A Year When Decades Happened
2024 has been the best worst strangest year of my life
2024 has been the best worst strangest year of my life, I don't think there's even a competitive second place contender, honestly.
I started out the year with serotonin syndrome, ER trips, and the feeling of being stuck in a bad acid trip for weeks on end, with various foods and activities unpredictably triggering deeper dives into the horror. I was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune thyroid disease, I went deaf in one ear, and I lost 70-some pounds. I experienced some kind of thyroid-related dementia that left me confused and unable to figure out where I was at times. My 5 year long relationship fell apart. I left the country that had been my home for 3 years, becoming a homeless wanderer for the third or fourth time in my life.
I went to a community project gathering in Portugal and met new friends. I co-hosted a soul-making retreat with dear old friends in France, and experienced the edges of where my soul has grown to. I attended a scene gathering in Germany, and was thrown headlong into where my soul wants to go next. I spent a month in Vienna, working through visions and integrating a decade of meditative and imaginal work. I spent two months in a hospital in India, clearing my system to heal and reset my body and psyche.
I did some of the best writing of my life this year (like the pieces listed below), and had some of my biggest personal breakthroughs. I was forced into perceiving life from the heart, rather than the head, and found out this made even the hardest times into gifts. I learned that everything that happens is exactly what needed to happen. I found that somehow, against all odds, even the terrible and inconvenient things that happen to me are consistently blessings. I deepened into direct experience of the fact that the universe is alive, and that I am a mote of that life.
I had my heart broken again and again, and I'm learning that there's absolutely nothing wrong with getting broken — resisting the break is what causes problems and keeps me brittle. I opened up to deeper and deeper friendships and connections, and found that in openness there's freedom and strength, as well as an increased capacity to deeply break.
Some of My Best Writing This Year:
Some other stuff I did this year:
Published an essay collection, We’re Here to Renew the Sacred
Ran 4 cohorts for imaginal & somatic meditation
Soft-Launched a Circle Community and Initiation Courses hosted there
Ate more lamb than any one human has business eating
Left my personal library scattered across 3 countries
I have no idea what next year is bringing; but my sense is that this train isn't slowing down any time soon.
On New Years Eve, I fly out from India and arrive back in Southeast Asia, where I've spent most of my adult life. I'll wake up in the new year in a new country, ready to start what's coming next.
It's a little odd, actually. On a spiritual level, I feel like I know exactly what's coming next. I've been feeling it for awhile, the next things that want to happen, the tasks in front of me that want to be carried out. But on a material-logistical level, I truly have very little idea what that looks like. I don't know what countries I'll spend this year in, where I'll find the money to do what needs to be done, who I'll be spending my time with, or how exactly I'll find what I'm looking for.
But for the most part, I'm used to that. I've lived a lot of my life following The Stream, and it hasn't failed to take care of me yet. Even when it carries me through a year of horror, heartbreak, disease, limitation, and confusion, it still places me right where I need to be, right when I need to be there, and makes sure I have enough change in my pocket to get a room and a meal when I arrive there.
Here's to a 2025 that's unexpected in all the right ways.
Finally, a big thanks to everyone that's helped make my work and my year possible — whether by buying a course, joining my Patreon, donating directly, or picking up a substack subscription. All of you have helped keep me fed and sheltered during a difficult year, and made sure that paying my medical bills wasn't a burden.
If more of you like my work and want to help me take the next steps with it, I'd love it if you used the links above. I can't tell you how much it helps to have some meals and housing covered while I'm out here roaming.
Enjoy the season, wherever you are. I'm wishing you a good one from out here in New Delhi. If you're somewhere with snow, take a moment to enjoy it for me — this Michigan boy is missing the smell of winter air.
Onwards! 🤍