Introducing The Lighthouse

Hi Everyone,

As the calendar flips from 2025 to 2026, change is in the air. Joanna Macy crossed over in the summer of 2025 and she left us many seeds of wisdom to adapt to our challenging times, including this one:

“It is good to realize that falling apart is not such a bad thing. Indeed, it is as essential to evolutionary and psychological transformation as the cracking of outgrown shells.”

In this spirit of transformation, today’s newsletter has two purposes:

1) I am recruiting for two groups starting in February 2026 that are rooted in her Work That Reconnects (WTR). Please see below for details.

2) Introducing The Lighthouse! I am co-creating an exciting new endeavour, The Lighthouse, with a group of 6 other multi-talented folks, organized by Dr Paul Uy, another psychiatrist with WTR experience. I’ve included our initial vision below for you to send us your feedback. We would love your input as we build the Lighthouse community. We want this to be a broad, accessible vision that inspires you in this time of collective challenges.

1) Groups:

Active Hope Group at NUUC: This seven-session group will run bi-weekly on Wednesdays from 7:00pm to 9:15pm in partnership with Neighbourhood Unitarian Universalist Congregation - 310 Danforth Ave.

Concerned about Wildfires, multiple ongoing international crises, or the threat of how AI will impact our future? These and other topics will be addressed as I co-facilitate this group with Neighbourhood’s Gwen Schauerte, a registered psychotherapist with whom I’ve run two groups over the past year. This group begins Feb 25th, 2026. 

Healing with Bipolar Group: This six-session group will run bi-weekly on Thursdays from 1:00pm to 2:45pm at the Songbird Sanctuary - (near Dovercourt and Bloor) 

This group is for people who have had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. My co-facilitator, naomi tessler, has a background in Expressive Arts therapy and has lived experience with bipolar. This is our second round of this group and we integrate her wisdom with the Work That Reconnects to bring about healing. This group requires a referral from a physician which can be found here since I won’t have the capacity to manage medications in this group. This group begins Feb 12, 2026.

2) Lighthouse Vision:

Burning Platform:  
We are facing crises at every level of existence - as individuals, communities, societies, and a living planet. To combat climate change, food insecurity, economic inequity, social confusion, political violence, and runaway technologies, we require cooperation at an unprecedented scale. Instead, we find ourselves polarized, isolated, and increasingly disconnected from reality and the natural environment that sustains us. These problems are all deeply interconnected and inseparable from our psychology and culture. If we are to survive these challenges, we must act now to redefine our relationships with ourselves, others, and the world around us.

Our Solution:
The Lighthouse functions as a beacon in dark times. Through curated workshops that connect our individual daily challenges with our collective crisis, we help people from all walks of life recognize and act upon the need for transformation. By illuminating the situation at hand and the tangible paths forward, we seek to nurture powerful skills that empower communities to be sources of cultural and collective navigation through a depleted world and into a future of justice and belonging.

The Outcome of our Work for Individuals and Communities:
The Lighthouse will be a launching pad for those who want to make a difference. People working with the Lighthouse will find grounded purpose, secure relationships, and the means to defend against the looming threats of trauma and technology. Our retreats will aid them past psychological suffering and into practical action, teaching permaculture and survival skills applicable to all environments, while honing creative intelligence through tradition, ceremony, and art. As crises grow more frequent and urgent, the Lighthouse will be preparing the leaders required to identify and respond to the emerging needs of communities at all scales, and to see the opportunities presented in an age of change.

Does this inspire you? Do we need to change the language to engage more people? Please let us know by emailing me at [email protected] 

Please pass this newsletter on to anyone who you think might be interested.

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Thanks for the care that you give,

Nate