This coming-of-age instinct - this primal ache to step out on one’s own - is something we don’t honour nearly enough in our youth anymore. We shield them, smother their edges, pad their risks, soften the world around them. We forget that the wild calls to them for a reason. For years, I was the one warding off dangers, seen and unseen. I was the buffer between them and the world. I was the shield. But a mother's shield is not meant to be held forever...

I hold space for the warriors who enter my life, not as a place for them to stay, but as a place for them to remember. A place where the wandering Ronin can rest, recalibrate, and find his way back to the truth of his heart. Back to the fire he thought he lost. Back to the strength he feared had been fractured beyond repair.

Perhaps true peace begins not in the world, but in the individual willing to stop fighting - even for just one breath - and see the other not as an enemy, but as a mirror.