Seeking the Architect of the Vessel
A call for a master bookbinder and illustrator to manifest the physical edition of Ah Ha.
In March 2026, Charlie Green entered a 70-day Ayahuasca immersion in Costa Rica. Forty ceremonies. Ten weeks. The findings are being distilled into Ah Ha, a practical guide to human transformation rooted in the 7 Hermetic Principles.
A book of this weight requires a physical form that matches it. We are not looking for a printer. We are looking for a collaborator who views bookbinding and illustration as acts of alchemy.
The Project
The Manuscript
Ah Ha unfolds in three movements: The Foundation, The Catalyst, and The Work. Each is rooted in the 7 Hermetic Principles: Mentalism, Correspondence, Vibration, Polarity, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, and Gender. The text moves between ancient philosophy and lived experience. The physical form should do the same.
The Illustration Brief
11 original full-page illustrations. Each occupies its own page with no competing text. The illustrations are not decorative. They are structural. A reader who sees only the artwork should be able to trace the arc of the entire book.
Each collaborator will receive the relevant manuscript section in advance. The text is the first brief. Read it before you propose anything.
We are looking for 1 to 3 collaborators. Artists may apply for one scope, multiple scopes, or open discussion. The cover is the synthesis of everything and will likely go to the most senior collaborator.
The Scopes
Scope 1: The Cover
1 illustration
A human figure at the center of a hermetic diagram, dissolving at the edges into the living geometry of the Ayahuasca vine. Above, the jungle canopy. Below, the root system, mirroring it exactly. As above, so below.
The title Ah Ha is a moment of recognition, the instant before everything makes sense. The cover should hold both worlds simultaneously: the ancient precision of Hermetic philosophy and the living, breathing wildness of the medicine.
The manuscript in full will be provided to the selected collaborator.
Scope 2: The Book Parts
3 illustrations, one opening each Part
These three pieces trace the alchemical arc of the entire book. Taken together they tell the story without words. Lead → Fire → Gold.
Part I: The Foundation
This section is about who Charlie was before the medicine found him. Two decades in software and data engineering, building systems for a world he was slowly losing faith in. Successful by every external metric. Hollow underneath. Cycles of anger, addiction, and self-destruction hidden beneath structure and achievement.
The illustration should feel dark, earthen, heavy. Lead and stone. A figure inside architecture, trapped inside the systems he built. No light source yet. This is the before. The weight of a life running on corrupted code.
Part II: The Catalyst
This section is the medicine itself. The opening illustration represents the threshold: the moment of entering ceremony for the first time. The surrender before the principles begin to unfold. Everything that follows in Part II flows from this single act of letting go.
The illustration should feel like the threshold between two worlds. The last moment of the known self before the medicine begins its work. Ceremonial, charged, and suspended. Neither here nor there.
Part III: The Work
This section is the integration. Two foundational ceremony stories show all seven principles operating simultaneously. Then the book turns toward the practical: breathwork, daily tools, the long walk of living what the medicine revealed. This is the afterglow. The return to earth after flight.
The illustration should feel warm, grounded, and luminous. The geometric language of Part II is still present but absorbed and now lives inside the person, not outside them. Dawn light. Open hands. The body returning to earth. This is the gold.
The relevant manuscript section will be provided to the selected collaborator prior to production.
Scope 3: The Seven Principles
7 illustrations, one per Hermetic Principle
Each illustration pairs a ceremonial vision with the geometric or alchemical signature of its principle. The visual language here is expansive: ceremonial intensity meeting architectural precision. These are not abstract diagrams. They are living documents of what the medicine revealed about each principle in action.
All seven manuscript chapters will be provided to the selected collaborator prior to production.
Mentalism
The All is Mind. The Universe is Mental.
The foundational principle. Everything that exists begins as thought. During ceremony, the boundary between the thinker and the thought dissolves entirely. The mind does not observe the universe; it becomes it.
The illustration should feel like a vast interior space. A skull or mind that contains the cosmos. A thought expanding outward until it has no edge. The point from which all things originate.
Correspondence
As above, so below. As within, so without.
The principle of mirrors. What happens in the inner world is reflected in the outer, and vice versa. The jungle canopy mirrors the root system beneath it. The ceremony reveals that the patterns you carry inside are the patterns you meet outside.
