I woke up this morning feeling it in my bones—that strange, heavy-yet-weightless sensation that tells me something massive is shifting. It’s December 21st, 2025. Outside my window in the UK, the sky is a bruised purple, and the air is biting. We’ve reached the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, but this time, it feels like the end of much more than just a calendar cycle.
For months, I’ve felt the “symptoms” of this global awakening. Maybe you have, too. It’s that ringing in the ears, the sudden waves of exhaustion that hit out of nowhere, and that persistent feeling that the life I lived two years ago belongs to a stranger. My internal compass is recalibrating. We are shedding the “Old Earth”—a version of ourselves built on hustle and hiding—and preparing for a 2026 that demands total transparency.
Honoring the Ancestral Dark
Standing here today, I think about the people who stood on this same soil thousands of years ago, watching the sun slip between the stones. They didn’t have the “noise” of our modern world, but they understood the “Stillness.”
Across the globe, from the fires of Yule to the Dongzhi festivals in the East, humanity has always known that you cannot have the light without first honoring the dark. Today, I’m not running from the shadows. I’m sitting with them. I’m asking: What version of me needs to stay in 2025 so I can walk freely into 2026?
The Transition to 2026: The Year of the Heart
If 2025 was the year the world cracked open, 2026 feels like the year the light finally pours through the cracks. As I look toward the new year, I don’t see more of the same. I see a “New Earth” emerging—one where our value isn’t measured by our productivity, but by our presence.
The symptoms we’re feeling—the sensitivity to crowds, the craving for nature, the sudden “downloads” of inspiration—are just the growing pains of a new consciousness. In 2026, we’re moving into a frequency of sovereignty. We are stopping the search for leaders “out there” and realizing the authority lies within.
We’ve made it through the longest night. The sun is coming back, and this time, it’s bringing a brand new world with it.
Explorers Lens: The Global Exploration Magazine 