An Offline Rite of Passage into the New Year

Four Weeks of Renewal, Listening, and Devotion to Presence

19 December 2025 – 18 January 2026

Each year, at the hinge between cycles, there is a subtle shift in the atmosphere.
A thinning of the veils.
A widening of the inner horizon.
A quiet call that asks us not to rush forward but to listen more deeply to what has been guiding us all along.

Presence does not arrive when we silence the world.
Presence is not something to reach for or rediscover.
Presence is, in its essence, the ground of being — the steady, luminous field that permeates every moment, every breath, every choice, every relationship with the human and more-than-human world.

Yet in a culture that accelerates without pause, that demands immediacy and constant visibility, it can become an act of devotion to attune to the Presence that never left.

With this understanding, Birthing an Ancient Future – Multidisciplinary Council of Peace-Builders enters its annual winter threshold:
Four Weeks of Renewal, Listening, and Devotion to Presence.

From 19 December 2025 to 18 January 2026, we step away from the online world.
Not to retreat from life, but to return to it more fully.
Not to escape, but to align.
Not to disconnect, but to reconnect at a deeper, truer level.

This offline period is a living practice.
A seasonal rite of passage.
A re-rooting into what truly guides our work — coherence, clarity, reciprocity, and the long arc of planetary peace-building.

Crossing the Threshold: Winter as Teacher

In many Indigenous and ancestral traditions, winter is a sacred teacher.
A time of turning inwards.
Of integration.
Of preparing the ground for what is yet to emerge.
Life does not disappear in winter — it concentrates. It deepens. It moves closer to the roots.

Our four-week silence reflects this wisdom.

It is a deliberate slowing down to listen to the currents beneath the surface.
It is a return to cyclicity in a world that pushes linearity.
It is a recognition that transformation requires space — space to breathe, to reflect, to receive, to realign.

Presence becomes the compass.
Stillness becomes the guide.
Devotion becomes the orientation.

Gathering in Portugal: The Psychedelic-Assisted New Year Retreat on Sacred Land

At the heart of this offline cycle lies one of the most intimate, powerful gatherings of our year:
our Psychedelic-Assisted New Year Retreat in Portugal on Sacred Land.

The land itself is a teacher — ancient, quiet, holding a field of permission and truth-telling.
Here, a small circle enters into five days of deep ceremony:
• shamanic healing
• sweatlodge
• prayer
• silence
• soul-oriented guidance
• psychedelic-assisted expanded states
• movement and song
• elemental attunement
• collective dreaming for the world to come

This retreat is not about beginning a new year with resolutions or ambitions.
It is about entering the New Year with coherence.
With integrity.
With clear-hearted presence.
With the wisdom of the land in our bones.
With clarity about the path ahead and the responsibilities we carry.

It is a time where people remember who they are beyond roles and histories.
Where personal healing becomes inseparable from collective evolution.
Where ceremony becomes a form of sacred activism.

The Collective Peace-Altar: A Gesture of Planetary Service

One of the deepest gestures of the retreat is the creation of a
collective peace-altar on the sacred land.

This is not an aesthetic activity.
It is a ceremony of relationship, gratitude, and planetary commitment.

The peace-altar is:
• a physical prayer
• a geomantic mandala
• a remembering of interconnectedness
• an offering to the land and the unseen
• an anchor for the intentions of the cycle ahead
• a beacon of peace for the wider field

Created with natural materials gathered respectfully from the land, it is woven by the hands and hearts of each participant.

As we build it, we ask:
What do we commit to uphold in the coming year?
What do we need to let go of?
How do we wish to walk?
What does the land ask of us?
What does the world need from us now?
What is the offering our life wants to become?

The peace-altar stands as a testament to the possibility of:
• collective coherence
• inter-being
• harmony
• planetary responsibility
• sacred reciprocity
• remembrance

It is a path with heart.
A path of light.

Our Intention for 2026

As a Council of Peace-Builders, our work is cyclical, relational, and long-term.
Each year opens a new arc of devotion.

For 2026, our intention is clear and unwavering:

1. To deepen our service to planetary peace-building
through ceremony, education, community, and embodied action.

2. To uphold coherence, transparency, and integrity
in all our offerings, programs, and collaborations.

3. To further integrate transpersonal, ecological, and Indigenous wisdom
into accessible practices that serve individuals, communities, and the Earth.

4. To guide spaces where personal healing becomes collective benefit
and where participants step into embodied leadership aligned with love.

5. To strengthen our network of global allies, elders, practitioners, and educators
who are devoted to the rising of a peaceful, interconnected, planetary future.

6. To walk in reciprocity with land, ancestors, and future generations
recognizing that everything offered becomes part of the world’s unfolding.

Presence is not an abstract principle — it is an ethical orientation.
A way of moving, relating, listening, and acting.
It is the ground from which peace-building emerges.

A Winter of Renewal

After 18 January, we return to the online space — not as a gesture of re-entry into distraction, but as a continuation of the sacred work that began in ceremony.

We return with:
• reflections
• insights
• teachings
• photographs of the peace-altar
• impressions from the collective journey
• inspirations for the year ahead
• invitations into upcoming cycles of learning and practice

Our return is guided by the clarity seeded in the winter silence.
By the devotion awakened on the sacred land.
By the coherence cultivated in the retreat.
By the Presence that continues to lead.

May Your New Year Threshold Be Blessed

As you enter your own threshold into 2026,
may Presence guide your steps.
May listening open the path.
May devotion shape your choices.
May your heart remain oriented toward what is real,
what is needed,
what is life-giving,
and what is aligned with the greater good.

May this winter be a season of clarity, renewal,
and luminous remembering.

We walk this path together — in devotion to Presence,
in service of life,
and in commitment to planetary peace.