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it was one of those travel moments where you look around and wonder if maybe you’re on camera?

or was that cacao brownie actually laced?

or maybe God’s in the next room sitting in a director’s chair, orchestrating the whole thing…

because there’s no way that you’re here at a rickety table with a plastic tablecloth in a little ramshackle restaurant, on the edge of a tiny town on the Caribbean coast, across the table is the new friend you’d just met earlier that day in the hostel, next to you a friend from home who just happened to be hosting her retreat two towns over from where you wound up near the Panamanian border, and holding court at the head of the table is the 65 year old Rastafarian musician-turned-chef-turned-restaurant owner schooling you on God while the cicadas click in time to the ocean waves crashing on the beach beyond the bougainvillea that make up the back wall of the restaurant…

oh, and you’ve just had the best meal of your life, when Temps, the restaurant owner casually offers up:

“you don’t believe in your mum, right? you know your mum. so don’t believe in God — KNOW God.”

he’d dropped this bomb on the table right next to the raw cacao and peanut butter pie he’d insisted we have {it was delicious, it didn’t take much convincing}.

my fork hovered halfway to my mouth as his words rippled through me.

“…don’t believe in God. know God…”

i felt changed in that moment. i walked back to the hostel still kind of reeling at how the whole night felt like… well like Temps said, like I knew God & God knew me & knew i needed a moment like that to jar me awake so i might remember all the ways magic weaves its way into my life at the most unexpected times…

you’d think this moment would have been seared into my heart, forever altering the way i moved through the world, because of how profound it all felt…

but the truth is? i forgot about it a few weeks later once i got back to the States.

& it wasn’t until this past week that it came back to me & i felt another God Wink—right as we enter the darkness of the Solstice days…

one of the main reasons i have a journaling practice is because i am convinced i would otherwise forget all of my “life lessons” if i didn’t have a way to review them.

{please tell me i’m not alone in this??}

the biggest gift of being an obsessive journaler, though, comes at the end of the year.

every year around this time of the Solstice i have a year-end practice i’ve done for the past 11 winters. it started with a simple reflective guidebook from an embodiment coach i had worked with—then i began crafting my own as i learned more about the Wheel of the Year & ancestral practices to mark the portal around the longest night of the year.

the past few years it’s taken on the form of the “Year Between Years” ritual guidebook & ceremony.

part of the practice in the newest iteration of the journal is around the Locking Nights*, modeled after “Sperrnächte”—the three ritual nights, traditionally observed in parts of Austria, Bavaria, and the Alpine regions, that mark the closing of the old year.

this past week as i prepared for this years Locking Nights, i was going back through my YBY journal from Solstice ‘24 and i found the page reflecting on that month & my memory of Temps’ wisdom alongside his quote, “you don’t believe in your mum, right? you know your mum. so don’t believe in God — KNOW God.”

it made me pause, once again.

both in gratitude for a moment that felt like it had God’s fingerprints all over it, but also for the fact that i had written it down for Future Me to be able to receive again and again and again.

this is why ritual changes us.

because in some way, it will call you to remember. your bones will echo with memories, your fingers will tremble as you retrace words written by a version of yourself you wouldn’t recognize anymore, & Past You meets up with Now You & lays a pathway for Future You as you weave your rituals with reverence and intention.

that’s why the Year Between Years Ritual Guidebook will change you.

it’s a new way to close out one year, and to call in the next.

it’s not “NeW YeArS reSoLUtiOnS” or a 50-step regimen “turn your life around.”

it’s ritual rooted in reverence for how far you’ve come. for honoring the moments that made the past year perfectly holy in its unfolding. & for beckoning in the next version of your becoming through sweet, simple and sacred rituals.

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if you want a practice that will give you clarity on all the magic you’ve made in 2025, all that you’re choosing to leave behind as you walk through the portal of the new year, and all that you’re crafting with intention for 2026…

i hope you’ll check out the Year Between Years Ritual Guidebook {pricing is on sliding scale basis.}

wishing you & yours a sweet sweet Solstice season. & here’s to remembering that in 2026, we don’t just believe in God… We Know God 🫶

Big Love, all ways always

P.S. even if the YBY Ritual Guidebook isn’t for you, i hope you take time to reflect on everything you’ve moved through this past calendar year. it’s so easy to get wrapped up in what has yet to happen, that we miss all that’s been made manifest right in front of us… {that’s a me @ me note, btw 😉}

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*deep bow of gratitude to my dear teacher, Greyson Kirby of the Temple of the Swan, for sharing her take on “Sperrnächte” and The Locking Nights. you can find out more about The Locking Days & Holy Nights container she & her friend Silvia co-hold, by clicking here.

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