The Path of the Firebird

Once upon a time, childhood prepared us for adulthood. Now its your time to have fun before you put your nose to the grindstone. Once upon a time, adulthood was a satisfying time and state of being. Now it is not unless you are lucky. Very lucky.

The catch to this? It is intentional.

There is no cabal of secret rulers of the world. Let’s be clear. But civilization is built to extract from the majority and transfer to the elite. The whole system is built to keep the masses engaged in a system that not only doesn’t benefit them, but which actively harms them.

This is why empires and governments seek to leave no options outside participation in empire. if people could abstain from empire, they would. And if people did abstain, the nobility would starve. This is why colonial powers have come down so hard on the indigenous peoples, who are able to exist while abstaining from empire. The is a heresy that empire cannot accept. Exceptions show cracks in the facade. Exceptions show the discontented a way out.

And that’s what we’ve provided here. A map that shows you the way out.

The Path in Order

  1. The Firebird Mask
  2. Fire, Flower, and Blade
  3. The Rose
  4. The Sleeper in the Shadowlands
  5. The Hound and Scapegoat
  6. The Face of the Weaver
  7. The Coils of the Great Serpent
  8. The Sleeper and the Shepherd
  9. The Mark of the Seven Siblings
  10. The Sacred Skull
  11. The Arc of The Crescent Sun
  12. The Damacles Blade
  13. The Abominations
  14. The Daemon Houses
  15. The Eye of the Weaver
  16. The Hive
  17. The Beetles
  18. The Hummingbird
  19. The Butterfly
  1. The Trail of the Tenfold Path
  2. The Corn Lady
  3. Councils and Orders
  4. The Great Alliance
  5. The Darkened Ones
  6. The Oath of the Pale Twins
  7. The Witch’s Bargain
  8. The Laws of the Hunts
  9. Mother Dinknesh
  10. Cloven Island

Just in the barest nick of time,
trust in the song, trust in rhyme.
We were wrong about our fate.
And so we pound upon the gate.

Hands blood red, eyes full of hate,
demands are yelled, but much too late.
With cities felled like dying oaks,
we struggle, bound within our yokes.

Some stopped the song, such foolish folk.
Freedom was bartered, lost in smoke.
The brave were martyred for the cause,
and on their graves we built new laws.

Now, as time turns work to rust.
Now, as ash replaces lust.
Plantations harvest only dust.
The song is dead, the sentence just.

Recommended Reading

  • Pandora’s Seed: Why the Hunter-Gatherer Holds the Key to Our Survival, by Spencer Wells
  • The Disaster Diaries, by Sam Sheridan
  • Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life, by Neil Strauss
  • Superbetter, by Jane McGonigal