It's my last morning in Cusco, the capital of the Incas. Three months of sun, simplicity, and something that feels like sanity.
Yesterday, I woke up to news of a school shooting in BC. Rare for Canada. Not rare for the world anymore.
I felt immediate dread in my chest. I know friends and family on the precipice of calling in new life. And I'm afraid of what's waiting for them.
Because the world right now? It's fucking terrifying.
Iran. Venezuela. Ukraine. Epstein. Tariffs. People being taken away from their homes, or worse, vanished or murdered in broad daylight by the government. Markets collapsing. AI everywhere. School shootings becoming normal. The noise of injustice, inequality, violence, greed, and evil seems to be getting louder every day.
Everything we've known is potentially a lie. Everything that's been built up is crumbling down. From the media we consume to the jobs we work, it's all run by people who want us powerless and hopeless.
In a lot of ways, I'm scared to go back.
I've been tossing and turning for two nights. Wondering if I'll even be let into the US on my layover. Feeling the weight of returning to the noise after three months of living a very grounded, simple, insular life. After becoming godfather to a young Shipibo girl named Mia. After living in a place where festivities happen on a regular basis, where maestras walk through town in their traditional dress.
Yesterday, driving through the valley toward Cusco, I could feel Lauren getting emotional too. My friend Shane asked me a week ago, up in the mountains during a huachuma ceremony: "What are you feeling about going back?"
The first word that came: dread.
And yesterday's news confirmed it. The world is turning faster than we can adjust.
I'm heading back to a place that's beginning to feel more like the start of a psychological war front than home.
But my respite lies in what I've remembered here during my time.
In Andean cosmovision, there's the Chakana, or what colonizers renamed the "Incan Cross." It represents the union of opposites. Dark and light. Inner and outer. Above and below.
The Andean people don't just look at the stars to determine their future. They look at the dark space between the stars.
While I'm acknowledging the darkness - literal and metaphorical - I'm also thinking about the light. They both exist in the same world. And the ones who've been in the sun have a responsibility to bring that light back into the dark.
Because the world needs it right now.
This is the human conundrum. This juggling of opposite forces.
I read once that the greatest power we have as human beings is our ability to hold onto hope. And in a time that brings out so much fear, panic, stress, and crumbling - it's really the hope for a better world, a better community, a better life that allows us to fight.
I'm aware of my privilege. The privilege of being able to retreat to the place of light in times of dark. That privilege should not be taken for granted. That privilege should be used to responsibly engage with the world again.
My time in Peru isn't done. I'm already making plans to return, to build a fortress of light here. A fortress of peace.
But for now, I'm returning to my responsibility: to the world where my parents are, where my friends live, where the system needs people fighting for the right cause. To balance out the dark with light. To balance out evil and greed with initiated men and women who have taken the hard road of connecting with themselves so they don't cause the world more pain.
If you're feeling dread right now, you're not alone.
If you're feeling powerless, that's normal. That's exactly what the system wants you to feel. That's how they win. By making you feel lost, confused, alone.
But you're not alone.
The truth is you're part of something greater. You're part of a big uprising. You're part of a new world being birthed.
It's confusing because you haven't seen this world yet. But you get to give birth to it through your courage, through your community building, through your love and through your hope.
Be steady. Be steady even as you tremble.
Your fear is not in vain. In your fear lies your gift. In your fear lies your love.
Let the love lead the way.
This is the time to lean into all the faith and hope and courage and power you've cultivated. Because now, when the world tells you to be quiet and to be in fear, it's time to rise in power and to be free.
Where are you retreating when you should be engaging? What light have you found that needs to be brought back into the darkness? What are you afraid of that's actually calling you forward?
The world is changing. Every day I hear people feeling panic, questioning reality, wondering if anything is real anymore. There's confusion being seeded. Fear and division being sprouted.
This is exactly when we rise.
Not with more fear. Not with more division.
With love. With courage. With community. With hope.
The dark space between the stars? That's where we look to find our future.
And I'm choosing to bring light into that darkness.
Thank you, Mama Peru. Eternally grateful to you each and every time for the ways you initiate me in responsibility, love, courage, freedom, and clearer eyes of purpose.
Ish
P.S. The men I work with aren't looking to escape the world's darkness, but instead, they're learning to be the ones who bring light into it.
If you're feeling the call to rise up against oppression and inequality, to stop feeling powerless and start building the world you know is possible - one built on fairness, justice, hard work, community, and love - my 1:1 mentorship might be for you.
This isn't therapy. This isn't coaching. This is initiation work. Learning to transform your fear into your gift. Your wound into medicine for the world.
My mentorship book is closed for the next few months, but I have a 3-session package available for men who can't wait to get started on this work.
If you're ready to stop being paralyzed by the chaos and start being part of the uprising, reach out.
P.P.S. My Men's Rites retreat in Peru later this year is where this transformation actually happens - where men learn to build the new world through wilderness, ceremony, and brotherhood. Not as an escape, but as preparation to return and fight for what matters. Applications open. Special rate for existing clients.
