Planting Seeds in Winter’s Darkness

The new moon is on January 18 2026. I am looking forward to using this as a pause point to reconnect with my heart’s desires. I think the new moon is an invitation to go into the void and consider what opportunities and possibilities exist, as well as examining your heart, exploring your deepest heart’s desires, and setting intentions that align with your authentic self.

There’s something about the January darkness that feels different from any other month. It’s not the cosy darkness of December with its twinkling lights and promises of renewal. Maybe that’s because it leads up to Christmas. It’s not the gentle darkness of autumn preparing for rest. January’s darkness feels stripped back, bare, almost brutally honest. At least that is what I am feeling. And it’s freaking cold.

This is the darkness where seeds we plant wait in frozen ground, where trees stand skeletal against grey skies (or blue ones here in Spain), where we’re forced to confront what Albert Camus knew: that in the depth of winter, we must finally learn that there is in us an invincible summer. Source Goodreads.

I like you have probably lived through enough winters to know that invincible summer isn’t found by pretending the darkness doesn’t exist. It’s found by descending into it, trusting what emerges and understanding that this is where everything begins.

The New Moon on January 18 arrives in Capricorn, and this is the perfect time to plant seeds in the darkness – the void. This is where they will be sprinkled with a cold truth that needs to emerge, that will let what needs to be and become.

January and the Wheel of the Year

The Pause Between Endings and Beginnings

I never hold January as the beginning of the year. According to the ancient Wheel of the Year, the Celtic new year began at Samhain, at the end of October, when the veil between worlds was thinnest and the year turned towards darkness.

By January, we’ve passed the Winter Solstice on December 21 – the longest night, the turning point when light begins its slow return. We’re in what I call the ‘incubation period.’ The light is returning, yes, but incrementally, almost imperceptibly. We’re still primarily in darkness.

The calendar year tells us to spring into action on January 1 with resolutions and fresh starts. The Wheel of the Year whispers something different: ‘Rest still. Look inward. Trust the dark.’

January is the quiet renewal of seeds splitting open in soil. Of roots establishing themselves where no one can see. Of foundations being laid in darkness.

The Gregorian idea that the year starts on January 1 is somewhat arbitrary; it doesn’t align with nature, the body, or the soul’s rhythm. Yet collectively we gather around it like some magical reset button.

I like to use it to set the tone and to anchor. I’ve chosen two words, which are simplify and contentment, and my goal is to set seeds so that these become living goals at the lunar new year.

By simplifying my work, I create space for contentment.

I choose to be present with my work, my community, and my life.

The questions I will ask are:

• Does this create space, or does it fill it?
• Am I content with what is? Or am I chasing something that won’t satisfy me anyway?
• What’s the simplest version of this?
• What happens next?

I will create a ritual around this idea and journal the hell out of it…

Then on the lunar new year (February 17/18), I’ll ask:

• What wants to be born from this?
• What’s one living goal I can set that honours simplicity and contentment?
• And at the Spring Equinox (March 20), I’ll take the first bold action.

This is not to say I won’t be taking action or sitting around drinking cocktails while the world passes me by, it means that I shall be using the energy of different new years to be and become – moving with the seasons, not against them.

The New Moon in Capricorn 2026

Building Foundations That Will Hold You

A New Moon is always about beginnings. It’s the initiation in the darkness. The moment when you commit to something before you know how it will unfold.

This New Moon falls in Capricorn, the sign of the mountain goat who climbs slowly, steadily, towards the summit. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, the taskmaster, the teacher, the one who asks: ‘Are you willing to do the work? Are you willing to build something that lasts?’

Capricorn is not only about ambition and achievement – and there are many other things like structure and integrity. We want to build foundations strong enough to support the person you’re becoming and the life you desire. And crucially, it’s about learning to trust your own authority rather than seeking approval from the outside world.

This need for approval is interesting, isn’t it – like asking for permission to be you. But you may have a strong need to be useful to society, and despite being confident you still look for justification in the outside world. You may underestimate what you want from yourself and for yourself. There might be resentment that others don’t see you, don’t acknowledge your contributions, and don’t validate your worth. And that’s pants.

But for me, the message is clear that when we have spent a lifetime betraying ourselves, there comes a time when our hearts’ desires overshadow the need to seek approval from the outside. You have to trust your inner values.

This is the invitation, and the beginning. Being ready to plant seeds not in the soil of external validation, but in the rich, dark earth of your own becoming.

The Wisdom of This Moon

The Call to Your Own Adventure

In the hero’s journey – that archetypal pattern of transformation – the first phase is always the Call to Adventure. It’s the moment when the ordinary world is no longer enough. When something within you says, ‘There must be more than this.’

The New Moon is exactly this: your monthly call to adventure. But unlike the hero’s journey in stories, where the call often comes from outside, this call comes from within. From the darkness and the delicious fertile void where all creation begins.

This is the darkness of the womb, the seed, the pregnant pause before creation. It’s not empty darkness. It’s full darkness. Thick with possibility. Dense with potential. The kind of darkness that holds everything you might become. I rather like the void.

For those of us who’ve spent our lives being told we’re too much or not enough, too old or not accomplished enough, the invitation to sit in darkness and trust it is radical. We’ve been taught to fear the void, to fill every silence, to produce and perform and prove ourselves worthy. How bloody tiring is that!

This New Moon asks something different. It asks you to trust that the darkness knows what it’s doing. That the winter is necessary and the incubation period cannot be rushed.

I want to add something personal here – when I have ignored the void and the call to sit I sometimes feel unwell – this week I have a stomach thing. When this happens I am reminded of the phrase that illness is the Western mans illness.

In the depth of winter, you’re learning that there is in you an invincible summer. But you can’t force it into being. You can only tend to the conditions that allow it to emerge.

