Welcome to 2026.

Congratulations on making it this far. I hope this year brings you all that you need, most of what you want, and some unexpected, welcome delights.

January, for me, is a time of contemplation. Starting with the Solstice, where the sun appears to pauses in the sky and the nights are long, I start to catch up with myself. It is a time of orientation, and pausing to collect thoughts. There is time for reflection, thinking about what came before and where I am heading (and if I want to keep going that way).

This year has had a lot going on, Patreon directly supports me in continuing my work as an ritualist, artist, educator, and spiritworker. Laying things out in bullet point lists helps me to work with my feelings of impostor syndrome (I can hear several people in my life rolling their eyes and rolling up their sleeves for this argument. Seriously, here I am, working on it.)

• 52 individual classes presented.
• Classes in 5 states.
• Rituals in 7 states.
• 6 road trips and lots of day trip adventures
• Launched Introduction to the Northern Tradition. 7 of 9 months written, recorded, and posted live so far. 108 lessons and counting.
• 8 Conversations With The Runes Classes.
• Working with individual students and mentees through coaching sessions, readings, and consultations.
• Wrote and released “Writing Your Own Care & Service Manual: A Workbook." You can find it here: https://payhip.com/b/WsqEm​
• Completing several professional practice development intensives and rounds of coaching.
• I continue the projects of developing new material, updating classes, and applying for events.

Some personal milestones, in no particular order.

• Celebrate some major relationship anniversaries with my loves.
• Have major abdominal surgery and recover (and asking for support in that recovery).
• Supporting family through some more major health challenges.
• Help a dear friend plan the rituals around her passing and see her on her way through the Death door. Remembering to lean into community and that I am not alone on that ride.
• Find a physical therapist who will actually work with my body.
• Writing in my journal more days than not.
• Both Solstices with a chosen family.
• Attending Thrymskaper and building a ceremonial drum in community.
• Dancing into the midsummer night at a pride celebration, singing at the top of my lungs.
• Standing in the mist at Cape Meares on the Oregon Coast.
• Bearing witness to several of my dear ones going through initiations and going though a major one myself.

Upcoming Events:

• January 8th, Grounding & Centering For Kinksters with Pragmatically Kinking. Tickets available here: https://events.humanitix.com/pk-presents-grounding-and-centering-for-kinksters
• January 28th Grounding & Centering For Kinksters with Wicked Grounds. Tickets available here: https://forbiddentickets.com/events/wicked-grounds/2026-01-28-online-grounding-and-centering-for-kinksters-an-introduction-to-defining-space-and-self ​
• January 23-25, 2026 Kenn and I will be hosting a Northern Tradition centered weekend long immersion called near Salt Lake City, Utah called Gather, Glean, and Grow: Vanic Wisdom for Meaningful Connections.
  • The quiet hush of winter is the perfect time to turn inward, rest, recollect, and envision the year to come. Join us for a weekend retreat where we will circle the hearth of the Vanir, Norse gods of nature, magic, and prosperity. Through the use of meditation, storytelling, drumming, and talisman creation, we move toward a life that you want to live – one that helps you cultivate health, wholeness, and meaningful relationships with the world around you. https://runewalker.com/gather-glean-and-grow-vanic-wisdom-for-meaningful-connections
• Month Seven of the Introduction to the Northern Tradition: Finding Your Fire is live! Kenn (https://www.patreon.com/c/RuneWalker) and I are learning so much as we make the recordings for this course. The course is set up as a series of videos, readings, and guided prompts with opportunities for feedback and interaction. Enrollment is available in an ongoing manner at: https://payhip.com/b/c3jRF. We are currently recording month 8 and the strands are coming together nicely.
• I am currently in the process of turning two classes into workbooks and they are coming along nicely. One is about working with your root values, and the other is on boundary setting. Stay tuned for those to come out in the next few months.

Inspirations from this Month

• Poetry Is Not A Luxury: Poems For All Seasons edited by the Curator of @PoetryIsNotALuxury on Instagram (2025). I have been following them on Instagram for a long while and am grateful for them reminding me of some of my favorite poets, as well as introducing new ones. I adore having a hard copy of poems that I can flip through for daily comfort and inspiration.
• E.L Massey’s Breakaway series. Yes, it is a hockey romance. No, that is not my normal genre. Yes, it is super queer. And I LOVE it. These are characters I want to be friends with, they are people I genuinely care about. I will happily gush about these books at the slightest provocation.
• Revisited The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021). I appreciate the cross disciplinary approach of the authors and how they try to get the reader to broaden their ways of thinking about history, what we know, and why we think we know it.
• The art of Ash Eliza Williams (https://aerofauna.com/), introduced to me by the Marginalian newsletter. (https://www.themarginalian.org/2025/12/26/ash-eliza-williams-art/) I spent hours looking through their portfolio, in awe of the forms and colors. The combination of texture, light, and story. I have a new goal to see their work in person (hopefully this year).

Safe Travels, Kind Roads, and Soft Landings,

HG