Housekeeping

Happy Holidays, y’all! The days are getting shorter in the Northern Hemisphere and I am tired. Thankfully, this year I have been able to plan for my low energy, which has happily coincided with my agent’s maternity leave, so I am resting, playing, reorganizing, and finally checking things off of my to-do list that have been there for a shamefully long time.

It’s probably way too late to point this out, but a friend of a friend requested this so I will point it out anyway: Books make great gifts, and signed books make even better gifts! I still have paperback (and a few hardcover) copies of The Wilderness of Girls that I’m happy to sign and mail out for a “donation” (I can’t technically sell these, but all proceeds will be going to paying off the Care Card I opened for my late dog’s medical care). Paperbacks are $21 including media mail shipping, hardcovers $26. I will also throw in some stickers and bookmarks, of course 🙂 Simply send your donation to my Venmo (@MaddieLion) with the best shipping name and address, plus any requests for personalization. I also have a handful of French and German editions if anyone is interested! This is for contiguous USA shipping only, unfortunately.

Monthly Theme: Hibernation Time

December arrived with finality this year: several inches of fluffy white snow and colder average temperatures than we’ve seen in years. It’s like the world said “2025 has been long enough. It’s time to hibernate.” And I have been. Sort of. I have been making my home a place that feels restful to me, and setting myself up to be able to rest, and planning for a winter full of play, learning, and indulging in my rampant curiosity. I’ve been tending to myself and my family and making my home a place of deep nurturing for the long winter months ahead. As with all new beginnings, I am looking forward to 2026.

I am not the kind of person who likes to assign blame to a single orbit around the sun. When people say “this year sucked” or “fuck 2025” I feel genuinely uncomfortable. Maybe it’s the ‘tism and my literal thinking, but I can’t assign motive to the calendar year. If there is any higher consciousness out there directing our lives, I one hundred percent do not believe it would be a malevolent one. So while it did feel, sometimes, like “the Universe” was kicking me while I was down this year (in the teeth; and punching me in the throat; and then dropping a flaming bag of dog shit in my lap and laughing…sometimes), I can’t deny that as much as there were bad moments, there were also many good moments, too.

As I said in my last newsletter: if I’ve learned anything in 2025, it’s that good and bad are always co-existing, and it’s up to us to decide which is more important to pay attention to. You may say “it’s not a choice,” but once you’re conscious of it…then yes, it is. There’s a reason we call it “doomscrolling” and not “joyscrolling.” The algorithm might be giving you equal parts good news and bad (unlikely) but you generally don’t lie awake at night thinking about that robotics team who built a wheelchair for their classmate; instead, you lie awake fuming about the insurance company that made the wheelchair inaccessible to the kid to begin with, which is fair. As the algo’ knows, humans react more strongly to the bad, giving it more weight than it deserves. It’s probably a survival instinct or something. But in an age of information overload, it’s an outdated brain setting we need to consciously try to rewire if we’re going to survive as a species. This is easier said than done, obviously, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying.

(I could write a novel on why I think we all need to disconnect more from the internet and focus on creating safe and accessible communities in person, and why we would all feel better if we were to focus our energies on an analogue life where and whenever possible, but I want to save my novel writing for the stories that bring me creative joy. Although…I do have something brewing on that topic…)

I’m not going to deny that 2025 was a difficult year, just as I’m not going to pretend that things will magically change when the clock strikes midnight and ushers us into 2026. Transitional periods often bleed between many worlds, their beginnings and endings most accurately identified only in retrospect. But I enjoy the rituals of these liminal times and spaces, when/where I am neither here nor there. Many people talk about midwinter as if it’s a curse they wish they could skip over, but I believe it is just as necessary as any other period of darkness: it is a time for dreaming, gestating, incubating, discovery, and rest, among other things.

This time of year is a threshold, and thresholds are some of my favorite spaces to explore in art, nature, and within myself. They are places and moments of unlimited potential, ripe if not bursting with magic, power, and possibilities.

So indulge me, won’t you?

