2026: Here Comes the Sun
The dawn of a new era!
The shift from one year to the next is one of many ways we mark the passing of time. To me, the fact that so many of us acknowledge the space between one temporal season and the next makes it a powerful liminal space, whenever we collectively choose to celebrate it.
We have so many “new years” to choose from and some of us celebrate multiple. Whether its January 1, the March Equinox, or cultural or religious holidays, each day carries its own weight and significance. The way time seems to stretch, relax, and stretch again between January 1 and the equinox welcomes intimate, reflective energy.
The first few months of the year feel like a chance to slow down and tend to ourselves and our community. In times like these, when fascists are getting bolder and using shock and awe tactics to disrupt our nervous systems and suppress dissent, pouring into our community while taking care of ourselves is paramount. Not to make it easier for us to tolerate or conform to oppressive violence, but to deepen our capacity for love, joy, and connection, which is a major theme of this Sun year.
The Heart of the Matter
After the confronting and combative energy of the previous Mars year, the Sun shines its light on what remains. If the Mars year was a year of initiation, the Sun year is our first steps forward.
The Sun rules our hearts and our ego, two famously rational parts of our psyche (ha!). With all this new energy, emotions may be running high, and we may be more likely to act on our feelings rather than logic. This year asks us not to shy away from these feelings, but to acknowledge them. To speak on them. To alchemize them.
If the state of the world makes you rage, don’t cage it. Channel it into craft. Use it to inspire action, but make sure you remember what you’re raging against, so you don’t turn it on each other. If you’re grieving what we’ve lost, you’re alive and you’re allowed to cry about it! Grief is a natural reaction to loss, and they’ve taken so much from us.
These violent systems want to isolate us to make it easier to consume us. They use warfare tactics to incite fear and distrust; and destroy our environments and remove safety nets to limit our movements and make it harder for us to resist. When we show up for each other, ki together, or leverage our skills to support each other, we strengthen our bonds, which is exactly what they don’t want.
If we want to walk the path our spirits chose to walk in this lifetime, that requires self-awareness and reflection on how our actions align with our beliefs.
Oppressive systems like white supremacy benefit when we swallow our rage and ignore our grief because it makes us more compliant and easier to control, but we can channel the creative light of the Sun year to make them impossible to ignore.
With the Sun shining on this year, self-expression is particularly emphasized. This is our year to unapologetically shine. If they want us to be quiet, we should just get bolder and louder. I’ve talked about the Black Arts Movement and zines as tools of resistance before, and in addition to using art as protest, we can also use it to memorialize what or who we’ve lost, and document our joyous moments and triumphs for prosperity. I think archival work like this will continue to gain popularity over the next year, and we’re already seeing a renewed interest in “returning to analog” and building personal archives and curriculums. Collective memory seems to be getting shorter and with the ways they’re trying to erase history and change narratives, we must keep using creative ways to document and tell our own stories, in our own words.
This Sun year provides a boost to our creativity and gives us the courage to pop out. This is not the year to hide your art or keep your creative projects to yourself. This year requires boldness, similarly to last year. Where the Mars year demanded boldness in defense of ourselves or others, this year invites us to be bold enough to align the best of ourselves with our actions.
If we want to walk the path our spirits chose to walk in this lifetime, that requires self-awareness and reflection on how our actions align with our beliefs. The Sun shines light on everything, but it can cast shadows, too.
If you’re doing self-reflection right, there will be moments when the exposure feels confronting and uncomfortable. Lean into those moments. Part of the creative cycle is knowing when to retreat, to return to your inner world to feed and tend to your spirit before stepping out to create again.
This year is not about constant output, but about gaining a deeper understanding of our creative rhythms. Sometimes you’ll feel a burst of creativity that’ll put a battery in your back, and other times, the creative flow may feel blocked. It’s important to stay curious about the ebbs and flows of your creativity, even though it can be frustrating when you’re feeling stuck, and if you need a little support, you can always reach for an herbal ally.
An Introduction to Solar Herbs
The Sun rules our circulatory system, ego, and vitality, so it makes sense that solar herbs tend to strengthen the heart, improve our eyesight and vision, or give us a burst of energy. They’re generally “hot” and “dry”, so they help us reduce inflammation and dry up excess mucous and phlegm. Many of them either look like the Sun (ex. Sunflower, Calendula, Chamomile) or they love strong, direct sunlight (ex. Eyebright, Rosemary, Thyme).
Every year, I like to work with herbs ruled by the planetary ruler because it helps me understand the energy of that year on a somatic level and deepens my relationship with a select few plants. This year, I chose four herbs—Ginger, Calendula, St. John’s Wort, and Thyme—to help us work with the astrological vibes of each quarter of the year and created a guide for working with them.
The first few months of the year start off a little slow, but by the time March rolls around, things will get juicy and the creative juices will really start flowing! I’m a planner girlie and love building my apothecary in advance, so this 11-page guide includes brief sidereal horoscopes, materia medicas for the herbs I picked for the year, and 1-2 recipes for each herb in the spirit of staying ready, so we don’t have to get ready!
You can find the guide on my Ko-fi page and there’s a 50% off discount code for paid subscribers as a thank you for your support at the bottom of this post <3
