A New Year’s Note
(Art by a favorite Leif Podhajsky)
I hope you receive this while enjoying a gentle landing into 2026. The last week of the year, which contains my birthday as well as New Year’s Eve and the turning of the calendar, is always a heady one for me as well as one where I protect as much rest, quietude and alone time as possible. I learned early into my decades of living in Los Angeles that this particular week in the city is a gift even many Angelenos are unaware of if they travel most years: our notoriously traffic-packed streets easily flow and a soft, muted tone coats the streets. I usually try to preserve this week with little plans wherever I am though. This year, things were chaotic right up until almost the end of the year, but I descended into the well-worn cushions of silence in my home now.
***Note the Gregorian calendar is not necessarily everyone’s compass of time, but it is one of the rarest of instances where around the world most people must, for shared calendar purposes, acknowledge the ending of a year and the beginning of another, even if the marker in time is somewhat arbitrary.***
The central plan for my New Year’s Eve was a fireside viewing of the series finale of Stranger Things. Perhaps you too? The next morning I awoke and realized how the ten years many of us spent cheering on the protagonists of Hawkins, Indiana is a mirror into the very aspects most of us seek for a rewilded, rich life. Many of us are in on the secret that a rich life has little to do with our bank accounts - though resources are necessary to live - and everything to do with connection. No matter where you stood on the finale or if you never watched the show at all, I believe they were beloved around the world because we watched ten years of true friendship, true community, true intimacy, true vulnerability, wild imagination, wild bravery, wild storytelling and more.
It takes imagination to create the lives we want, better systems and an equitable world, and the characters and creators of the show had imagination and childlike wonder as well as maturity in spades. Many of us don’t want to be fighting all-powerful monsters and potentially be the world’s only saviors like they were, but we DO want to do hard things with others, not alone. Many of us envy the experiences the characters had not because we want to be in harm’s way, but because we know life is difficult, unpredictable, and we know deep down we face it better together.
Some of our viewing pleasures, our favorite books, the works of art we take in again and again are not escapes from life they are escapes TO somewhere, a place we are challenged to find in our day-to-day life. When I woke up New Year’s Day contemplating the Stranger Things of the last ten years a feeling that’s been simmering within me was at a full boil: a life well lived isn’t just being informed, it’s informing the world of what is possible. And for that, I want my fantasies of better ways to live in this world in relationship to each other and to the more than human world to be given far more space and time than I previously have given it. Dreaming can be a bold act while we also keep our feet rooted in the Earth. Like the final scene ever of this beloved show, “I believe”, too.
Following are some of my early 2026 offerings to deep dive into the power of the pack and our collective imaginations. Much more coming. And if you have anything you’re looking for or ideas, email me: micha@werewild.co. And welcome 2026.
The Women & Wolves Immersive is an in-depth program of transformation & empowerment, inspired by the wisdom of wolves I co-created, featuring: 7 weeks of virtual group circles led by myself and co-facilitator Laurie Cousins followed by a full-day retreat at Wolf Connection Sanctuary in Los Angeles County. For female-identifying adults (18+): weekly virtual sessions Wednesdays, January 28 - March 11, 2026; full-day retreat Saturday, March 14, 2026. Curiosity and a willingness to be challenged and step into grit and grace is required.
Women have represented an estimated roughly 80%+ of autoimmune and chronic illnesses, which is why in some doctors’ offices they still labeled them as “hysterical” up until only a few decades ago.
This is an eight-week online process group (so you can be located anywhere) to start, beginning Thursdays February 5 from 5:00-6:15pm PST. How can we honor our unique experiences in a world where the able bodied are the ideal and where many of our complex and chronic physical conditions are invisible? Most of all, how can we honor the stories our bodies tell, acknowledge they are not problems to solve and listen to what they’re sharing?
Group EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a therapeutic approach where multiple individuals participate in EMDR therapy simultaneously instead of just 1:1 with a practitioner. Here, I also have tweaked the format to be tailored to the individuals chosen to be in the room together, including mindfulness, breathwork, expressive arts as well as time to journal and reflect in any medium chosen. Group EMDR allows for people to experience the power of the room and of deep-dive EMDR sessions when not always financially accessible individually. I am currently arranging small groups for early 2026 in the LA and Idyllwild areas.
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.