From My Heart
“Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own.” — Marcus Aurelius
This book was born from a lifetime of fragmentation, longing, and
fire—
from an unrelenting ache for wholeness that eventually awakened
something profound within me:
Ater Draco Borealis — Shadow Dragon of the Northern
Lights.
Ater, for the descent into darkness that
cannot be bypassed.
Draco, the serpentine force weaving shadow
into wisdom.
Borealis, cosmic light that mirrors the
dawn—the meaning of my mother’s name, Áróra.
I did not choose this name; it emerged from flames and wounds, etched deeply into my bones.
This book is not doctrine.
It is a spiral map, traced in scars.
A guide—not a rule.
It emerges from three burning questions:
How do I become whole?
What is the fundamental nature of this reality?
Why do I exist?
My journey began amidst Iceland’s stark beauty and deep
winters—
shaped by the quiet resilience of Flateyri, my father’s home,
and the wild coast of Barðarströnd, my mother’s birthplace.
My roots are Icelandic soil.
I carry the blood of Vikings, the traditions of Christ, the wisdom of
the Lotus Sutra,
and a Kundalini awakening that cracked me open.
Yet my path to integration was neither clear nor gentle.
Diagnosed with Tourette’s at seven,
I grew up navigating both the quiet and loud fractures of overwhelmed
parents.
My mother’s brilliance was misunderstood—her struggles
pathologized.
My father’s pain was buried early beneath alcohol,
but he found the strength, through dissolution, to leave the bottle
behind.
Their separation when I was nine shattered the fragile unity I clung
to.
Labeled “gifted,” yet emotionally invisible,
I mastered systems—logic, music, computers—while feeling alienated from
my own body.
Bullied. Abused. Abandoned.
Strongest in the room, yet never daring to stand in my strength.
I learned to self-abandon.
To put myself last.
To survive through suppression.
These patterns run deep. And the words here are but the tip of the iceberg—fleeting fragments of their shape. Yet I trust they offer enough to illuminate the truth beneath. And I know it’s enough to show: I’ve earned the right to speak from the depths of my heart— from my lived experience.
Instinctively, I found lifelines:
Weightlifting at sixteen became a ritual of regulation and presence,
long before I knew why.
Music became an outlet—producing tracks, expressing what had no words,
even if few ever listened.
Even the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons kept me
breathing—
a space of imagination, friendship, and refuge.
These weren’t hobbies.
They were medicine.
Fatherhood opened a deeper portal.
Raising my sons, born in 2010 and 2015, stretched my—then
unconscious—capacity to mask.
But more importantly, fatherhood invited me to begin parenting the
wounded child within myself, through them.
The end of a thirteen-year relationship with their mother in 2017 was
profoundly painful.
It was a union built, in part, on self-abandonment—
and it ruptured through a web of unspoken fears: my avoidance of
conflict, my dishonesty, my lack of boundaries.
I carry deep regret for the pain that emerged from that
unraveling—
and yet, I remain eternally grateful for the gift that endured: our
sons.
That rupture ignited six intense years (2018–2024):
psychedelic revelations, spiritual awakenings,
and brutal mirrors that stretched my nervous system to
its edge.
I explored kink without sufficient awareness,
unconscious of how trauma and unmet needs could turn sacred play into
peril.
Spiritual spaces—tantra, sacred sexuality, altered states—offered deep
healing,
but also lured me into ego inflation, blurred boundaries, group-think,
and subtle bypassing masquerading as transcendence.
These explorations, though flawed and sometimes damaging, also revealed vital truths and contributed significantly to my growth.
Too often, however, these communities were unequipped to meet trauma
or neurodivergence. Too often, they were steeped in toxic
positivity—
a kind of luminous denial that left no room for grief, rage, or
truth-telling.
To express pain or doubt was to be cast as “unintegrated.”
To name the shadow was to threaten the fantasy.
The diagnoses—ADHD in 2022, autism in
2024—
finally brought clarity.
Suddenly, the puzzle pieces fit.
The chaos began to reveal a pattern.
Two nearly back-to-back, soul-shattering relationships during this
era—
amplified by Iceland’s volcanic eruptions and global turmoil—
exposed my deepest patterns and triggered my oldest wounds.
It felt as though I stood before Shakti and
Kali,
while my perception fell for Freyja.
Their endings were thresholds—demanding that I return to my
body.
No more masks.
No more fleeing—though I tried.
Only truth, raw and unfiltered, remained.
And when I returned—
I saw my roots clearly emerging.
To my Father:
I now understand your strength.
You walked through storms I only now begin to comprehend.
Fatherless yourself, raised by a disabled mother, you met mine at
Reykjavík’s sea captains’ school.
You made me into the father I am.
You’ve been a father figure to many of my friends.
You built the shield I never saw—but needed.
To my Mother:
The first woman to graduate from that school. A pioneer—two years ahead
of your peers.
Your university studies and forward-thinking startup brought computers
into my hands when they were still rare.
Your courage and vulnerability carved something fierce and
beautiful into my soul.
Witnessing your struggles taught me how to hold chaos at the edge of
infinity—without completely shattering. At first, I resented having to
carry that burden, until I realized it was a gift I would need during my
darkest hours.
These ancestral wounds—reflected through those I loved most—tempered me in flame.
And from those ashes, a tender clarity emerged.
Not perfection.
But presence.
Not transcendence.
But truth.
Writing this book was not a project.
It was a ritual of becoming.
A fire I had to walk through.
Each page helped me reassemble the pieces.
Each line brought me closer to coherence.
Every long hour, a repentance for my sins—real, projected, and
perceived.
This is not a final word.
It is a spiral map—drawn from fractured fractals and
reclaimed light.
It is a mirror.
It is a fire.
It is the guide I once needed—now offered to you.
To those I’ve hurt, and those who’ve hurt me:
Thank you.
I love you.
It could not have unfolded any other way.
May the scars on your hearts heal alongside mine.
And to my sons… My noble primary stones of the sea.
My helpers. My deepest treasures.
My dragon-blooded kin.
I love you infinitely.
I am always here.
And I will always be,
as the pattern within the heart of me,
beats within the light of yours.
This book is not my redemption. It is my reckoning—and my offering.
May this work light your path. May it remind you that strength is not the absence of pain, but the integration of it.
May it help you hold paradox, listen deeply to your body, and awaken the Dragon within.
And still, always remember— you are human. The awakened state of the Dragon is not a finish line, but a practice.
Take a deep breath. The Dragon calls from within. The Spiral begins.