This reflection was recorded at the close of 2024, a year of personal transitions, returning to the United States and developing the work with live musicians.
A chapter completed at New Eden
One of the biggest personal milestones came in June, when Sumir and I completed the legal transition of New Eden, our retreat centre in the Netherlands, into my full care and stewardship. We separated romantically back in 2017, but this year we finally closed that chapter together with love, as a soul friendship rather than an ending. That kind of conscious closure isn't something I take for granted, and having it land by the end of the year felt whole.
Returning to the United States
This year I also returned to the US for the first time in over a decade with a week-long deep dive in Colorado, bringing somatic shadow and circle work back to the community there. Heart iQ actually began in the US back in 2003, so going back felt like reconnecting with roots I'd drifted from while I was focused on building New Eden and the European community.
Working with live music
Working with The Soundfield, a live instrumental band that attunes to the group field, has genuinely changed how I experience facilitation. Having live musicians as part of our Healing in Tribe retreat in November meant the work went deeper than usual, and I came out of it feeling rejuvenated rather than depleted, which is rare after holding that kind of space. There's something about pairing this work with live music that I want to keep exploring.
Sharing facilitation skills
I also created something new this year: the Circle Work Facilitator Training, a shorter three and a half day format designed to do two things at once, give people a real transmission of what it feels like to be held in this kind of container, while also giving them practical, transferable skills for their own facilitation. We ran it twice, once in June and again just before Christmas, and the second time we live-streamed it. People organised watch parties in Australia, the US and Switzerland, following along in real time, and what struck me was how it created something like a wider energetic field even though most of us weren't in the same room.
Looking back further, I found myself thinking about the big Heart Summit events I used to run over a decade ago, with three or four hundred people in a room. I stopped doing them because they felt too costly and time-consuming, and for a long time I considered that one of my bigger regrets. What I've come to realise is that those events kept paying off for years afterwards, in the people who kept coming back to the work because of them. It's made me think differently about the value of long-term investment versus short-term convenience.
Those reflections left me interested in how live music and performance might bring aspects of the work to a wider audience. It was an idea I was exploring then, rather than an event announcement.
Making room for ordinary life
Alongside all of this, I spent time hosting community Christmas at New Eden again this year, with the house decorated, people gathering by the fire, and days spent in tribe rather than behind a screen. It reminded me how much I want to open up more of New Eden for this kind of collaborative living in the years ahead.
All of this leaves me finishing the year full of gratitude, and also tired in a way that feels honest. It's prompted me to ask myself some real questions about balance, about where work has become so central to my identity that other things, like hobbies or relationship, have had less room to breathe. Those are the questions I'm carrying into the new year, not as a resolution, but as an honest check-in.
Thank you to everyone who has been part of this year with me, personally and professionally. Wishing you a thoughtful transition into 2025, whatever that looks like for you.
