The Tuatara and the Glitch in the Matrix: A Reflection on Intuition and Zammtopia Philosophy

Part One: Seeing What Others Point To

Over the past months, the weather across Northland, New Zealand, has been a stark reminder of how quickly conditions can shift. Communities recover from one cyclone only for another to form over the Tasman, gathering strength over warm water and carrying it toward the upper North Island.

Here in Wellington, we sit in that narrow middle space between islands—sheltered at times, but always aware of the reality unfolding up north. Even today, with rain settling lightly over the city and the wind holding its breath, the air carries that familiar calm before the storm.

Despite the rain, my husband and I went to Zealandia—a small decision that often opens into something larger. That bird sanctuary has a way of turning an ordinary walk into a moment of reflection, and today it happened again through a creature I’ve seen many times: the Tuatara.

Visitors are always told where to look. Signs mark the areas. People point. Families gather around a patch of dirt, convinced the Tuatara is right there.And yet, even when someone is literally showing me the spot, I can stare at the exact patch of ground and see nothing.

The camouflage is too good. The creature blends perfectly into the soil, the moss, and the muted greens. Only when I shift my gaze—sometimes just a few centimetres—does the shape suddenly manifest. What was invisible becomes obvious. That resolution is the heart of the insight.

People share what they’ve discovered in life. They point to the place where they found meaning, clarity, relief, or joy. They tell us where to look because it mattered to them. But being pointed to the same place doesn’t guarantee we'll see what they saw. Our angle could be different, timing also different, and our eyes maybe searching for a different pattern.

This is the foundation of Zammtopia Philosophy™—a way of being that has not only made me a resilient person but one who is deeply grateful for the friction of the world I came from.Without that friction, there would be no shape to distinguish; without the struggle to see, there would be no clarity to earn.

I offer Zammtopia as a philosophy to be lent. It is for those who might not have their own structure yet—a framework built from the wisdom I've gathered through lived experience.

But like the Tuatara, it is never meant to be followed to the dot. I can show you the patch of ground where I found my strength, and I can give you the gist of the structure that helped me, but the "seeing" is still yours to do.

Zammtopia is directional, not prescriptive. It orients you, but it doesn’t replace your own sight. The value isn’t in copying my exact path; it’s in using the structure I provide as a starting point to tweak your own perspective. It invites you to adjust your view—to the left, to the right, up, or down—until the shape of your own life emerges from the background.

The Tuatara teaches this graciously. It waits for us to shift until our perspective aligns with what is already there. And when it does, when the invisible becomes visible, the clarity feels earned.

Part Two: The Body, the Cost of Medicine, and a Spooky Moment

The last time my husband and I went to Zealandia—about three weeks ago—the weather was muggy, the kind of day most people find uncomfortable. For me, it was a relief.

Muggy means no harsh sun, no direct heat, and lately, that has become a requirement rather than a preference.

Over the years, I’ve realised I’ve effectively become a vampire. Not in the dramatic, fictional sense, but in the very real, physiological way that long-term medication can quietly reshape one's relationship with the environment.

When you take a therapeutic medication for years, the side effects don’t always show themselves at the beginning. They accumulate. They creep in. And only when something becomes noticeably difficult—in my case, heat and sunlight—did I start searching for an explanation.

What I found was simple but confronting: the medication I’ve been on for six years caused my increased sensitivity to light and heat. It dilates my pupils, allowing more light in, which overwhelms the brain and triggers migraines. That’s the "vampire" effect. 

It doesn’t stop there. Weight gain is another side effect.

Combine that with menopause—wreaking havoc on my metabolism—I get a perfect storm. It shapes daily life—how I move through the world. I find myself in a constant catch-22.

I haven’t truly enjoyed the sun in a long time; instead, I supplement my need for light with Vitamin D, waiting for the clouds to roll in so I can safely step outside. It limits my ability to just 'be' in nature.

I’ve seen documentaries here in New Zealand about others facing similar challenges—people fighting for medicinal cannabis before the legislation shifted, or those with far more debilitating illnesses than mine, staring at a treatment they simply cannot afford.

