Dear readers,

There’s one word that’s been keeping me going through these past few weeks: Anticipation. The joy that is already there before the moment itself arrives.

At the start of July, we, the SOCIUS team, will be heading back to Stolzenhagen. Three days away from the hustle and bustle of our Berlin office, surrounded by water, trees and a slower pace of life. We’ve been doing this for many years now. Every year, I understand a little better that this isn’t just a „nice-to-have“. It’s about nurturing that invisible fabric that underpins so much else: trust, connection and a shared sense of purpose.

Collective resilience does not develop by itself. It requires places and times dedicated to it. And it requires spaces where we do not have to resolve issues immediately. Spaces where things are allowed to coexist without being weighed up against one another: clarity alongside uncertainty, confidence alongside exhaustion. Even the inner demons, the vulnerabilities, the questions to which we have no answer yet — they too are welcome on the table. This ability to endure is neither a weakness nor a standstill. It is a capacity. Perhaps a key capacity of our times.

I felt once again just how powerful this can be in May during the Art of Hosting training in Leipzig. Our Calling Question there was: How do we shape our togetherness in uncertain times and live differences as a source of connection? What carried me through was the collaboration within the hosting team: during the preparations, whilst we were in the thick of it, and in the aftermath. We wove our skills together and stood up for one another — and that gave the whole training session a solid foundation. 

I recognised something in it that is also growing year on year in Stolzenhagen: the trust that arises from spending time together and working together. 

And now summer is here: with its light, its vastness, its invitation to slow down. We’d like to leave you with a question to ponder during moments of respite, by the lake, or whilst travelling:

What can you look forward to, even before it arrives? 

We wish you all a summer that nourishes you. And may we all find the courage not to try to solve everything straight away.

Julia Hoffmann