The illustration should feel like a perfect reflection. A face looking into still water and seeing something other than itself. Two worlds, above and below, that are the same world.
Vibration
Nothing rests. Everything moves. Everything vibrates.
Everything has a frequency. The medicine makes this visible. The icaros, the healing songs of the ceremony, are vibration made audible. In deep ceremony, audible becomes visible.
The illustration should feel like frequency made form. Sound waves moving through ceremony space. The icaros as living geometry. Everything trembling at its own rate, nothing ever truly still.
Polarity
Everything is dual. Opposites are identical in nature.
Anger and love are the same energy at different ends of the same pole. The medicine reveals this with uncomfortable precision. What we hate in others is what we have not yet integrated in ourselves.
The illustration should feel like two opposites discovering they are one continuous surface. Light and dark meeting without a seam. A figure standing at the exact midpoint between two worlds, belonging to both.
Rhythm
Everything flows. The pendulum swing manifests in everything.
Ceremonial time does not move linearly. A single night stretches across what feels like lifetimes, then collapses back into a body waking at dawn. The rhythm of the medicine mirrors the rhythm of a life: expansion and contraction, the inhale and the exhale.
The illustration should feel like pulse and breath. The tide. A pendulum at the height of its arc. Ceremonial time made visible: expanding, contracting, always returning to center.
Cause and Effect
Every cause has its effect. Every effect has its cause.
Nothing is random. The medicine shows the chain: the unbroken line between every action and its consequence, stretching back further than memory reaches. This is one of the most confronting principles in ceremony. There is no victim. There is only the chain.
The illustration should feel like consequence made visible. A single stone dropped into perfectly still water, ripples reaching the edge of the known world. The chain extending in both directions, forward and back, without end.
Gender
Gender is in everything. Everything has its masculine and feminine principles.
Not biological gender. Energetic polarity. The masculine principle as directed will, the feminine as receptive wisdom. The medicine works precisely at the intersection of these two forces. Integration requires both.
The illustration should feel alchemical, not romantic. The reconciliation of two forces within one being. The sacred masculine and feminine in union: not two figures, but one figure containing both. Ancient, symbolic, complete.
Style Direction
A blend of painterly and geometric. Organic ceremonial vision grounded by alchemical precision. Not psychedelic poster art. Not mandala clip art. Something that feels ancient and alive at the same time. Artists with personal experience in plant medicine, Hermetic philosophy, or related traditions are strongly encouraged to apply (this is not a requirement, but it will show in the work).
Color & Production
All illustrations are full-page at 7″ × 10″. Full color originals are required for the limited print run. A greyscale adaptation of each piece is also required for the standard edition. Both versions should be delivered at print-ready resolution. The same collaborator produces both versions to ensure consistency across all runs.
The Artist in the Record
Each collaborator whose work appears in this book receives a dedicated bio page at the back of the limited edition: name, background, and 1 to 2 pieces of their own work they wish to share. They also receive a hand-numbered copy from the artist run (#26–30). Their work does not disappear into the book. It lives alongside it, permanently, in 30 archival copies built to last for centuries.
The Editions
The Limited Print Run: 30 Copies
A single print run of 30 hand-numbered copies. Full color interior illustrations throughout. Archival, acid-free materials. Built for centuries, not seasons. This run will never be reproduced.
- #1–5Personal copies, reserved
- #6–15Foundational Patron editions
- #16–25Hermetic Patron editions
- #26–30Artist copies. Each collaborator whose work appears in this book receives a numbered copy of the record they helped create.
The Standard Edition
The published book, available to the world via Amazon print on demand. Same text, greyscale interior illustrations. Clean, considered, lasting.
The Creative Prompt
This is not a standard contact form. It is a vetting.
Before sending anything, sit with these questions. The answers will tell us both whether this is the right collaboration.
The Timeline
- +Manuscript finalized following return from the 70-day immersion (May 2026)
- +Illustration and binding production begins: July 15, 2026
- +Limited print run of 30 delivery: Late Summer 2026
The medicine takes years to integrate. The book will take as long as it needs. But the hands that build it need to be found now.