This is the wisdom: learning to honour the pause, learning to trust your own rhythms over society’s demands and learning to plant seeds for yourself, by yourself, in yourself.

Working With Your Root and Sacral Chakras

Grounding Your Creative Potential

The New Moon phase activates two energy centres that work together to anchor your intentions in both body and creative possibility:

The Root Chakra (Muladhara): Your Right to Exist

Located at the base of your spine, the Root chakra is where you connect to the earth, to your body, to your fundamental right to be here. Its colour is red – the colour of blood, of vitality, of primal life force.

During the New Moon, this chakra asks you to establish the foundation that will support this month’s growth. It asks: What do I need to feel safe enough to transform? What ground must I stand on to reach towards my desires?

For anyone who’ve lived through loss, betrayal, illness, or transition, the Root chakra often holds a kind of knowing: that nothing is truly stable, that everything changes, that safety is never guaranteed. This wisdom is valuable. But it can also make us hesitant to plant new seeds, to commit to new growth, because we know that everything we build might one day crumble.

And if it does, maybe it wasn’t meant to be or it’s making way for something better.

The thing here isn’t to pretend we don’t know this truth. It’s to build anyway and to ground ourselves in the present moment, in this body, in this breath, and trust that this foundation – right here, right now – is enough.

When your Root chakra is balanced during this New Moon, you feel:

• Connected to your body
• Present in the moment
• Able to trust the earth beneath your feet
• A sense of belonging
• At home with your own desires

When it’s blocked, you might experience: anxiety about security, feeling ungrounded or spacey, difficulty trusting yourself or life, chronic fear or worry, disconnection from your body, trouble committing to your intentions.

The Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana): Your Creative Womb-Space

Located below your navel, the Sacral chakra is your centre of creativity, emotional flow, pleasure, and generative power. Its colour is orange – the colour of flame, of sunrise, of creative fire waiting to be born.

In the dark of the New Moon, this is the womb-space where possibilities gestate. Not the biological womb – though for some it may be connected – but the creative womb that every woman carries. This is where ideas gestate, desires take form and where your soul’s longings begin to take shape.

This chakra asks:

• What creative potential is stirring in the darkness?
• What do I desire to bring into being this month?
• How can I honour where I am emotionally as I begin?

For many women, the Sacral chakra often carries the weight of desires deferred, creativity suppressed, and pleasure postponed. We’ve poured our generative energy into raising children, building careers, caring for ageing parents, and maintaining relationships. Now, in the second half of life, this chakra asks:

• What about your desires?
• What do you want to create for yourself?

The New Moon in Capricorn brings a wonderful gift here: the permission to desire things that are practical, substantial, and enduring. You don’t have to justify your dreams by making them sound noble or selfless. You’re allowed to want things that simply make your life better, richer, more aligned with who you’re becoming.

When your Sacral chakra is flowing during this New Moon, you feel:

• Connected to your desires
• Able to receive pleasure
• Creative and generative
• Emotionally fluid
• Comfortable with change
• Worthy of what you want

When it’s blocked, you might experience: numbness to your desires, inability to feel pleasure, creative blocks, emotional rigidity, shame around wanting, and difficulty imagining new possibilities.

Together, these two chakras create the foundation for this month’s journey: the Root grounds you in safety and presence, whilst the Sacral holds the creative potential of what wants to be born. Root asks: ‘Are you here?’ Sacral asks: ‘What do you desire?’ And together they say: ‘You’re safe enough to want. You’re grounded enough to dream.’

Journal Prompts for the New Moon in Capricorn

Here is a selection of journal prompts to get your thoughts flowing for the new moon in Capricorn, 2026.

• What foundation do I need to support this month’s growth? What makes me feel safe enough to transform?
• What creative potential is stirring in my darkness right now? What wants to be born?
• Where do I seek approval from the outside world? Who do I look to for validation of my worth?
• Where do I feel I need to be useful to be worthy? How much of my identity is tied to what I do for others?
• What one seed do I want to plant this moon cycle? What wants to grow in me over the next month?
• What in my life is currently in an incubation period? What’s gestating that I can’t yet see?

Closing Reflections: Your Call to Adventure

No New Moon is asking you to have it all figured out. Nor is it asking you to emerge from the holiday season transformed and radiant. You possibly entered January feeling a little shell-shocked. I know I did, and I already feel that the month is whizzing by.

What is important here is that you plant a seed – just a little one with a clear intention and a commitment to yourself that doesn’t require validation from anyone else. Go on, you know you can.

This new adventure starts here with a quiet commitment in the darkness. Plant the seed and know that it will flourish from here.

I used to have a Capricorn husband and called him the stubborn old goat (nice, I know), but while I was quick, he did things the slow way and one lesson we can learn from this is that you can’t rush seeds. The slow way is the lasting way. The foundations you create today with the new moon matter more than facades.

I love that when we plant seeds in the darkness – when no one is watching, – it is what actually holds you when everything else falls away.

So plant your seed. Not for anyone else. Plant it because something in you wants to grow, and those heart’s desires are worth tending. Say yes to yourself and don’t let anyone rush you, or the freaking productivity culture convince you that rest is a waste. Also, don’t let external timelines override your internal knowing – your heart is wise.

In the depth of winter, you’re learning that there is in you an invincible summer. This is what you get with patience and trust.

How will you answer this call to adventure? Will you answer?

It doesn’t stop here. I want to invite into my community The Alchemy Of Becoming. Each month with a new moon we revisit your hearts desires and with the full moon we surrender what needs to go. In-between we chat and share.

When you join The Alchemy Of Becoming you also get the following:

More Journal Prompts for the New Moon in Capricorn

Visualisation: Planting Seeds in Winter’s Darkness

Somatic Writing and Grounding Practice