My mind has been running nonstop recently, the pedal pressed to the floor. There’s no emergency brake, no effortless way to slow it down. But when I intentionally sit and pause long enough to listen beneath the noise, my soul grasps what my mind cannot yet comprehend:

The year of the snake – 2025 – was a year of shedding. And shed I did.

A snake does not leave its old skin gently – it must be torn off, piece by piece, through friction and resistance. It forces itself through a narrow and confining path of earth and stone, stripping itself bare until the old layer splits. The shedding is not an act of release, but of necessity, requiring the destruction of what once kept it safe. It sheds because staying the same would kill it.

This shedding feels like a rite of passage in a way. Something I endured, survived and conquered without fully realizing I was doing so. There was no choice for me; only forward motion – forced onto an unknown path where nothing quite fits and everything changes.

I cannot crawl back into the skin I’ve shed. It no longer belongs to me. I carry its memory, but not its shape. I am forever changed.

The year has brought new lessons while solidifying old truths, and I hope what I’ve learned about myself might reach someone who reads it, helping them feel less alone, inspired, curious, or even challenged:

• Someone once said to me,“Always do the right thing, even if it’s the hardest thing” and I have continued to carry it forward, even when the cost was everything I’ve ever known.
• Within me is a deep well of love; some souls were meant to receive it freely, for without it, they might never have known its meaning.
• My body calls for alignment with truth, and in answering, my body rejects what is not real or authentic.
• I was born into this family line to end what no longer serves it. I am the hand that breaks the curse, the breath that changes its course. That is the burden I willingly carry, and it is the work I intend to finish.
• I am deeply humbled by this journey to wholeness – a very difficult lesson this lifetime demanded I learn.
• I am empowered by the feminine spirit of our Divine Creator. The more I return to myself, the stronger my feminine energy grows – rooted, intuitive, unapologetic and unafraid. I speak with conviction, truth and love, guided by an experience lived fully.
• I am a phoenix – born of fire – burning the paths that no longer serve my line. From the ashes, I rise, returning love and life to what was lost.

Now, it is time to transform into the stallion – 2026 – the year of the Horse. An animal meant to teach us of power and endurance, of being unbound and relentless, carrying forward the lessons of the past while galloping toward the possibilities ahead. Strength, freedom, and motion guide me as I leave behind what has been shed and rise into what is to come.

I hope you’ll join me. It’s never too late.

— The NonConformist