We stand at the threshold of the New Year—a concept as arbitrary as a border drawn in the desert, yet one that carries the immense weight of our collective hope and our deepest anxieties.
To look back at the history of our species is to see a long procession of people attempting to bargain with the future. From the ancient Babylonians swearing oaths to their gods to return borrowed farm equipment, to the Victorian spiritualists who once gathered in candlelit parlours not far from where our church stands today, we have always sought a way to master the unfolding of time.
But as we look toward 2026, we must ask ourselves what kind of monuments we are building in the landscape of our lives. Are we building Resolutions, or are we setting Intentions?
The Ruins of the Ego
The New Year’s Resolution is a monument of the Ego. Like the grand, hollow statues of forgotten emperors, resolutions are often built from a place of perceived lack—a desperate attempt to fortify the self against the perceived “failings” of the year gone by. The Ego looks at the mirror of the past and sees only what must be conquered: the weight to be lost, the habits to be crushed, the productivity to be mastered.
These resolutions are rigid, brittle structures. They are built of granite and iron, demanding total compliance. But history teaches us that anything too rigid eventually snaps under the pressure of the elements. When we resolve from the Ego, we are using the blunt tool of willpower to fight against our own nature. And when the first cracks appear—as they inevitably do in the frosts of February—the entire structure collapses into rubble, leaving us with the bitter dust of “failure.”
The Eternal Current of the Soul
But there is another way to inhabit time, one more aligned with the Spiritualist principle of Eternal Progress. This is the path of Intention.
If a resolution is a stone fortress, an intention is a subterranean river. It does not demand; it flows. It is not an edict from the mind, but a whisper from the Soul. In the silence of our church, when we “sit in the power,” we are not looking for a checklist of chores for the self. We are seeking to align our internal vibration with the vast, enduring intelligence of the Spirit World.
The Soul does not care for the superficial “fixes” of the ego. It knows that you are not a ruin to be rebuilt, but a living landscape that is always in the process of becoming. An intention—to be kinder to oneself, to be more present in the stillness, to listen for the voices of those who have crossed the Great Divide—is a seed planted in fertile soil. It does not require the violence of willpower; it requires only the constancy of light and the patience of the seasons.
The View from the Veil
From the perspective of the Spirit World—a place where the linear ticking of the clock is a distant, earthly memory—our obsession with “starting over” must seem curious. Our loved ones in Spirit do not see us as “successes” or “failures” based on a calendar. They see the continuity of our light. They see the slow, beautiful evolution of a consciousness learning to navigate the density of the physical world.
As we move into this new cycle, let us leave behind the heavy masonry of the Ego. Let us stop trying to build towers that reach the heavens and instead focus on the light that already dwells within.
Let this year be defined not by the things you gave up, but by the energy you invited in. In the ruins of the old year, may you find the quiet, enduring spark of the new.
