My Chrysalis Year

I posted this to my Substack near the end of 2025 and I wanted to share it here as well. It explains a bit about my focus for 2026 and the whys behind it… Here you go:

We gather here at the darkest point of the year, when the Solstice arrives to remind us that all growth begins in darkness. The seeds sleep beneath frozen earth. The bear dreams in her cave. The feminine energy of winter holds us close, asking us to turn inward, to rest, to surrender.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell

This is the season of letting go—not as loss, but as sacred release. And so, standing at this threshold between years, I find myself called to share something deeply personal: a turning that has been whispering to me for some time now, growing louder as winter’s darkness deepens.

2026 will mark my 60th year on this earth, and I have chosen to honor it as my Chrysalis Year—a sacred season of complete dissolution and transformation.

The Wisdom of Metamorphosis

You may know the story: the caterpillar doesn’t simply grow wings and fly away. Inside the chrysalis, it must dissolve entirely, becoming liquid, releasing every form it has ever known. Only then can the imaginal cells—those mysterious blueprints of becoming—take hold and weave the butterfly into being.

There is no transformation without surrender. No emergence without first becoming formless.

The dark half of the year teaches us this. In the womb of winter, in the longest night, we remember that the feminine principle is not about doing, but about being. Not about pushing forward, but about allowing. Not about holding on, but about releasing what no longer serves so that new life can quicken in the dark.

The Year of Snake and Nine

In 2025, we’ve walked through the Year of the Snake, the sacred number 9—a year of completion, wisdom, and release. The snake sheds its skin to grow. Nine asks us: What cycle is ending? What must you release to step forward?

And now, 2026 arrives as the Year of the Horse and the number 1—movement, freedom, new beginnings. The horse runs with wild courage toward uncharted horizons. One is the pioneer, the fresh start, the first breath of a new creation.

I feel this transition in my bones.

My Chrysalis

Beginning in 2026, I will be gently stepping back from the forms my work has taken: teaching classes, seeing individual Reiki clients, maintaining travel schedules, and even considering retirement from nursing. I am releasing the “shoulds” and “have-tos,” the weight of “I’ve always done this,” to make space for what wants to emerge.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” — Joseph Campbell

Like the Solstice dark that holds the promise of returning light, I am choosing to rest in the unknown. I trust that I will always be a teacher, always be a writer—these are woven into my soul’s fabric—but what forms they will take, I cannot say. And that unknowing is exactly where I need to be.

This is the work of the dark half of the year, the feminine work: to receive rather than strive, to gestate rather than birth, to trust the invisible process happening beneath the surface.

An Invitation

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” — Richard Bach

I share this with you not as an ending, but as an invitation. Perhaps you, too, feel the whisper of letting go. Perhaps you, too, are ready to release an old skin. Perhaps this Solstice season is calling you into your own darkness, your own dissolution, your own becoming.

We can honor these transitions together, even as we each walk our own path into the chrysalis.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” — Anaïs Nin

As we move through this longest night and into the year of the Horse, I want you to know: you have been part of my becoming. Every reader, every shared moment, every connection has shaped me. Thank you for witnessing this journey.

May you, too, find the courage to dissolve when it’s time. May you trust the dark seasons. May you honor the feminine wisdom of release. May you trust your own imaginal cells. May you emerge, again and again, into who you are becoming.

With deep reverence and an open heart,

Lynda