface.

I burned even more incense as I traced a spiral from the center of the ceiling to the floor, circling the pipe poking out of the floor's center. Along the spiral, I traced sigils designed for protection and affixed small stones associated with the same onto the surfaces in the same patterns used by the PPA for the calming rooms. Over and over, I kept my intention of blocking all harmful energies from entering this room at the forefront of my mind.

Even after I could release my shields fully and feel nothing, I continued to add more stones and crystals of protection to the walls until the room felt to me as if it were devoid of life, the feeling of energetic suffocation pressing upon all sides.

As protected as the room was, it still wasn't suitable for my purposes. I had enough experience with shielding to know the effects of shutting all energies out also shut me in. I needed this to be a place where I could freely allow my intuitive and empathic selves the ability to range where they would.

Only then did I schedule the next phase of construction, where my Work was plastered over, and the entire surface was once again made smooth. And so, after I cleared the extraneous energies left behind, I began working on the next layer.

"Round the room, three times spin, head and heart roam without and within."

I burned even more incense and traced a new spiral offset from the other by a quarter turn. Arranging new sigils and grid patterns on the surfaces took even more time. Everything I used this time followed the associations and correspondences aligned toward psychic sensitivity. Only when I felt the same within the room as I did without and could easily feel the energy of those in adjoining rooms was I ready for the last layer.

"Last be done, third time round; let truth, wisdom and connection here be found."

The last work was mainly done by the construction crew, who came to create the interior of my space. As they covered the rest of my work, they raised the floor enough to accommodate a sunken tub, deep enough for me to float in, shallow enough to rest comfortably along its sloped sides. An interior wall was built to accommodate shallow storage and necessary utilities, and the room once again assumed the shape of a sphere, flattening out only at the floor, everything covered by the mLED layer.

From start to finish, it took slightly less than four years to build. Once the last cleansing cycle was completed, and almost six years to the day we first toured NAHE, I stepped into my first and undoubtedly most significant sanctuary.

I remember feeling ritualistic as I entered the steaming tub and slid down, resting along the side and triggering the video program I had set up earlier.

Suddenly, I was floating among the stars; they were everywhere, above and below on every side. All of them were just small twinkling bits of lights, sparkling here and there, just what my brain needed to latch onto. I had discovered this trick when I mastered scrying, discovering my brain needed something, the imperfection of dust on a dark mirror, the reflection of flickering candles against a steam-filled window, to fasten onto and allow a lessening of the veil between my conscious and unconscious selves. I let myself drift, seeing what needed to be seen, feeling my energy return in ways I hadn't felt in years. (2)

When I needed it the most, my sanctuary protected me, and its usefulness only increased after the Catastrophe. It was while I was in this room that I explored the changes I was experiencing, within and without, learning how to live with them. It was within my sanctuary that I first encountered the web of time and possibilities, where I learned what humanity might become if we so aspired.

And, of course, after the need for energetic protection had passed, I was happy to relinquish control of our yard to Kevin, who brought it to where he was comfortable, in conformance with our neighbors. He did agree to keep the stones, and I continued my practice of regularly walking around our home and my office.