“The sanctuary is a place not a product,” says Vindos.

That’s easy for Him to say when He’s the King of Annwn. From the heights of His golden throne. When He’s got all the treasures of Annwn arrayed around Him. Heaps of golden coins. Plates. Cups. A horn of ever-flowing mead. A cauldron that feeds a kingdom of fair folk and all the dead who ever walked there. 

He who has no fear of hunger. He who has no fear of thirst. He whose four-cornered fortress belongs to Him, is part of Him, requires no mortgage nor rent. 

And it’s not as if I live in poverty. By the generosity of my parents, I have a roof over my head, enough to eat, a lovely garden where I grow wildflowers. 

But I won’t be able to live here forever. The day will come when I must stand on my own two feet. When I must earn my living. My shamanic work is paying far better than my writing ever did but still is not enough to live off.

I take a business course. I learn some useful things. I get pulled back towards the drive to endless productivity, endless growth, attempt to go back on social media and laughably end up faced with multiple dead ends. I’m banned from Facebook and Instagram. I refuse to go on X. I try Linkedin. It’s corporate, soulless, the Land of the Vampires. Drained, I make my escape.

“The sanctuary is a place not a product,” says Vindos. He tells me to embody sanctuary and this is not possible when I’m selling my soul. “Start at home. Heal yourself, heal your relationships, only then will others come for healing.”

Start at home. Do the moneyless work. Heal my own wounds. My relationship with this place, with my family, with my ancestors. A lifetime’s work. 

“Do your soulwork,” he says. “It will pay, if not in this life, in the next or the next.”

“And as for the sanctuary?”

“Between you and I and those who come it will take shape.”