As the year draws to a close, I’ve found myself reflecting less on accomplishments and more on where and how I am standing today, in this very moment.
This has been a year of re-orientation — one that asked me to return, again and again, to fundamentals: practice, relationship, land, and presence.
I recognize that much of what has shifted outwardly was motivated by tectonic shifts that have been happening quietly — deep below the surface, over the course of several years.
I have found that both in my own life, and in my work with clients — this is how it happens with practices like trancework and meditation – working with both the subconscious and conscious mind. Sometimes it seems like nothing is shifting at all, until one day — everything changes!
Returning to Practice and Responsibility
Earlier this year, I stepped back into formal responsibility as Abbot at Zenwest Buddhist Society. That return was not about resuming an old role so much as meeting practice anew — with fewer illusions, more humility, and a deeper respect for what long-term commitment actually requires.
Zen, at its best, allows what is unnecessary to simply fall away. What remains is not certainty, but a kind of vital attentiveness: showing up, listening carefully, and responding to what is arising without rushing to fix or define.
That orientation has very much shaped how I meet people in my one-to-one practice with clients and mentees.
Living in Community, Learning from Land
I also made the decision to move into intentional community at OUR Ecovillage. This has been a profound education — bridging from the theoretical, to the embodied — actually living it.
Living in relationship with land and people means encountering and engaging boundaries and limits: of energy, of systems, of patience. It also means learning how caring actually functions — through water systems, waste cycles, shared meals, conflict, repair, and ceremony.
Working with ecological systems — everything from food and soil to greywater and worm biofilters — has deepened my respect for processes that don’t respond to force or haste. They respond to attention, balance, and time — relationship.
I believe that the same truth applies in any genuine healing work.
Relationship, Rupture, and Repair
This year also included significant shifts in my most intimate relationships. I won’t map those changes here in detail, but I will say this: living through rupture, separation, and careful re-kindling has clarified something essential for me.
Real repair is not a return to what was. It is the slow exploration and cultivation of trust, honesty, and consensual choice — made again and again.
This has sharpened my sensitivity to where people are genuinely ready for change, and where they need steadiness, structure, and stability — rather than intervention.
How This Shapes My Work
I’ve noticed that in all of my work - trancework, ceremony, animist mentorship, Zen mentorship, language/culture revitalization, and ongoing support — my work has become more grounded, less performative, and much more relational.
I am less interested in techniques as solutions in-and-of themselves, and more interested in cultivating the conditions that allow a collaborative, healing relationship to emerge. In this kind of relational container — the potency of technique is magnified manifold.
For me that means:
listening longer
moving more slowly when needed
respecting readiness
and working in ways that can actually be sustained
Whether someone is navigating transition, grief, stuck patterns, spiritual questioning, or integration after deep experiences, my intention is to offer a space that is steady, responsive, and profoundly human.
Looking Ahead
As the year turns, I feel a deepening confidence in what is continuing — not because everything is resolved, but because it is rooted — it is living practice.
I’ll be sharing more soon about upcoming offerings, including a new Gaelic learning circle, alongside the ongoing work I offer through Monarch.
For now, I wanted simply to mark the turning of the year, and to acknowledge the ways life has been teaching — sometimes gently, sometimes not — but always in the direction of deeper presence, wisdom, and awareness.
Thank you for trusting me to walk alongside you in this work.
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I’ll share more soon.
— Teàrlach Eshū