Members of the Alef Trust community gathered from 12-17 July at the Caux IDG Forum 2026, held at the historic Caux Palace above Montreux, Switzerland. Co-led by Caux Initiatives of Change, Alef Trust and the Inner Development Goals Foundation, this year’s Forum invited participants into a five-day exploration of The Alchemy of Forgiveness: forgiveness as inner practice, relational repair, collective healing and pathways towards the renewed belonging so necessary for our times.
Set high above Lake Geneva, Caux has long offered a place for reflection and dialogue across cultural differences. This year, that atmosphere felt especially alive. The Forum brought together people from many countries, cultures and fields of practice, all willing to sit with difficult questions: What does forgiveness ask of us? What becomes possible when grief, truth, justice and love are allowed to meet? How can inner development support the rebuilding of trust in a fractured world?
There were many moments that will stay with us; too many to reflect on fully here. The week opened with an invitation to cross a threshold together, with Lewis Cardinal and Indigenous Elders helping to root the gathering in relationship, story, land and accountability. Sarah Noble and Ignacio Packer offered a steady rhythm of welcome and orientation through the morning “Together Time” sessions, creating a sense of shared journey across the days. Imad Karam’s film and dialogue invited deep reflection on the vulnerable and necessary work of bridge-building, while Lewis Cardinal continued to bring the presence of Indigenous wisdom and relational accountability into morning gatherings and plenary dialogue. Professor Izzeldin Abuelaish offered a profoundly moving witness to courage, grief and humanity in the face of devastating loss. Hearts were broken open by the realities of suffering and division, yet also filled by courage, generosity, beauty and the possibility of transformation.
The Forum also made space for many different ways of learning and belonging. The children’s and teenagers’ programme brought a gentle reminder that inner development, empathy and repair are not only adult concerns, but part of the world we are shaping for future generations. Across the plenaries, participants were invited to move from personal reflection into wider relational and social questions: from the many dimensions of forgiveness, to the experiential “From Me to We” inquiry with Jessica Bockler, Pontus Holmgren and Ines Mokdadi, and finally towards renewal, future possibilities and the continuation of dialogue beyond the Forum. Alongside workshops, community groups, exhibitions, music, candlelight conversations and the closing ceremony in the gardens, the week opened spaces where personal experience, rigorous inquiry, embodied practice and collective imagination could meet.
For Alef Trust, it was a privilege to contribute to this wider field through a rich constellation of workshops, reflective spaces and intimate conversations. Alef faculty offered pathways into forgiveness through somatic, transpersonal, creative and nature-based practice: Kendra Ford explored self-love and self-authorship; Lila Moore invited participants into soul stories, forgiveness and self-compassion; Gabriel Fernandez-Borsot offered subtle somatic inquiry as a transpersonal approach; and Sam Malkemus and Marina Romero dived into the vibrant heart, presence and belonging. Nurturing the Fields of Change facilitators Dan McTierman and Karen Lieberguth led nature-connected ways of practising forgiveness, and Nargis Raza explored a somatic pathway to forgiveness. Alef MSc students also offered workshops – David Kletter opened nature as a gateway to forgiveness, and Shawna Bluestar Newcomb brought film and connection process into dialogue with reverence, domination, Indigenous knowledge and shared origin stories; and more. In the evening Candlelight Conversations, Alef’s Transpersonal Coaching Psychology team Jules de Vitto, Jevon Dängeli and Hennie Geldenhuys held a space for embodying loving-kindness through open awareness; Bethany Butzer and Laurel Waterman explored the role of consciousness education in catalysing transformation, empathy and forgiveness; and Les Lancaster invited reflection on forgiveness, the Holocaust and the collective psyche.
These contributions sat within, and in service to, the larger field of the Forum. Jessica Bockler’s embodied facilitation in the plenary spaces, alongside psychologist Pontus Holmgren and other colleagues, offered a way of allowing the material of the week to land not only in the mind, but also in the body and the shared field – an essential gesture when working with subjects as tender and complex as forgiveness, belonging and repair.
The gathering also extended threads that had been unfolding in Alef’s Nurturing the Fields of Change community of practice in the months leading up to Caux, where participants explored the roots of repair, forgiveness and belonging through shared inquiry and dialogue. Meeting in person brought a new warmth and immediacy to these connections, allowing colleagues, students, practitioners and new friends to encounter one another beyond the screen.
As the Forum turned towards the future on its final day, Alef Trust also launched its new Centre for the Ecology of Human Transformation: an initiative dedicated to exploring the conditions that enable inner life, relationships, communities, institutions, culture and the living Earth to interweave in processes of transformation. Its launch felt deeply aligned with the spirit of the week, with the invitation to continue asking how personal and collective change can be held within a wider ecology of care. The week held grief and gratitude side by side.
We left Caux with renewed appreciation for the power of spaces that honour both inner work and outer change — and with gratitude for all those who helped create a field in which forgiveness could be approached not as an easy answer, but as a living, demanding and deeply human practice.
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