HAPPY NEW YEAR 2026!!

Credit: Tao and Zen (Facebook) 🐴 HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🐎🔥 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse (火马年) or Red Horse Year (赤马年 ) in the Chinese Zodiac, a rare occurrence that happens only once every 60 years. Double Fire: In Chinese metaphysics, the Horse belongs to the Fire (火) group, so 2026 adds double strength to the year’s governing element, leading to a "Yang Fire" year (丙午) with massive transformative momentum. What seems like chaos shifts into greater coherence, as old cultural patterns, habits and limited thinking breaks apart and new creative forces gain power. Key Symbolism: The combination of the Horse sign and the Fire element creates an exceptionally high-energy year of dynamic change. The Horse naturally symbolizes vitality and independence, while the Fire element adds intensity and drive. People and events in previous Fire Horse years such as 1906 and 1966 helped launch lasting periods of cultural transformation and technological innovation, greater freedom, new perspectives, collaboration and independent thinking. It was during these time periods that the world changed in meaningful and revolutionary ways. Duration: The Year of the Fire Horse officially begins on February 17, 2026, and ends on February 5, 2027. Zodiac Symbol: The Chinese character for Horse is 马 (Simplified) or 馬 (Traditional). The Fire Horse signifies a time for creative ambition, adventure, growth, and taking synchronized action, encouraging us to move quickly in unison with others, to be enthusiastic, adaptable, and pursue new opportunities with strength and determination, breaking free from limitations. 🙏💕 Painting by Kristin Darnell-Kreger

'The most beautiful gift of this wintertime is ultimately something that is unspeakable; it is only livable. The winter is actually begging you to just let go, and then let go of letting go. Let this natural and spontaneous returning to the root of your own existence happen. Return to that which is not definable' Adyashanti Illustration by Jo Grundy

"What feels like emptiness is often spaciousness learning how to be lived." ~Eckhart Tolle (Art by 'Laura Majabresku')

Solstice Here’s to all of you who had a terrible solstice, who’ve had enough of the dark and who need respite, who didn’t have time or energy or the will for any kind of ‘sacredness,’ who had to put one foot in front of the other through arduous territory or numbed hours. There’s no good news on the horizon and no saviour coming. But... You’re alive, this is a ride, you’re doing so well in difficult times and somewhere, somewhen, the light will return. Keep on, even if it feels unbearable. The hours do pass, and – however slowly – so do the days. Keep the faith. ~ Tom Hirons @bearspeakstothestars [Art: Andrew Ferez]

In 2005, I achieved this shot by filling my model's satchel with frozen fish sticks. --wishing you all a joyful, peaceful holiday season

Wishing you all a Peaceful, Merry Winter Solstice!

"What happens to us enters the body. It leaves marks. It alters the grain. Nothing passes through existence untouched. In the wild, being shaped is not the same as being lessened. Trees bend with wind and bear its imprint. Stone carries the memory of water and force. Seeds split open because they must. I have been changed by what I have lived through. I carry its marks and have been opened by it, made different by experience. But I refuse to be reduced by it. The earth carries its scars as part of its becoming. So do I." ——— • WORDS Brigit Anna McNeill • • ART Lucy Campbell •

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐤𝐮𝐥𝐥'𝐬 𝐄𝐜𝐡𝐨 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬! “It is said the Englishman’s home is his castle. And everybody needs a castle, a place where you can get away from it all and just be yourself. But even then, when you’re away from it all and you’re just being in yourself, you’ve unfortunately got a lot of thoughts inside your head that aren’t yours. Because you think in the English language, and that was given to you by other people and contains their prejudices; that you can’t avoid them in thinking. Japanese people will say that when they think in Japanese they can have certain feelings that are characteristically Japanese, but when they start thinking in English they can’t have those feelings. And so you are very, very much, really, in the sphere of public influence when you start to think. And if you listen carefully to your thoughts—insofar as they are uttered in words, and they very often are—try and discover the tone of voice in which certain of your thoughts are being said, and you will listen and hear your mother, or you will hear an aunt, or you will hear a school teacher, or will hear certain friends expressing their opinions and telling you who you are and how you ought to behave. And you think those are your thoughts and they’re nothing of the kind. An inner pandemonium under the dome of the skull is going on all the time. Myriads of voices, myriads of influences from outside working upon you even when you are physically quite alone.” — Alan Watts, 'COSMIC NETWORK', at 01:53:51

credit: Portal Ibis (Facebook) "He who ventures courageously into a labyrinth seeking to find the truth of his life is forced by its circuitous pathways to circumambulate the center of himself, to learn to relate with it and to perceive it from all sides. He can only reach it by passing through the entire interior space of the labyrinth beforehand, by relating to all of its dimensions, and integrating them all into the wholeness of his personality. In fact, in a labyrinth all passages lead into each other, making up an interconnected whole." — The Labyrinth by Helmut Jaskolski “We have not even to risk the adventure alone for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known... we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination we shall find a God. And where we had thought to slay another we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outwards we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone we shall be with all the world.” — Joseph Campbell “Only he who finds the entrance hidden in the mountain and rises up through the labyrinths of the innards can reach the tower, and the happiness of he who surveys things from there and he who lives from himself.” — Carl Jung Art: Spiral Journey, c. 1962 by Remedios Varo

Credit: The Heirloom Gardner - John Forti (Facebook) “We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” ― Anaïs Nin Artist - Jef Bourgeau -Stopping by the Woods

Credit: Poetic Outlaws (Facebook) “The world will never lack wonders; what it lacks is wonder. We grow blind not because the light is dim, but because we forget to look. The moment a man learns to marvel again, he steps back into the richness of reality.” — G. K. Chesterton

“Jung has said that to be in a situation where there is no way out, or to be in a conflict where there is no solution, is the classical beginning of the process of individuation. It is meant to be a situation without solution: the unconscious wants the hopeless conflict in order to put ego-consciousness up against the wall, so that the man has to realise that whatever he does is wrong, whichever way he decides will be wrong. This is meant to knock out the superiority of the ego, which always acts from the illusion that it has the responsibility of decision. Naturally, if a man says, "Oh well, then I shall just let everything go and make no decision, but just protract and wriggle out of [it]," the whole thing is equally wrong, for then naturally nothing happens. But if he is ethical enough to suffer to the core of his personality, then generally because of the insolubility of the conscious situation, the Self manifests. In religious language you could say that the situation without issue is meant to force the man to rely on an act of God. In psychological language the situation without issue, which the anima arranges with great skill in a man's life, is meant to drive him into a condition in which he is capable of experiencing the Self. When thinking of the anima as the soul guide, we are apt to think of Beatrice leading Dante up to Paradise, but we should not forget that he experienced that only after he had gone through Hell. Normally, the anima does not take a man by the hand and lead him right up to Paradise; she puts him first into a hot cauldron where he is nicely roasted for a while.” ― Marie-Louise von Franz, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Revised Edition Art: Beatrice Addressing Dante from the Car, c. 1824–7, William Blake