My Death Card Year

You may recall from last year’s “new years-ish” post that my personal tarot card for 2025 was Death. Here’s what I wrote back then (just two months after our last devastating presidential election):

“I know [a Death card year] can sound a bit scary […] but I’m actually very excited. The Death card is all about transformation, endings, and new beginnings, and well…I don’t have a giant phoenix tattooed on my leg for nothing. Plus, for the first time ever, a “word of the year” has come to me quite naturally, and I think it’s incredibly fitting as I enter my Death Year: nurture and/or nourish. I will nurture the grief and anger I carry, just as I will nurture the compassion and delight. As I make decisions moving forward, I will ask myself: does this nourish me? I hope to create a life that nurtures me, day in and day out, instead of constantly rationing myself to fend off exhaustion. Perhaps 2025 will finally be the death of my deep-seated need to be productive above all else.”

Well. I certainly did most of that––or at least made a very respectable attempt.

What a Death card year it has been. I have lost much [she says with a laugh that might be a sob]. 2025 was also the year of the snake in the Chinese Zodiac, and I shed quite a bit of skin in pursuit of wholeness. I have not only lost contracts and beloved family members, but I’ve lost my clear understanding of who I am, especially since receiving my double diagnoses of Autism and ADHD this time last year. This is not a bad thing, but it is deeply disorienting. My past is being reframed, memory by memory; my security blankets have been taken away; my tolerance for living anything less than my truth has plummeted. They say skill regression is common when you learn to unmask after an ASD diagnosis; well, if the skill was putting everyone else’s emotional needs before my own, let it regress all the way to hell.

But despite everything (and admittedly to spite some things), I have gained almost as much as I have lost (almost. Losing Rusty and Luke at the same time still feels like an unfairness the Universe will never be able to make up for, whether I believe the Universe was responsible for the timing or not). Even through the disappointment and grief, I have been able to find beauty, joy, and personal awakening. I have remembered parts of myself that I had forgotten––maybe even forsaken––and reviving those parts of myself has been deeply healing.

Nurture/Nourish turned out to be, for me, one of the most important concepts of 2025. When I had to let go of the book I’d been working on for 2.5 years in March, I looked for ideas that fed my passion instead. When I had to make choices about how hard to push myself as deadlines approached, I let the idea of nurturing be my guiding light. When I received bad news about how and when I might be able to sell my next book, I tried to look at it from the perspective of “how can I use this extra time to nourish myself?” and that made all the difference in how I processed the setback. And, of course, when I went through my seasons of grief this past summer and fall, I turned to self compassion and self-nurturing to survive. I even found healing in offering that same nurturing compassion to complete strangers.

Whether I was conscious of it or not, I have been devoted to the concept of nurturing this year (I actually forgot about my “word of the year” until this past October when I was discussing it with friends). And while there may have been a time in my life when this would have made me afraid of becoming selfish (or being called “selfish”), I am now at a point where I see this devotion as some of the most profound wisdom. Nurturing the self does not require stealing nourishment from others. Living a kind, compassionate life does not equal draining your energetic coffers to care for others. There is always balance, so long as you are nourishing yourself.

Which brings me to my new Tarot card of the year.

2026: Temperance (XIV)

I will be frank: Temperance is one of my least favorite tarot cards (and apparently I’m not alone according to r/tarot). It’s boring, in my opinion, and always makes me sigh when it comes up. That’s not to say it’s not just as important as any of the other Major Arcana cards. If anything, my feelings about it probably mean I have a lot more to learn from it (boooo).

Temperance is all about balance, moderation, harmony, and “finding the middle path.” These are great things, in theory. We would probably all love to live these qualities, in theory. But I will be the first to admit that I thrive under a deadline and shine in a crisis. I do not want any more crises in 2026, but lord do my emergency! hormones do magical things in my brain when they get to work. This is exactly why I am the way that I am (physically disabled from chronic stress), and I know that, and I am doing my best to not be that person who is addicted to cortisol and adrenaline to make up for my lack of dopamine (the ADHD meds are helping!).

