Stonehenge at golden hour. Built in alignment with the sun, these stones have stood for over 5,000 years marking the cycles of time, energy, and devotion. What if capital could move like this too?
After twenty days on pilgrimage, walking sacred land, listening deeply, and realigning my energy, I return to a world still in motion. And in this motion, one word continues to surface: devotion.
This journey wasn’t a vacation. It was a conscious arc through places of profound energetic and historic resonance:
Findhorn, the Scottish spiritual ecovillage where nature and human creativity collaborate. A living blueprint of regeneration, cooperation, and energetic reciprocity.
Provence, where ochre-colored earth, slow rhythms, and ancient land offered a felt sense of natural alchemy. A reminder that transformation is slow, rich, and grounded.
London, still one of the world’s financial capitals. I walked with my daughter through Trafalgar Square, past monuments of empire and banking power, and felt the invisible weight of capital history. Gold-backed empires, colonial trade routes, centralized banking systems.
Stonehenge, a 5,000-year-old stone circle aligned with the sun. Built not for profit but for reverence. Even the ancients honored time, alignment, and energy as foundational to all systems.
And finally, Glastonbury, long associated with Avalon, the divine feminine, and the healing waters of the Chalice Well. A place of mystery, renewal, devotion, and stewardship of the unseen.
Each place held part of the story. Together, they reminded me that capital, like energy and nature, is sacred when aligned. That money, too, can be placed in right relationship.
Where We Are: A Late Spring Market Check-In
As of late May 2025, the markets are suspended in a delicate balance. On the surface, the S&P 500 flirts with all-time highs. But underneath, risks remain concentrated.
AI stocks continue to dominate leadership, raising questions about breadth and durability.
Volatility is low, yet there’s an uneasy sense that the market is too calm given global complexity.
Earnings season came in mixed. Solid numbers, but forward guidance is stretched.
Inflation remains sticky, and the Federal Reserve has become more cautious. Rate cuts are no longer expected this summer. The market is now looking toward later this year or even into 2026.
There’s no crisis, but there’s no clarity either. We are between policy moves, between market narratives, and between waves of transformation.
What Devotion Looks Like in Capital Markets
Devotion might sound like a spiritual term, but in investing, it maps directly onto discipline, discernment, and stewardship.
Devotion means:
• Not chasing what’s hot just because everyone else is.
• Not tuning out when the data gets boring or complex.
• Returning, consistently, to first principles: allocation, intention, alignment.
On this pilgrimage, I also found myself asking a powerful question: what is enough? In a world obsessed with “more,” devotion invites us to consider a deeper metric. Well-being. Not just personal well-being, but planetary well-being.
And in that space, I saw something clearly. Capital, like energy, must move in a healthy rhythm. To be regenerative, the flow of capital must mimic nature.
Nature does not maximize. It optimizes.
It allocates based on relationship, season, feedback, and balance. It creates resilience through diversity. And it grows what serves the whole, not just what grows fastest.
This is the future of investing. Not extraction, but optimization. Not accumulation for its own sake, but allocation in service of sufficiency, sovereignty, and sustainability.
When we have enough to meet our needs, devotion means asking: How can my capital flow in ways that make things better? Not just for me, but for the systems, people, and planet I’m connected to.
The Role of Asset Allocation in a Devotional Framework
At Montcalm, asset allocation is not just a mechanical process. It is a values-based practice. It’s how we balance risk, liquidity, purpose, and impact. When done well, it serves both personal resilience and collective well-being.
We consider:
• What brings true diversification, not just in asset class but in timeline and intention.
• What enables financial sufficiency and peace of mind.
• And critically, what strategies, managers, or themes are moving capital toward a better future, whether in climate solutions, regenerative systems, or women-led innovation.
This is the kind of allocation that doesn’t just track markets. It tracks meaning.
Three Things I’m Watching Closely
1. Interest Rates and Inflation Expectations
If there’s one area I’ve always paid close attention to, it’s the bond market. And right now, the signals are both subtle and significant.
Inflation is proving sticky. While headline numbers have moderated, core inflation—especially in services, housing, and wages—remains elevated. This is not the kind of inflation that responds quickly to policy tweaks. It is embedded, persistent, and influenced by structural shifts in labor and supply chains.
As a result, the Federal Reserve has become more cautious. Earlier this year, the market was pricing in multiple rate cuts by summer 2025. But stronger-than-expected economic growth, resilient consumer spending, and persistent price pressures have shifted that timeline. Rate cuts are now expected later, possibly not until the end of 2025 or even 2026.
This has real implications:
• Bond portfolios need active management. Duration risk, yield curve positioning, and credit quality matter more than ever in a “higher for longer” environment.
• Long-duration assets remain vulnerable if inflation surprises to the upside again. We are selectively allocating to high-quality, shorter-duration fixed income and private credit with stable cash flow.
• Equity markets may reprice if expectations for easy money unwind. Companies leveraged to consumer debt or floating-rate financing may face earnings pressure.
At Montcalm, we don’t just react to interest rate changes. We position ahead of them. This moment calls for nuance, not panic. It’s about discerning the longer arc of monetary policy and aligning accordingly. With clear-eyed discipline and devotion to both risk management and opportunity.
2. Crypto’s Structural Shift
While the headlines obsess over meme coins, the real action is deeper.
• Ethereum Layer 2s are scaling rapidly
• With the launch of spot ETFs earlier this year, Bitcoin continues to gain institutional legitimacy. These vehicles have made it easier for traditional investors to gain exposure without navigating crypto wallets or exchanges, marking a turning point in Bitcoin’s integration into mainstream portfolios. While this may support longer-term demand, it also introduces new dynamics. Bitcoin may become more correlated with traditional risk assets, and more sensitive to macro sentiment and liquidity flows. In the near term, volatility could rise as capital moves more freely in and out. Over time, though, broader access and regulatory clarity may help solidify its role as a digital store of value within a diversified portfolio.
• Regulatory clarity is slowly emerging, which could shift momentum quickly
This is not the time for speculation. It’s the time to track infrastructure, interoperability, and use-case evolution for a longer term investment.
3. Private Markets with Regenerative Potential
We’re especially focused on opportunities in the private markets, where some of the most compelling, values-aligned capital flows are emerging. These include investments in:
• Regenerative agriculture
• Clean energy infrastructure
• Sustainable consumer goods
• Circular economy solutions
• Water systems and biodiversity restoration
These private strategies offer more than just financial return:
• They provide true diversification, uncorrelated to public markets
• They bring intentionality and direct impact into the portfolio
• And they mirror nature’s logic. Not maximizing extraction, but optimizing regeneration
At Montcalm, we currently offer access to many of these investments. They reflect our belief that smart capital, deployed with care, can help natural markets heal—and help portfolios flourish through both meaning and performance.
Returning to Right Relationship
My pilgrimage reminded me that clarity isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about knowing what matters and returning to it, with devotion.
In markets, as in life, this is what brings resilience. Not blind optimism. Not fear. Just steady, conscious engagement.
So we move forward. Not reacting to every headline. Not swayed by the current of speculation. But grounded, attentive, and aligned.
After all, money is not the goal. It’s the current. And how we relate to that current is how we devote our attention, our time, and our energy that determines whether it carries us toward chaos or coherence.
Let’s choose coherence.