By the time a trend comes into my field of awareness, the moment has usually passed and the world has already moved on to the next one.

I’m not much of a trend chaser. But I’ll never turn down an opportunity to reflect on the journey and gather whatever golden nuggets of wisdom I can.

So if 2026 is the new 2016 what might that mean?

What patterns are revealed when we reflect on our individual journeys as they unfold in relationship to the social world?

What is the interplay between our inner world and the outer world?

And how might pausing to reflect on the road we’ve already traveled act as a guide for the journey ahead?

I don’t ask these questions because I know the answers.

I ask them as a way of prompting my own soul into a deeper conversation

So if 2026 really is the new 2016, perhaps the question worth tenderly holding this year is:

In a world where the dominant message is more more more, what in the hell is actually enough?

In 2016, I’m not sure I would have asked myself that question.

Back then, the longing for “something more” was a wild & untamed force within me—one that drove me deep into the forest of my soul, both literally and metaphorically.

But what was that something more I was longing for?

At that point in my journey, my marriage and my upstate farmhouse dream was unraveling before my very eyes.

So rather than continue to live in a dying dream, I decided to move to a Quaker intentional community—one that helped to hold my broken heart in the light.

At the time of my move, I was going through initiation after initiation, doing my best to figure out how to be in the world but not of it, all while grappling with a difficult relationship I had to the Catholic faith of my upbringing.

Though I was surrounded by many spiritual texts—and some worthy companions—I didn’t have anyone who could really give it to me straight

Living with the Quakers at that time gave me a glimpse of that “something more” my soul longed for but back then I lacked the words to truly name it.

Naming those longings is easier with the gift of retrospect.

I longed to live a God-centered life without all the dogmatic religiosity.

I longed for a way of being and doing that honored my ancestral roots while leaving room for encounter with the mystery of that which we deem “other.”

I longed for silence and contemplation, creative self expression, & a whole lot of celebration.

I longed for a partner, yes—but even more than that, I longed for community.

That longing for that “something more” is what drove me to bring a puppet of Italy’s La Befana to life on the streets of my neighborhood in Harlem which in turn led to the creation of La Befana’s Table.

Looking back now, ten years later all I can really say is this:

Follow the longing of your soul.

It may or may not make you TikTok famous, but if you’re lucky, you may find yourself with a legendary story to tell—and a circle of people you can honestly call your true friends.

🎁 Here, take this gift…

What longing has accompanied you over the years?

Looking back, what unexpected roads has it led you down?

How has longing transformed you?

You need not answer right away.

Perhaps this season simply invites you to hold the question tenderly and trust that understanding arrives in its own time.