Meet the Creator
My name is Micah Larsen, and I am an artist, storyteller, and lifelong seeker of wonder.
Some of my earliest memories involve drawing. Long before I understood what worldbuilding was, I was creating it. By third grade I was filling pages with characters, landscapes, and adventures, each accompanied by stories that seemed far larger than the paper they lived on. Even then, creating felt like stepping into another realm. Hours would disappear as imagination took hold, and I would find myself immersed in something that felt both deeply personal and strangely timeless.
As I grew older, however, life brought with it a different set of lessons. Like many artists, I encountered the familiar belief that creativity was something to be enjoyed but not relied upon. People admired the work, asked for drawings and paintings, and celebrated the finished pieces, yet encouragement to pursue art as a meaningful path was often harder to find. Over time, that tension created a quiet conflict within me. I loved creating, yet I struggled to see how it could fit into the life I was expected to build.
Even so, art never truly left me.
Years later, after completing a painting for my grandparents, I began to understand something important. Painting was not simply a hobby or an interest. It was essential. It nourished something within me that nothing else could reach. At the time I did not fully understand how significant that realization would become, but it planted a seed that would continue growing for years.
During a particularly turbulent period of my life, I found myself exploring spirituality more deeply. I studied a variety of teachings and traditions and discovered the work of Phil Hine, whose writings introduced me to the concept of sigils. Symbols charged with intention and meaning. Something about them resonated immediately.
I became fascinated by the idea that symbols shape the way we experience the world. From ancient cultures to modern brands, symbols carry power because they communicate directly with memory, emotion, and imagination. Rather than creating sigils as simple marks on paper, I began incorporating them into my artwork. For the first time, my love of painting and my spiritual path felt as though they were speaking the same language.
The process changed everything.
Painting became a place of freedom rather than obligation. It became a practice of listening, discovering, and exploring. Through it, I found hope during difficult seasons of life and a sense of purpose during moments when purpose felt difficult to find.
In 2019, I experienced profound loss. Within a short period of time, I lost several of the people who mattered most to me. I lost my home. Much of the life I thought I knew seemed to collapse around me. Yet through grief, uncertainty, and depression, I continued to paint.
That decision transformed me.
The paintings evolved. The stories evolved. More importantly, I evolved.
Eventually, life led me to a small camper beside a river, where I spent many evenings painting in solitude. It was there that I made a commitment to stop treating my creativity as something secondary. I began showing up consistently for my work, giving it the attention and respect it deserved.
What followed felt less like learning and more like remembering.
Ideas arrived in waves. Stories emerged. Paintings opened doors I had forgotten existed. The imaginative child who had once filled sketchbooks with entire worlds began to reappear, carrying with him the same sense of wonder that had always been present beneath the surface.
Today, my work exists at the intersection of art, storytelling, spirituality, and imagination. Every painting, poem, story, and symbol is part of an ongoing conversation with the world around me and the world within me.
More than anything, I create because creating reminds me what it means to be alive.
It is through art that I connect with mystery, meaning, beauty, and possibility. It is through art that I continue to grow. And it is through art that I invite others to join me on the journey.
Thank you for being here.
“Art is the most pure form of love, rebellion, and magic….all rolled into one.”
Story Behind the Forest
People often ask why it is called Stardust Forest. Why this place? Why these stories? Why this world?
The answer is simple: Stardust Forest began long before the first story was ever written.
For many years, meditation became a way for me to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with myself. Along the way, I was inspired by authors such as Phil Hine and Aidan Wachter, who wrote about the inner landscapes we visit in imagination, meditation, and creativity. Some people discover towers, temples, or crystal palaces. I always found myself returning to the woods.
The name itself grew from many influences. The Stardust in Stardust Forest is a small nod to David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust, whose imagery and sense of wonder left a lasting impression on me. In much the same way, the protagonist of many of these stories, Adam Apollo Mercury, began as a tribute to another creative influence of mine: Freddie Mercury. Each held a certain magic to their name. Which is still felt, generations later. Over time, both names took on lives of their own. They stopped being references and became part of the mythology of this world.
As the years passed, the Forest became more than a setting. It became a place to explore. Characters began to appear. Stories emerged. Questions surfaced. What magic lives here? Who walks these paths? What lies beyond the next hill, beneath the next tree, or behind the next door?
Many of those answers were discovered the same way they are discovered in the stories themselves: one step at a time.
Stardust Forest became a place of creativity, imagination, mystery, and transformation. A place where art, mythology, fantasy, folklore, and personal experience intertwine. The more time I spent creating, painting, writing, and exploring, the more alive the Forest became.
The stories you will find here contain adventure, wonder, friendship, courage, humor, loss, hope, and the timeless struggle between light and shadow. While many of the characters may feel familiar to readers who love fantasy, each has grown into something uniquely their own within this world.
My hope is that you find something here that resonates with you. Perhaps a character. A story. A piece of artwork. A line of poetry. Or simply a moment that reminds you of something you had forgotten.
And if, while wandering these paths, you find yourself standing before the gates of Vaelonis, climbing the steps of the Sorcerer's Tower, or listening to stories beneath the trees, then perhaps the Forest has already begun to do what it was always meant to do.
After all, according to the oldest legend, you do not find Stardust Forest.
It finds you.
Welcome, traveler.