Why a Soft Reset Matters for Mothers at the New Year There is a certain magic to the week between Christmas and New Year... a hush, a breath, a suspension of time. The lights are still twinkling, the days are short and dark, and the house holds gratitude but also mess, and exhaustion. It is a season where as a mother I often feel stretched thin, longing for a moment of stillness amidst the fullness. Before 2026 arrives with its noise and expectations, here is a soft place to

by Jema Killala-Barnard The Ember Moon arrives each year like a warm coal, a small, steady glow in the deepest dark. In astrology, this is our Sagittarius New Moon, always appearing just before the solstice. It’s the final new beginning before the light returns. And this moon feels especially potent for me. There is something about this moment, the way darkness closes in, the way we wrap ourselves in stories and fairy lights, the way we instinctively try to call the sun home,

What wants to grow in me now, not in spite of the season, but because of it? Winter has always held a different kind of magic. A magic that refuses urgency. A magic that turns our attention from the shiny, fast, exponential kind of “manifestation” and toward something deeper, older, and infinitely more honest. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with manifestation. The way it’s often taught, endlessly reaching, endlessly performing, endlessly “raising your vibration”,

This is my matrescence story, the five initiations that shaped me as a mother. In this video I share the identity shifts, thresholds, grief, and unexpected openings that unfolded with each new chapter of motherhood. A tender reflection on the becoming we rarely speak about. My Matrescence Story, Five Initiations Into Motherhood