2026: a year filled with purpose, community, and connection...

I keep sitting down to send this newsletter and every time I do, something happens that drastically changes what I need to write and I have to start over. This seems to be the theme of this year so far. I had a lovely email written about my goals for the year and how it’s taken me a bit to get into the swing of things but this year has thrown a pretty big curveball in just the first few days that I felt like I needed to completely change the direction of the email. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first I want to tell you about the ritual I did over Yule to get prepared for the year…

At the end of every year or the beginning of the new one, I try to sit down and do a journaling exercise that has me reflecting on the past year and stating my aspirations for the coming 12 months. I am usually pretty good about doing this right as the calendar page changes over from December to January, but this year I’ve felt slower, almost sluggish in my changeover. I am chalking this up to feeling utterly worn out and diminished by Christmastime and my decision to take the whole week after Christmas off and closing the shop. As grateful for that time as I am and as much as I needed it, I’m now having a bit of a hard time jumping back in. I had great plans for rearranging the shop and getting it ready for the expansion while I was closed, but none of that happened. Instead, I read a lot, I binged-watched some tv, I slept in a lot and in general I rested more than I have in a long time. And I’ve decided that I absolutely…going to do this for myself every holiday season from now on.

Last week I finally motivated myself enough to sit down and do my journal exercise for the year. After reading through last year’s, I realized that I did wind up accomplishing a lot of the things I aspired to but it also felt like I just kind of survived this past year. I know so many of us felt that way too. Like the last year was mostly just clinging to a hope and continuing on day to day without much in the way of great strides in any direction. And honestly, this is more than ok. I also realized that it is only because of you all, my friends and customers (and customers-turned-friends) that this year was survivable at all. So my biggest gratitude that went in my reflection column was for all of you. I am so incredibly grateful for all of you for showing up at the shop, for checking in on me, for helping me pour candles, for gathering together, brining food to share, donating to the expansion fund, and just showing up—and not for not just me, but for all of us. This community is what this is all about and I hope you all know that I am eternally in your debt for your love and support. My journaling is just the first part of my end of year ritual but I added another step this year.

A group of my witchy friends decided to do the Ritual of the Thirteen at Yule this year because we were inspired by That Glasgow Witch on Instagram. If you are unfamiliar with the ritual, the Cliffs Notes version is that you write out 13 intentions for the upcoming year, as if they have already happened. You fold them up so you can’t see what is written on them and each night of Yule, you burn one of the intentions, letting it go and trusting that the universe has already taken care of it. On the final night, the last intention is opened and that is your “homework” for the year. Magic cannot be accomplished without us doing the work too, so this is the one intention the universe has chosen for you to focus on and put in the effort to accomplish. As I burned my intentions each night I released to the ether my control of the situations and dreams I had written on those papers and when the last day came, it felt like the universe had chosen an especially poignant intention for me to work on this year. One of my friends shared that she took the ashes from the intentions burned and bottled them us as a reminder that the universe had already taken care of those things for her. I thought that was really beautiful, so I took mine as well and created a spell jar for the year with them which sits on my altar. I stoppered it with a candle and will light it each day this year for a moment to bring me back to my ritual and the magic inherent in the spell. Magic is nothing if not mindfulness and a dedication to being present with what we want to manifest, so coming back to this jar daily is a good way for me to commit regularly that I will trust the universe to give me what I wrote on those papers and also that I have to have a hand in accomplishing it too.

This is the biggest reason why 2026 will be a year full of purpose, community, and connection.

As we go deeper into this year, I hope that the shop continues to be a beacon of light and a place of refuge for all of you. I am still waiting on permitting from the city for the expansion construction and I hit a MAJOR roadblock last week. I am honestly not sure what is going to happen with the expansion now, but I am trying to stay confident that things will work out and that the expansion will still be able to happen. I’m not dong a very good job of this. I cried a lot at the shop yesterday, and I am so thankful to all of you who came in with birthday wishes and just to shop. I needed all the hugs I got yesterday. This weekend was a really low point for me. Right now I am being told that I now need to hire an engineer to find out if the wall is load bearing or not. If it is, it is going to be a major financial hurdle to take it out properly and I’m not sure I will be able to do that. After months of talking with the city and showing them my plans, no one mentioned the need for an engineer until now and that is something that should have happened in November. To say this is left me feeling incredibly defeated is an understatement. I am grateful to every one of you that has donated to our construction fund and I will keep you all posted on what I find out from my architect and her engineer. I’m not ready to give up hope just yet and I keep going back to the ritual of the 13 because one of the intentions that went up in smoke to the universe said, “the shop expansion happened according to plan.” I now realize that as specific as I thought I was being with that statement, I should have said “MY plan” because the universe is a cheeky monkey. I feel like I’m in a holding pattern with the expansion right now, but I just keep reminding myself that this is the slow time of the year and it is ok that things aren’t moving as fast as I want them to but here we are and I’m trying to stay positive and manifest the expansion.

I offer this to you as well: if you are not where you want to be right now, give yourself some grace and know that you are making progress even if it feels slow. I was recently reminded that the bulbs planted in the fall need the cold quiet dark of winter to be able to bloom in the spring and I am taking that to heart. We are all beautiful flowers changing and growing inside and sometimes we need the quietude of a restful season to bring forth the bloom. So, lean into this quiet season. Don’t feel pressured to be or do or create or renew right now. It’s ok to just be. To just allow ourselves to simply exist.

So, know that I will be working behind the scenes even as I allow myself to rest and I will still be easing myself into the year when the shop opens up again tomorrow. It will be a slower start to the year. I don’t have any classes planned for January, but I am hoping to start them back up in February. New Moon Gatherings will continue this year, but with a little bit of a change up: they will be the Friday before each new moon (unless the new moon falls on a Friday in which case we will meet on that night.) My goal is to give us all a chance to prepare for any rituals we may do on our own and to give you some tools and ideas to take into those rituals. The first gathering of this year will be on Friday, January 16th at 5PM and you can register here. Our Earth Spirits Society Members will continue to have complementary access to these gatherings.

If you are interested in becoming a member of our Earth Spirits Society, I would love to have you join us! It is a monthly $25 recurring subscription that gets you a 10% discount on all your purchases at the shop and online, free admission to the New Moon Gatherings (a $20 value), more in-depth emails/blog posts, Spotify Playlists that I curate, rituals, recipes and other fun additions as well as access to our members only Discord community. You can sign up by clicking this link.

So, I will be getting back to the shop on Wednesday and continuing to move things around and refresh the look of the space that I have while brainstorming ideas for utilizing the other half of the shop until I can open up that damn wall. If you are interested in using the other side for a workshop or class, sound bath or yoga — or if you know someone who would, please let me know. We will continue to have our tarot readers every day that we are open and I will begin posting February classes to the website at the beginning of next week. In the meantime, please continue to manifest the shop expansion. I’m not giving up and I know you all are definitely not going to let me give up and you aren’t going to give up on me either.

Love,

Rin