I’ve been sketching people’s spirit guides for many years and this card and book set is a collection of some of my favourites over this time. Many of you are familiar with the prototype deck I’ve been using in clinic consults. The retail version I’m working on now is a boxed set containing 36 cards and an accompanying book. I’m hoping to have the published deck ready for posting out in June-July 2021 and am currently taking pre-orders for the first print edition.

This is Kaylana, a young female dragon in her human form. She’s very young, yet ancient at the same time, which might be why she looks so serious, like an old man with a child’s face. Her flaming red hair is not just wild and untamed, but on fire, flaming out around her like a mane. As I sketch her, it seems as though the fire rising up from her belly and her heart, shining our through her eyes. The fire in her belly is like a furnace. The fire in her heart is more like a jewel with warm fire-light at its core. Sometimes, when my vision shifts, she seems like an ordinary child, holding her parent’s hand, walking down an autumn path with the setting sun behind her, a halo of fire-light around her head.

Kaylana isn’t much of a talker. She expresses herself with body movements, facial expressions and the power of her presence.  When I asked Kaylana what a dragon is, she pointed up to the stars and then down at the earth. Then she gathered star dust and red dirt from the earth, rubbed it together in her hands and ran her hands over herself as though to say she was a being made from red earth and star-dust. There is something both universal about her – as though is comes from and is made from the stars – and earthy, as though she might slip away into the autumn colours at sunset, like a nature-spirit.

She reaches her hands down into the autumn leaf litter and when she raises them again, I see fire on and in her hands, sometimes like a ball of fire-light, other times like a flame. Sparks swirl around her in patterns that remind me of nebula’s and galaxies, and when I look into her eyes I feel as though I am drowning in an expanse of stars. I feel the stars in her eyes and the fire in her soul.

The fire child teaches us how to call in inspiration from the stars above while staying grounded and anchored in the strength of our physicality. She teaches us how to gather energy and chi, and harness it within us, building it, stoking it like a fire, before we release it with power of intent, like an archer releasing the arrow from her bow. The fire child encourages us to learn martial arts, tai chi, chi kung. She teaches us how to be still and breathe power in, rather than reacting in a knee-jerk manner to provocation or desire and leaking our fire, our power, out into the world around us without clarity of intent.

If the fire child has come to you, it’s time to learn how to better manage your fire chi. This might be because you are wasting it with procrastination or reactivity or relentless over-thinking. Or it might simply be because you are ready now to stand strong in your centre, rather than being caught up in action and activity that isn’t purposeful and potent. Fire child teaches us how to find an inner place of stillness and observe quietly from this place, like a hawk circling effortlessly on an updraft looking down from above. She shows us how to pull back and see the bigger picture and our place within this picture before we release our potential and power like a hawk diving for it’s prey.

Stop and ask yourself if it’s time to take action and whether your action is considered. Can you see the bigger picture, the lay of the land? Do you have your bearings and have you spent time observing, watching, and waiting for the exact light moment to strike? There is a time to be still and wait, a time to watch and rest easy on wind currents while you stoke your inner fire, and then there is a time to take action. Many people leak energy by getting caught up in excessive thinking without taking decisive and timely action, or they constantly spend energy speaking and taking action without pausing for thought or allowing themselves to drift and rest and recharge their batteries.

To recharge your batteries, you might like to do some sun-soaking, just like cats and lizards do! Stand in front of the setting sun and breathe it in, hands outstretched as though reaching for the sun. Draw light in with the inhalation as you pull your hands back to you, bringing the sunlight into your belly or your heart. Now smile as you imagine your radiant inner sun melting away tension from within you and imagine what it would like to be like a cat, lion, tiger, lizard or dragon luxuriating in a puddle of sunlight on a cool autumn day.