Across the globe, millions suffer from migraines, yet many of us, here in New Zealand, are still treated with drugs that demand a "chunky" price for the trade-off. I wish Pharmac would look more closely at funding the newer medications.
People with debilitating migraines shouldn't have to choose between neurological peace and the simple joy of a sunny afternoon.

Recently, my husband and I were talking about my proclivity for the cold and overcast. He asked me, if I were given the opportunity to work in Antarctica for six months through a New Zealand programme, which would I choose: the six months of sunny summer or the six months of nightly winter?

I told him it wouldn’t matter. I would happily do any admin work just to be there—to stay in a place so mysterious, beautiful, and hopefully forever pristine. Whether in the light or the dark, it would be a blast to witness the auroras and exist in a world where the heat could no longer reach me.

But for now, I wait for the muggy weather.

Despite all of this, Zealandia—the Wellington bird sanctuary—remains a place where my mind clears.

During that same visit three weeks ago on that muggy day, something else happened—something that sits in the category I call fantastical intuition.

A bit of context: since leaving my public sector job last year, I haven’t thought about it much. When I leave something—a role, a project, even a relationship—I have to be completely certain that is what I need to do.

Because of that certainty, if I’ve completed what I needed to complete, I don’t revisit it. So, it was unusual that as soon as my husband and I stepped into Zealandia, a thought crossed my mind: 'Wouldn’t it be spooky if I bumped into my former boss here?' It was just a passing thought.

And then—boom! We turned a corner, and there they were. Standing right there in the sanctuary. I couldn’t help myself—the first thing out of my mouth was, “Oh my gosh, this is so spooky. I was just thinking about bumping into you here.”

My husband knows these moments well; we’ve been together for decades, and he has seen enough of them to recognise the pattern. It was unmistakably one of those intuitive spikes that make me pause and remember a very special connection.

Part Three: Forewarning and Prophetic Dreams

I always believe that we are all connected—connected to either a common unconsciousness or a common consciousness, perhaps both.

And for some reason, there are triggers for people who are sensitive. Many years ago, before menopause—a completely different kettle of fish; once you get into it, everything changes—I was so sensitive, I believe, to earthquake waves.

I can’t explain it, but in those days, before an earthquake happened, I would get dizzy spells. They served as a form of warning that an earthquake was coming, whether in New Zealand or somewhere else.

Often it came with a 'prophetic' dream. It was always the same pattern: the dizziness, the dream, and then within about three months something significant would happen somewhere in the world.

Recently, just before Christmas and the anniversary of the Banda Aceh Boxing Day earthquake (2004), I was scrolling through my old Facebook posts. I wanted to check if I was imagining things.

In the past, every time I had one of these dreams, I posted it as a time-stamped reminder for myself, a way to verify if my 'fantastical intuition' was real or if I was simply connecting dots after the fact.

Looking back, the posts were striking. It wasn’t just the dream of the 2004 tsunami; I found some posts, and a striking one just before the 2011 disaster in Japan. 

I had dreamt of it, posted it, and my family members were worried because they’ve seen this pattern before and said, "Oh no, you dreamt of one again." And then—boom! The earthquake hit Japan, the tsunami followed, and the nuclear facility at Fukushima was devastated.

I remembered the dream, which was so vivid it felt more like a memory of the future! When the actual events came to pass, it was shocking to see the digital proof of that foresight.

But what use are these dreams? I can’t do anything with them.

If I talked about them openly, people would think I was unwell. So I kept them to myself and tucked them away in social media posts—my account is private and just for family and a few friends.

However, once menopause came, those dreams and warnings became fewer and fewer.

Until Easter Monday! Yes, we celebrate the Monday right after Easter as a public holiday in NZ. 🫣😵‍💫

My husband and I visited a neighbour we hadn’t seen in a very long time. When we got to her place, my husband said we should knock on the back door. I said sure, I knew where it was. To my surprise, he asked how. I thought he was teasing.

So I said, “We’ve been here before. We visited when she just finished renovating her kitchen and bathroom.” I clearly remembered the checkered black and white kitchen floor and the skylights—in the kitchen and bathroom.

