February 17 marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year, the start of Ramadan, and Mardi Gras, the masquerade just before Lent in Christian tradition. The Jewish festival of Purim, on which Mardi Gras is based, follows on March 2.
We are entering a Year of the Fire Horse – the last one of these was 1966 – anticipate fast, hot changes, revolutions in thought and possibility, often several at once. You won’t be able to control time, so don’t even try. May you be courageous enough to run with the horses when you feel fire in your belly, and get out of other horses’ way when you need to pause to rest before moving forward again.
Remember: in these fast times, our learning shifts quickly too, so I invite you to be willing to try new things, make new friends, and make mistakes on your way to new places you are destined to explore this year.
Get ready to celebrate, fast then feast then fast again, and look deeply into what you can do and change!
In 2026 I’m focused on growing the Storyhood® online community.
One of the key roles in every community is the storyteller, the person who bridges between groups and creates a shared sense of purpose and vision for the future – this is especially important for people who want to build a future that is more equitable than the way our country is organized now.
People describe Alex Pretti as both an observer and storyteller of what he saw happening on the ground in Minneapolis. The storyteller connects people across fault lines through the brain’s love of stories.
Whether you want to write more about what’s happening, or speak out at public meetings and demonstrations, or take in what you see and read without being completely flooded, Storyhood is for you. Even when the content is frightening, stories enable us to share what is real all around us and figure out how to work together for change. In Storyhood we teach simple tools to build sustainable communities through our brains’ shared love of stories. Stories about meals, relationships, work, play … everyday things we share as human beings.
Storyhood is a community built on storytelling. Storyhood combines the neuroscience of storytelling with ancient practices that use storytelling as a way to build and maintain community across times, places, and generations.
Our intention is to create a space that is both edgy and safe enough for you to tell stories you don’t usually tell out loud and to learn from others’ most powerful and vulnerable stories. The circle process builds a space where you can explore your own stories side-by-side with others whose stories are different and, often in surprising ways, similar to yours.
What do I mean by Resistance Storytelling? Using your brain’s innate storytelling ability to speak up for yourself and your communities; to create enduring connections with people from different backgrounds; and to build a future where everyone’s voice and stories are heard.
To build those sustainable communities we imagine two new offerings:
- A free, monthly community storytelling circle
- A program to train 6-8 new Storytelling & Repair circle-keepers. Our idea is that these folks will get really steady in their own storytelling – both the content and process of sharing stories at the intersections between communities, projects, and generations – and create their own courses over the year. If you think you might be a good fit, please let us know, so we can add you to that group mailing list.
I invite you to join us at these new, shared watering holes in the year of the Fire Horse and to bring your friends and colleagues who want to experience the healing power of others’ stories, while tending and sharing their own.
May the fires of love and compassion burn bright for you and all people this year.
The most important thing I am doing this year is building out the sustainable storytelling community we discovered during COVID and named Storyhood®. What is the most important thing you are building this year? When you are hugely successful what will be possible for all people?