BUT, I still enjoy being deeply immersed in my work for days on end. I worked my butt off this past fall to make my deadlines, but even though I was running myself ragged, in many ways I was thriving. I was hyperfocused and guzzling dopamine as I wrote, revised, and brainstormed the monster book (TMB). And to my credit, I was still able to go home and cry, and feel my feelings, and rest (though not much else). There was a simple kind of perfection in those weeks where I could throw everything else aside but my work and my grief. It was almost magical. And while I know I should not do that again if I can avoid it, at least not at that length (especially given how many weeks it took my body to recuperate), the truth is that there is a part of me that longs for a reason to do it again. 

Maybe there’s a part of every artist that longs for long stretches of uninterrupted work––maybe that’s why artist retreats and workshops are so popular and necessary. So does that mean it’s good, at least in moderation? Is the key to deep immersion simply knowing when to come up for air (and having strong support systems while you’re under)? If we swing somewhat evenly between the extremes of grinding and resting, don’t we average out to a “middle path”? Maybe there is a way I can have my intense periods of creative immersion if I have an equal amount of intense periods of rest. But the rest is still the hard part.

The Temperance card is also about the blending of opposites (earth and water), the idea of a sum being greater than its parts, maybe even alchemy. I have been on a quest recently to nurture the areas of my life where I feel I have been neglectful (see my pie of life exercise from 2018 here; my current paper planner has a monthly circle similar to this!). Perhaps that means creating more realistic expectations of what that looks like: how to balance all the areas while being respectful of their natural ebbs and flows, and without becoming overwhelmed with the chore of living up to my own impossible standards. “Ebb and flow” has come up several times as I’ve been drafting this newsletter/blog post, so maybe that’s the focus I need for 2026? (I had a whole other section about scheduling my life around my natural energy cycles in relation to my menstrual cycle, but I figured I could save that for another post.)

My previous Temperance Year was 2017, and I should have been paying better attention to it then. I was overwhelmed with a full time job and full time grad school, plus I was in a stupid dating situation with an emotionally unavailable man who I gave far too much grace to at the expense of my own mental health (I thought I was being compassionate, but really I had no emotional self respect). I had been dealing with fatigue for several years at that point, but it started to become pathological in 2017, which in retrospect is so obvious (hello! If you run yourself ragged you will be exhausted! And if you continuously “push through” exhaustion you will disable your body!!!). I have learned a lot since then about work-life balance and just how much I am willing to put up with someone’s inability to work towards emotional growth, so I hope those aren’t going to be lessons again this year.

Alternate Names: Alchemy, Art, and Guardian Angel

Unlike Death, which is a pretty universal card in tarot, many decks have chosen to rename Temperance to “Alchemy.” In the famous Thoth deck, it’s called “Art.” And among tarot readers, many refer to Temperance as the “guardian angel” card. I like these alternatives, and I think they help me understand Temperance better without necessarily removing the whole “balance and harmony” aspects. A great deal of the imagery on this card is also about blending, ascension, and eschewing binaries.

I like the idea of 2026 being a year where I turn lead into gold and transmute illness into vitality. I like the idea of it being a year where everything I’ve learned thus far coalesces into wisdom and ideas that I can communicate through my art. I especially love the idea that someone is looking out for me (though I’m not really an angel girlie/theydie; I have other ideas where the idea of spiritual guidance is concerned).

And, if we keep in mind the idea of the Major Arcana being the Fool’s Journey, then Temperance is a period between Death and The Devil: a moment between shedding your skin/rebirth, and confronting the bondage of ignorance/complacency. It feels like a time when we’re meant to ground and fortify ourselves, before we once again reexamine our priorities and the things that keep us caged.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Antici…………pation

So what do I anticipate for 2026? Oh, I don’t know. Isn’t that an awful lot like asking me what my goals are? After all, I’m not psychic (yet). And don’t I dislike setting goals? (In truth, I only dislike it when I fail to meet them.)