Once our neighbour welcomed us inside, her place was exactly as I remembered. Then my husband told her about the visit I clearly remembered, to which she replied she does not remember us visiting ever, as we always met outside—the bus stop or a cafe in town for catch-ups.

I didn't know what to say, except stand my ground that we did visit her that time. And this time, they both insisted it didn't happen! She knows I would only have visited with my husband.

But I remembered the house. I remembered the layout. I remembered being there. All the while we were there, I couldn't get my head around the fact that a memory I supposedly shared with them never happened!

Then, just before we left, the three of us stood together for a final chat, and I felt a déjà vu—I haven't had one in years! As we grow older, déjà vu becomes less frequent. This one was sharp and certain. I told them both.

The whole thing remains a puzzle. I remember being there. My husband doesn’t. Our neighbour doesn’t. And then the déjà vu on top of it.

Part Four: The Mandela Effect

Easter Monday's spooky glitch in the matrix is where the Mandela Effect becomes relevant.

Most people know it as a pop-culture phenomenon—the experience of remembering something with absolute clarity, only to discover that others remember it differently or that it never happened at all.

It sits right at the intersection of memory, perception, and the unexplained.

But the Mandela Effect isn’t about being wrong. It’s about how memory works. It’s about how groups of people can share a false memory, or how one person can hold a memory so vivid and detailed that it feels lived—even when others insist it never occurred.

That’s exactly what Easter Monday felt like—two parallel realities: My detailed and accurate memory of the space and the visit. Their memory, equally firm, but completely different.

When I combine that with the déjà vu—the whole moment becomes even more layered.

Déjà vu is a glitch in the brain’s familiarity system. The Mandela Effect is a glitch in collective memory. And fantastical intuition is a glitch in the boundary between perception and something hard to explain.

All three happened in the same place, on the same day. I wonder what's in my neighbour's house that gave me such an experience. I don't know. But I know it's great material for a scifi or paranormal feature.

Part Five: Nicole Kidman and Another Glitch

There's one more thing about the Mandela Effect that's more personal because I never shared it with anyone until now! So lucky you! 😁

In the past month, since Nicole Kidman separated from Keith Urban, she has really blossomed.

You can see it—the freedom she now has seems to have opened something in her.
She looks lighter, more herself. And the eerie part is that before all of this happened—when I watched the first season of 'Nine Perfect Strangers', 'Expats', and 'The Northman'—I felt like she had done so much to her face that she didn’t look like who she used to be.

Recently, starting from 'Babygirl' to 'Scarpetta', I noticed her face seem to have softened back into the version of herself I remember. More natural.

I wanted to check to see how much her look had shifted back. But when I reviewed the older films I previously mentioned, her face looked the same as it does now.

I thought that was spookily odd! 

I remember my dislike for how her face was evolving. But now, when I look back, it’s as if that phase never happened. Her face in those films looks consistent. The “before” and “after” look the same.

Now I’m left wondering:

• Have I simply gotten used to her current look?
• Is this another Mandela-Effect moment for me?
• Is this another one of those intuitive wonders that show up in my life?
• ​Or is it a Tuatara moment simply waiting for me to shift my gaze again?

​I don’t know. But I would like to choose it to be a Tuatara moment that could lead me to something even more wonderfully inexplicable!

Intuition shows up in different ways for different people — spikes, glitches, knowing, pattern‑breaks, the things you notice without trying. But the part that matters is this: your intuition is shaped by you. Your history, your attention, your meaning‑making, your way of seeing the world. When you understand that connection, intuition stops being a mystery and becomes a form of power you can actually use. 

The Intuition Foundations Collection brings that into focus through three modes of practice — the New Zealand‑recognised Intuition book (Top 5, Ashton Wylie Book Awards 2018, Mind‑Body‑Spirit), the workbook that activates your intuitive engagement, and the Zamm Tarot digital deck and guidebook that strengthen your pattern recognition and semiotic skill. This is where you start turning intuition into something deliberate, grounded, and fully yours — start your way to making your intuition your power.