Hello Friends:

As the Gregorian calendar year winds down, I wanted to share something I've been thinking about: why rituals matter more than resolutions.

I am 40 days or 34% of the way within my 117-day Mercury Cycle to explore restarting a land-based dream.

The 30-day Scorpio New Moon cycle, which started on November 20th has ended. I used that time to do a personal gutting out of the patterns and behaviors I don't want to take into this new project.

Some extraordinary things have already happened.

But first, I wanted to share something about rituals versus resolutions in the spirit of the new year.

This break while Gabe has been here has included bookstore visits and lots of reading together, one of my favorite rituals. These are my haul from one of the best: First Light Book Shop in Hyde Park. You Are Here by Ada Limón is one of my holiday gift's from him as a celebration of my recent designation as Ensign Fleet 30 Poet, my love of nature, and Limón as my favorite poet laureate. The other gifts were a donation to NPR in my name and a membership to our favorite show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me," and a carnelian stone from his trip to Sedona. He's a very thoughtful gift-giver.

One book by the cultural theorist, Byung-Chul Han speaks to the current astrology this week, but also the perception of time as we enter 2026, the year of the Fire Horse.

The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present by Byung-Chul Han (Author), Daniel Steuer (Translator).

There's a great deal of controversy about about New Year's resolutions. They can be a trap disguised as self-improvement.

Resolutions live in what Han calls "serial time," this endless forward movement where you're always chasing the next version of yourself. One goal after another, climbing one mountain after another (Capricorns can't help it). Time feels like a progress bar where you're measuring yourself against some future better version of you. There's always a gap between who you are now and who you "should" or want to be, and that gap can fill up with guilt and pressure. Scrolling on socials is also serial time, looking for the next interesting thing, and our addiction to novelty. Hours can pass without realizing how long you've been sitting.

Rituals work completely differently. They pull you out of that conveyor mentality and into "symbolic time," where time is "measured" by what you actually pay attention to, not by how productive you've been. You come back to the same thing over and over, and its meaning builds up slowly. Instead of trying to optimize yourself into someone new, you're just... here. Present. The ritual is the point. We are our habits. We become what we do.

Byung-Chul Han talks about how rituals ask you to forget about yourself for a while. They connect you to something bigger: your body, your community, the place you live, the actual rhythms of time. Identity stops being this thing you manage and track from the outside, and starts emerging from what you do, from the inside out.

I've heard that attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

I always appreciate conversations where no one picks up their phone, either to show me something on IG, or to check a text or email.

The Intangible Start-Overs

The question I ask clients is: "How do you want to feel in 2026?" because that will inform everything else. If you want to feel peaceful, then you might include more meditation or nature walks in your days. If you want to feel adventurous, planning trips or experiences need to be part of the schedule.

For 2026 I want to feel fulfilled.

That means building Equanimity Commons and making my land dream a reality. Saturn and Neptune are entering Aries together in February, which means energy is available for setting the foundation for the vision that won't let me go. In this Mercury cycle I have built rituals of listening, researching, meeting with farmers, testing financial and business models, and learning how to build a Farm Stop.

Questions for 2026 continue to be:

What do you want to feel in 2026?

What do you want?

Why do you want it?

Who do you need to become to receive it?

I'm adding...

What daily rituals will add devotion to your tasks or healthy habits to sustain them?

I love sipping a warm, frothy cup of cacao or Dandy Blend while I journal in the morning.

I spend the last hours before bed and the first waking hours reading aspirational literature.

I light a beeswax candle surrounded by crystals when I do a Tarot spread.

Although constantly quoted, James Clear says: "You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems."

Rituals can be a sacred system.

Will you share yours with me?

Now, the astrology of this week is speaking this language loud and clear.

We're opening 2026 with a Full Moon in Cancer on January 3rd, and Cancer is ruled by the Moon itself, so this lunation has extra feels. It's pulling us toward home, toward what feels safe, toward the tender stuff we usually ignore when we're busy optimizing ourselves. This Full Moon is arriving right in the middle of Capricorn season, when everyone is making ambitious plans and deciding to do the hard things.

While the Moon is in Cancer asking us to slow down and tend to our emotional landscape, the Sun, Venus, and Mars are all meeting up in Capricorn this week. This rare triple conjunction happening within just three days (around January 7th-8th), with Venus and Mars coming together near the Sun. In traditional astrology, when planets get this close to the Sun, they're said to be "combust," burned up, invisible, and consumed by the Sun's light.

This means our usual drives around achievement (Mars), our values (Venus), and our sense of purpose (Sun) are all getting purified, reset, refined. They're hidden for a moment. You can't see them clearly. And that's actually the point.

Venus Cazimi happens on January 6th, and Mars Cazimi on January 9th. It's like everything you thought you wanted, every way you thought you were supposed to show up and take action, gets to die and come back clearer.

Mars in Capricorn is opposite Jupiter retrograde in Cancer on January 10th. There's tension between outer achievement and inner nourishment. Between charging forward and actually feeling abundant. Between doing more and being enough.

The whole week is the cosmos saying: Your efforts are most effective when they're deliberate and grounded in what actually matters to you, not in some abstract idea of who you should become.

That Cancer Full Moon wants you to ask: Do I feel safe here? Do I feel at home in my own time? Or am I always bracing for the next thing, the next upgrade, the next version?

The Capricorn stellium says: Yes, build something. But make sure it's real. Make sure it endures because it's connected to your actual life, not because it looks good to whoever you think it matters.

This is ritual energy, not resolution energy. The planets are asking you to come back to the same place: your body, your home, your heart, and let meaning emerge from there. They're asking you to ignore the self-improvement impulse for a moment and just be in the structure you're building.

Serial time says: What's next? What am I becoming?

Symbolic time, the time these transits are offering, says: What am I returning to? What's worth tending, again and again, even when it doesn't look like progress?

That's the invitation this week. Don't fix yourself, inhabit yourself. Don't chase a future self, deepen into the present one.

Endings...

After three years of teaching my Kripalu Gentle Yoga & Sound class at The Yoga Common, I have decided to stop teaching beginning in January. Mindy, who has occasionally subbed for me might be taking over. She has a sweet spirit and an elegant way of teaching. I will miss the community we built there and look forward to staying in touch with the dear friends who came regularly and stayed to visit with me after class.

I will also be discontinuing my monthly lunation ceremonies. Perhaps I'll host something on a solstice or astrologically significant transit.

Thank you to all of who came to relax and renew on Sunday evenings, and to celebrate the moon themes at Casa Cahill, on Hudson Bend, and in special spaces throughout Austin. Your presence and support have meant so much.

Happy Full Moon in Cancer on January 3rd!

As I try to meet my optimistic goal of launching Equanimity Commons on March 20, 2026, I am harnessing my time for the milestones I've set (Virgo stellium in me). There is so much to do and I am being guided by cosmic timing, ancient wisdom systems, and rituals to make this happen.

If you're interested in the process, I'm writing about it on my Substack, albeit with less cadence than I had planned.

You can also book a session to map out your year based on your cosmic timing for the things you'd like to experience. I'm opening up two 3-month mentorships to create rituals and systems towards achieving your heart's desire.

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Thank you for reading this far and being a part of my community.

If you have a moment, can you let me know if any of this was helpful or interesting?

Will you hit reply and let me know how you are?

What do you want to feel for 2026?

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Peace, wonder, and stars...

And lots and lots of love!

Monica

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