Riding The Storm: August

Hey dear readers, is it just me, or is life getting messier? I'm processing existential questions around my relationship while supporting a family member to recover from addiction and renovating our attic. It's been a lot - and that’s putting aside world events.

How are you riding the storm this summer? I'd love to hear from you. In this month's issue, I'll share a few resources and meaningful gatherings we have lined up and tell you what the late Ozzy Osbourne and Joanna Macy have in common.

Sending virtual hugs,

Tom 💚

🍄 Altered & Anchored: Psychedelic Retreat, October 4th - 5th 🍄

Struggling with the state of the world, never-ending demands of life, and unexpected personal challenges? Us too. With the aid of plant medicine, this weekend retreat will support you in connecting with yourself, developing your ability to ride the storms, and grounding again in your own strength and resilience.

👉 Learn more and get your ticket here.

🪕 Mantra Singing, PLAY Rotterdam, September 10th

What could be more wonderful than immersing yourself in singing together? We’ll play Mantra’s together from different parts of the world. I’m teaming up with my dear friend Fabian to co-facilitate this evening as part of the PLAY collective. A foundation that organises workshops, dance evenings, parties, meditations, and festivals for conscious people.

👉 Learn more and get your ticket here.

🧘 Circling Community of Practice: Present-Moment Interconnection

A deep spiral of authentic relating, being in the present moment, exchanging what's happening. Some describe Circling as a "multiplayer group meditation." I’m co-facilitating FREE monthly gatherings at my home in Rotterdam. Our next dates are the evenings of 4th September and 8th October

👉 Join our Whatsapp Group to register your interest.

🤯 Leviathon, Documentary, Kainos

What’s behind the erosion of social trust—and how might we rebuild it? That’s the central question of Leviathan. Blending insights from sociology, mythology, psychology, economics, and systems theory, this documentary explores the hidden operating system of culture to help us make sense of our era. I thought it was so impactful that I’m organising a few screenings with different changemaker communities!

🤝 Laws of Human Nature, Book, Robert Greene

A strong follow-up to his 48 Laws of Power, this book is a philosophy about what makes people tick. Each “law” is prefaced by a historical myth that outlines the principle, making it a compelling read.

🌀 Of Water And The Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman, Book, Malidoma Patrice Somé

After the first paragraph, I was gripped by this autobiography. The author shares his experience of being indoctrinated into European beliefs and his eventual return to his people. The book is a gift of living African traditions, offered with compassion to those facing today’s profound spiritual crisis.

🌻 Closer to Home - Voices of Hope in a Time of Crisis, Documentary, Local Futures

After attending an inspiring live session with the wise elder Helena Norberg-Hodge about system change, I watched her concise documentary. It focuses on our need to relocalise our economies: “By reducing the scale of the economy, we can not only stop the rush towards social and ecological breakdown, but restore damaged ecosystems and increase our own personal well-being.”

Music is the gateway to my emotions. Growing up, it was the heartbeat of our family home - speakers in every room, music constantly playing somewhere and my father’s limitless fact-spitting about his (now my) favourite bands.

Twenty years before I was born, my Dad was an alternative-metal teenager, blasting Ozzy Osbourne’s Black Sabbath as he romped around the streets (at least, that’s what I imagine.) Twenty years after I was born, he took our whole family to Black Sabbath's last full-length gig. It took place in Birmingham - the band’s hometown, the city where my parents met and where I was born. That’s serendipity.

When I was a teenager, Ozzy's wailing yet powerful voice accompanied me on my weekly paper round. I can still picture the grey newspaper smudges on the rotating touch wheel of my 1,000-song iPod mini.

I've got a lust for life

My music tends to be positively energetic, yet subtly heart-opening. It's fast-paced pop-punk/alternate rock that makes you wanna bang your head, grit your teeth and throw yourself around the room. Other times it's melancholic guitar melodies from The Smiths, Pink Floyd or The Cure that make my heart sing.

Tortured Artists

The best musicians are incredibly sensitive. They oscillate between feeling the immense beauty of this life and feeling the immense pain. Artists are our conduits to meet reality. Their music or alternatively, their art of facilitation, transports us into their world.

Enter Joanna Macy

Unlike some of my fellow Work That Reconnects facilitators, I wasn't fortunate enough to meet Joanna Macy. She was a veteran activist & Buddhist who gifted her Work That Reconnects practices to the world - rituals for collective grief and empowerment.

Joanna also felt the world intensely. She spoke as if in dialogue with future generations and the more-than-human world. She embodied her rituals with a grace that inspired thousands to step into their own role as facilitators. She was fiercely compassionate in a way that Buddhist master’s like Thích Nhất Hạnh admired: “Joanna Macy speaks the truth with the roar of a lioness, and all beings throughout the universe are patting her head and caressing her in gratitude and appreciation.”

What Unites a Buddhist and a Metal Frontman?

Aliveness. They tapped into a life-force that runs through the web of life, channelling it into the spaces they hold, whether it was an intimate grief circle or a roaring stadium.

In a world of numbing abstraction in screens and extractive commodification, aliveness is revolutionary. Ozzy & Joanna remind us that we are living beings with immense ability to feel and express ourselves. They showed the sacredness of it all.

Rock-on, Ozzy. I'll hear you in your music.

Go well, Joanna. I'll feel you in our circles.

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For the second year running, I'm organising a multi-day New Year's Work That Reconnects retreat in combination with plant medicine from 8th - 11th January. Reply to this email if you’d like to learn more!

Aliveness encapsulates what Nowhere is all about. Radical self-expression, deep belonging, immediacy & gifting in a primal survivalist setting. That’s why I’ve now been five years in a row.

“You are not a separate being. You belong to the living body of earth. You are the earth, looking up at the stars. You are the earth, becoming conscious of itself.”
– Joanna Macy

Read more about this remarkable woman in this memoriam post from The Work That Reconnects Network.

Thanks for reading!

-Tom 💚