The Inner Witness

How a blanket fort, two dots and a little cosmic side-eye became the symbol that wouldn't quite leave me alone.

Technically, I was trying to make a logo.

But this story starts before that.

In June 2024, during a journey, I noticed something about myself that had apparently already become a pattern: I kept finding my way into blanket forts.

I wrote about it in my journal months later, woken from sleep in the dead of night to scribble this:

“Cocoons are my container for the messy middle.

The blankets I find my way into in journey are my cocoons, forts of safety, sweat lodges of truth when I am becoming something MORE.

I don't know what ‘more’, just that it must be.”

Earlier that day, while we were talking about business, I had already been poking fun at myself for how often I seemed to end up inside some kind of blanket structure during journey space. Even during breathwork, I had sat up and wrapped my prized soul silk scarf over my body like a tent, holding it tightly as I flew apart.

Afterwards, it became just a scarf again.

I ended that journal entry with:

“Hmm…I suppose that might be something to ponder later.”

Apparently, later took about ten months.

In April 2025, I was deep in archetypes, sigils and sidekicks, trying to find a new mark for my work. But instead of beginning with what I wanted a logo to symbolize, the question became:

How did I want someone to feel in their body after encountering my work?

Safe.

But safety wasn't the whole thing. There was wry irreverence in there too. Quiet revolution. Side-eye.

At one point, I described what I wanted as “something that holds side-eye and a hug wrapped in an ellipse.”

That became the design brief.

And what emerged was remarkably simple.

A line. An arch. Two dots.

The line felt grounded. The arch held what was inside it – shell, cocoon, shelter. The dots became two versions of the self looking at one another. Current self and higher self, giving each other a little side-eye.

It made me laugh.

It could be a crab shell. A cocoon. A cosmic side-eye. A mystic, mischievous emoji.

Or two eyes peeking out from a blanket fort.

Somewhere along the way, it acquired a name:

The Inner Witness.

At the time, I described it as a symbol of non-judgmental awareness. An invitation to witness yourself from a place of compassion rather than correction. Insight didn't necessarily require analysis. Sometimes it simply asked for presence.

What I did not connect at the time was that I had already lived the image.

Months earlier, I had literally been inside the blanket fort. Safe. Contained. Asking questions. Making meaning.

One of my favourite parts of that first experience was sitting inside my makeshift sweat lodge of blankets, playfully sticking my hand out to summon facilitators and asking them to bring me good questions to ponder.

I wasn't looking for answers so much as enjoying what happened when I had a good question to sit with.

I didn't think about any of that when the Inner Witness appeared.

I made the connection much later.

Then, in January 2026, after a powerful experience beside a river, J came to stand behind me on the shore. I hadn't realized the others had finished and were waiting for me. He asked if I was well. I tremulously asked him for a hug.

He gave me the tightest, tightest hug and I dissolved into tears.

And then he whispered:

“You are safe here too.”

He was reminding me of that earlier journey – of sitting inside my makeshift sweat lodge of blankets, sticking my hand out for someone to bring me another good question.

I don't know that I need to decide what any of this means.

What I do know is that these blanket fort/sweat lodge experiences have walked me back home to myself.

So much so that now, as a 50+ woman, I have an emotional support blankie that travels with me, just in case of blanket fort emergencies.

(I mean that only slightly as a joke.)

The work has changed since I first drew the Inner Witness. The elaborate ecosystem of archetypes, sigils and sidekicks fell away. The mark never became the centre of anything.

But apparently it didn't disappear either.

Because when I began making this website, there it was again.

Not as a logo. Not with a grand explanation.

Just quietly scattered around this new website, waiting for someone curious enough to click it.

The Inner Witness is here again.