Oh 2025, what a year this has been.
More than ever, I feel profoundly grateful to be alive, to be here now. I feel privileged to witness what I witness on our dance floors, to experience what I experience between myself and Ya’Acov, and between myself and life. I see such goodness, humanity, beauty and generosity in people so often.
As Ya'Acov and I share in this month’s Movement Medicine Study Hub’s Keynote, this has also been a year marked by death, loss and deep grief, both for the wider world and in our personal lives. And it has changed us. We (or others) have written about some of these losses in our "Tributes."
This meeting of beauty and heartbreak has brought a powerful shift in focus: a renewed, tender appreciation of life right now, and of the people with whom I share it. Again and again I am reminded: these are the moments of our lives, these are the people of our lives, these are the connections that weave the fabric of our days and this is the time to treasure them.
When I look back on the pearls of this year, the moments I want to hold close and remember, my heart returns again and again to the Long Dance, our annual not-for-profit profound ceremony of Movement Medicine. Ya'Acov's mother came and joined us on the last day, which was very beautiful (see top picture). Angella has always supported us and our work, and I simply love my dear mother in law so very much and am so glad we could share this with her. Thanks to all who welcomed her so warmly. She had always said she wanted to come to the Long Dance, and all that has happened the year has meant there is a new aliveness to: "Do it now"!
This year, during the ceremony there was an especially potent time of collective grieving. Held by the spirits of the land and the natural world around us, we let go into our anguish. It was deeply moving to witness people; men and women, younger and older, allowing our hearts to break together for the suffering of our world and the painful truth of how difficult it seems for us humans to learn to live well with each other and with the biosphere.
And then, out of that shared descent into grief, something extraordinary rose which I have begun to call it the trampoline effect. When grief is truly allowed, met, shared, danced, moved and felt, what can emerge is a quality of joy unlike any other. A raw, irrepressible celebration of life lifted us at the Long Dance this year; a shimmering, collective celebration of life’s beauty; so poignant and powerful after nearly three days of fasting, dancing, and ceremony together.
I take my hat off to all the Long Dancers for the courage, devotion, and heart you brought to this ceremony and all the moneys raised for the Fundacion Pachamama and other charities world-wide.
Ya’Acov and I warmly invite you to join us for the Long Dance next year, to experience this profound journey for yourself and be part of breaking the celling of £1 million for the total money raised for charity in the name of the Long Dance.
Linked to this is another heartfelt invitation: to join us in the Amazon next year, not as tourists, not as saviours, and not as people needing to be saved, but as partners. Partners standing shoulder to shoulder with the Achuar and Sapara indigenous peoples who have invited us to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their commitment to protect the rainforest for the future of all life on Earth.
There are still a few places available. If you feel called, please consider this deep, life-changing journey.
I am loving witnessing, supporting and being part of the blossoming of the Movement Medicine Apprenticeship programme, all our incredible (and growing) field of teachers and the growing mutually supportive global community of embodied learning which is the Study Hub. And most of all, thank you to all those all who have honoured us with your trust, and danced your depths and heights with us. THANK YOU!
There are some things I could prevaricate upon. One of them is making sure that the books that are in me are not just written, but shared. It's easy for me to write but leave it on the computer as I get to an inner threshold where I find myself stopping.
So I am proud that this year I have continued working dedicatedly on my book: "I will live until I die" a memoir of accompanying my parents through their journeys with cancer. Both of their lives ended eventually under the tender care of hospices for which I'll always be infinitely grateful.
I’ve written this book alongside my god-sister, Nell Stanislas; a nurse with great depth of experience in palliative care, whose compassionate, support and wisdom for us all during the time of my father’s dying (he lived next door to us for the last years of his life) was profoundly helpful. I wanted others to be abler to receive something of the exquisite support she gave us, and so asked asked her to write a professional commentary for the book. It's profound, compassionate and very helpful.
This year I have been completing the manuscript, seeking a publisher, and taking steady steps into that field. There is a possible connection emerging now; we will see. I feel sure this book will be of service. Those who’ve read it have been deeply moved, and I look forward to being able to share it with you!
I offer gratitude to my parents for their honesty, courage, and the profound intimacy of their dying journeys; which continue to shape and teach me and deep gratitude for Nell’s exquisite compassionate wisdom and her willingness to bring her voice into the book with me.
And I celebrate life itself: the beauty, the difficulty, the mystery, the grief, the wild joy, and the privilege of walking this path with others.
With love, respect, and gratitude for this remarkable year,
THANK YOU!