For now, instead of setting goals, here are some intentions I’d like to set for 2026, keeping the Temperance/Alchemy card in mind:

1. I intend to continue my commitment to nourishment and nurturing. I think that fits in nicely with a card whose main themes are balance, moderation, and harmony. Sometimes the nourishment we need is rest, and sometimes it is action. 
2. I hope to be more active overall in the new year, and to have fewer seasons where I am incapacitated (looking at you Jan – May, then August – September, then most of November). This means working, playing, chorin’, learning, being in active relationship with friends, family, and my partner. And it includes being physically active, which has been a fraught topic for me since developing chronic fatigue syndrome (around the last time I had a Temperance year…). I am much better these days, but exercise still incapacitates me if I surpass a threshold that I can’t seem to identify, so perhaps this year I will be able to figure out what that threshold is so I can work within my limitations instead of in fear of them.
3. I want to dive more deeply into the spiritual pursuits I’ve begun this year, and continue to expand myself in that area. My spirituality has always been important to me, but now I see it as a necessary part of my mental health and my creative life, and therefore my career––and pretty much every other part of my life, too. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but there is no separation for me between spirituality, creativity, and the rest of my life. They’re all connected. Perhaps a Temperance year can help me find a way to nurture all those things without burning out.
4. Organization/scheduling. I know my AuDHD brain needs a plan and a schedule to follow, or else I’ll just be distracted and chasing the shiniest objects/thoughts/impulses all day. But I also know that trying to squeeze too many things into a daily or weekly schedule will overwhelm me––transitioning from one activity to the next is a surprising drain on my energy that, now that I am aware of it, I can no longer pretend doesn’t exist. Also, some days I am capable of more, and some days I am capable of less. Some days/weeks have more demands on my energy, some have less. I would like to find a balance between rigid over-scheduling and pure mood-based task completion, while giving grace to myself on the days when my body and/or brain are simply not able to show up.
5. In order to make the rest of these intentions work, I intend to rest even more deliberately than I did this past year. I want to cultivate restorative practices that suit me and my unique brain and body, well beyond numbing out, passive media consumption, or cheap dopamine hits.
6. Related: I intend to play more. I’ve been focusing on that for quite a while and discovered I don’t really know how to play very well. I have been able to trick myself into some forms of play because they will obviously inform my writing later on, but I would like to be able to play just for the sake of play. 

I could round off to “lucky number 7” but I can’t really think of anything else that feels within my control.

Word(s) of the Year: Ebb & Flow

It just keeps coming up. Cycles, waxing and waning, the understanding that nothing stands still––nothing remains the same. There have been seasons of my life full of adventure and growth; there have been seasons of my life full of grief and loss. There have been seasons of my life that appeared to be stagnant, but the simple discontented feeling that came with the stagnation was a catalyst for growth. I have my hopes for the year, but last year proved once and for all that a good life is not made by planning––it is made by the quality of the decisions we make when our plans go awry, and how we react to disappointment as much as how we react to good fortune.

As a grad student, I wrote my thesis on helical narratives. As a witch, I make use of the lunar cycles and the wheel of the year. As an author, my daily work changes from one stage of the creative process to the next. As a human, I am learning to respect each phase of our existence––not just beginnings and endings, not just the climaxes or dark nights of the soul. There are so many powerful moments in between: quieter, softer, subtler. And there is a lot of peace and beauty to be found in each of those moments, if only we can be present for them, and respect them for what they are.

So 2026, I dub thee my year of Temperance; of ebb and flow; of creating a life that averages out to a harmonious middle path. I am looking forward to practicing my alchemy.

If you’d like to figure out what your Tarot Year is, simply follow this formula:

Add up the whole numbers of the Current Year + Your Birth Month + Your Birth Day:

2026 + 5 + 17 = 2048

Add up the individual numbers of that sum:

2+0+4+8 = 14 (XIV, Temperance)

If your sum is 22 or less, find the corresponding card of the Major Arcana. If your sum is 23 or more, continue adding the individual numbers together until your sum is 22 or less.