The Ember Moon & the Stories We Carry Into a New Year

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, that brings everything into focus. What have I lived this year? What has shaped me? What am I carrying into the next chapter… and what am I ready to lay down?

These are Ember Moon questions, and this year, they reach straight into the heart of me.

A Year of Many Births

When I look back at 2025, the word that rises is birth.

Literal.

Emotional.

Creative.

Messy.

Holy.

Transformative.

I welcomed my youngest son this year, my last baby, the closing chapter of an era of motherhood. His arrival came after a difficult pregnancy and a season marked by uncertainty and fear as my husband became seriously ill. Those early months were a strange mixture of fragility and fierce gratitude, of exhaustion and deep love.

But alongside that literal birth came others.

I birthed a new YouTube channel.

A new phase of my business.

A new version of myself, one shaped by the years of mothering, healing, experimenting, pausing, and beginning again.

Motherhood has a way of rearranging us at the soul-level. This year, I felt myself rearranged into someone new.

The Business as a Mirror

For the past five years, my work has moved in waves, a launch, a pregnancy, a pause, a baby, a restart. It’s been beautiful, but also fragmented, a tapestry woven in bursts.

But this year something different rooted.

As I experimented with new formats, Telegram voice-note readings, pre-recorded mini chart sessions, longer-term 1:1 containers, a deeper clarity began to form:

My work is not simply about astrology. It’s about becoming.

It’s about helping mothers remember who they are beneath the noise. It’s about offering archetypes and stories that act like torches in the dark. It’s about slow, soulful unfolding rather than quick transformation.

And from this clarity, a new framework began emerging, quietly at first, then insistently, like a flame catching.

Introducing the Cycle of Becoming

As I sat with the rhythms of my life, remembering, rooting, tending, growing, I realised the pattern wasn’t just personal. It was universal. A map for mothers, creatives, and wild-hearted women navigating seasons of change.

I didn’t think this framework into existence. I lived it, and it revealed itself step by step.

In the coming year, this Cycle of Becoming will shape everything I create, from readings to courses to meditations. And today, under the Ember Moon, I’m offering the first glimpse: a free guided meditation called The Dreamer.

It’s a soft landing place. A spark. A remembering.

If you’d like to receive it, you’ll find the link at the bottom of this post.

The Ember Moon Invitation

This moon asks us to slow down and sit beside our own inner ember.

To honour the stories that shaped us this year, not from a place of judgment, but from a place of deep witnessing.

To soften into the truth that endings and beginnings always travel in pairs.

To ask ourselves:

What do I want to carry into the returning light? And what is ready to be released into the dark?

If you feel called, take a moment today to write a single sentence that answers that question.

One line.

One spark.

One intention for the year ahead.

You might be surprised by what rises.

A Final Blessing for Your Ember Moon

May your ember stay warm. May your stories feel sacred. May your next steps reveal themselves gently and clearly. And may you feel the sun returning, not just in the sky, but in your own becoming.

Thank you for walking this year with me. I can’t wait to share what’s coming next.

Receive the free Dreamer Meditation here → The Dreamer - Free guided meditation for mothers

Explore my current readings here → Readings | This Holy Hearth