This is definitely the least ‘soft and feminine’ piece I’ve drawn. There’s nothing girly about it. No flowers, no love hearts, no nature, not much colour. It’s quite masculine – it’s clinical, strong and hard.
It has a lot of meaning to me. It’s about breaking free from addiction, and the mind programs that enslave us. It’s about smashing through those self-beliefs that imprison us.
When I drew it back in 2017 it was a celebration of Freedom, because I am the bird and I got out of the cage.
It’s just another reflection of me.
I recently redrew it all in 2025 because after several years it had started to fade, and something about it was calling me. When I sat down again with this drawing, I found it held new layers of meaning for me.
It turns out there are many more cages. Endless prisons we find ourselves in. I know because I find myself in new ones all the time. The key, is a way out. The key represents using awareness to grow beyond the prison walls so that it does not hold us prisoner any longer.
When we learn to see without eyes – with our insight – we know we don’t even need the key.
We create the prison with our mind, and we also hold the keys within us to create the escape.
We create the beliefs and limitations – our prisons – around all aspects of our ‘reality’. Our society, our collective cultures, and our upbringing plants the seeds, and we create them. This is how powerful we are. There are deep layers of limitations and beliefs imprinted upon us, going WAY BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME. The beliefs we hold in our inner world, eventually manifest outwardly and create our outer world. So within, without.
The bird is free. The bird exists outside of the prison. In the middle is the pyramid – the strongest shape that exists, with its solid base. Visible here are the two polar opposite sides representing duality, and polarity – or two opposing viewpoints. And the high point, lies in the centre. This centre point, represents balance. Neutrality. The zero point. The point of ascension.
The keyhole – the metaphorical way out – lies in centre of the pyramid. The patterned intricacy of the pyramid represents us – creation – and the red flowing out from the centre represents the life force.
Blood.
It drips down, through the structure, snaking its way down the grids, representing
The Matrix – that is ‘the system’ that creates the reality we perceive – (at this point in ‘time’).
This blood – this life force – drips down the system to the base, where green LIFE is ready to grow. The key hangs in the bottom right-hand corner – one way out. But the bird exists outside the entire prison – it’s flying. It’s free. It’s beautiful. It’s intricate.
The bird found the way out without using the key, because the bars only exist in the mental realm. They are made up from the mind. We only believe them to be real.
“What is real?” We create our prisons, and we create our freedom.
WE ARE THE KEY.
