In this issue
Editorial
Feature blog: We’re in a sea of worry: but we can help
Events update
Seeding our Future: projects progressing
Soul Resilience: meet the new website
AI and zombification: react while you can
Finding Natural Happiness
Editorial
Dear reader,
If you’re a newcomer, warm welcome. If you’re a regular reader, I hope you’ll enjoy the change of format. As the world has become more uncertain and alarming in recent years, what I call soul resilience has become my main way of finding steadiness and meaning amid the confusion. I’m very excited about my forthcoming book, Soul Resilience. In this issue you’ll find more info, plus an update on my continuing work on Seeding our Future, exploring practical resilience and adaptation for communities and individuals.
With blessings,
Alan
Feature blog: We’re in a sea of worry: but we can help
Connect with your soul, and radiate love and courage
Pause for a few minutes, and review your emotional journey through the summer of 2026. Probably there were times when you felt alarmed. Now consider the people around you: did you share your worries with each other, or soldier on tight-lipped?
In a major crisis, I believe there’s a collective sea of worry, fear, etc: most of us feel it, but usually it’s not voiced because we just don’t know what to do with such painful feelings. Read the full blog here.
Events update
Inner strength for stormy times: an introduction to Soul Resilience
Free online workshop with Alan Heeks: 7pm, Wednesday November 25
If climate worries, digital deluge, and the general uncertainties are stressing you, try a different way to grow your inner strength. In this interactive workshop, Alan Heeks will help you to explore how dialogue with your soul, your own wise essence, can help you find insights and steadiness amid the confusion. It is based on Alan’s forthcoming book on Soul Resilience.
The workshop will run from 7pm to 8pm. Limited numbers, pre-booking essential. Book here.
Light in the Darkness - November 13–15
A men’s peer group in the Welsh hills
This weekend is a chance to find your light and nourish it, in the face of the darkening season and the worries of the world. We will draw support from the fellowship of the group and the magical landscapes of the Llanthony Valley. The overall aim is to help us with inner resourcing for outer action, and finding steadiness in this time of confusion. See here for more details.
A Sufi Garden: monthly online group - Wednesday, November 4, 2026 7.30 - 9pm
The Sufi Garden is a life-affirming evening of meditation, body prayer and poems, led by Alan Heeks and Karim Hadden. No previous experience needed.
For more information and registration, see here.
Seeding our Future: projects progressing
Alan writes: Seeding our Future is my non-profit project which explores ways that individuals and communities can grow their resilience. We do this by initiating or funding innovative pilot projects and sharing what we’ve learned.
On the website you’ll find info on past projects, resources you can use, and news of current projects: in the areas of food security, community places, and community climate resilience. This newsletter will give you updates as the projects unfold.
Soul Resilience: meet the new website
To support the forthcoming launch of Alan’s book on Soul Resilience in early 2027, the website has been completely overhauled. You’ll find information on the new book, useful resources, events, and blogs on a range of soul-related topics: see more here.
AI and zombification: react while you can
AI is even harder for us to engage with than the climate crisis. At least our climate is one big measurable entity, and there’s a broad scientific consensus about the problems, the future outlook, and the actions needed. Rupert Read, Director of the Climate Majority Project, regards AI as a crisis as big as climate change, and I agree. Read more in this blog.
Finding Natural Happiness
Alan’s fourth book, published in 2024, is Natural Happiness: use organic gardening skills to cultivate yourself.
Natural Happiness is a unique approach to growing your own wellbeing. It shows how we can nourish human nature through analogies with organic gardening: such as composting negative feelings, and crop rotation to avoid burnout.
Alan’s Natural Happiness website has plenty of self-help resources, explanation of the key ideas, and links to buy the book. If you’re feeling down or depleted, give it a try!
