Wesley and I had a long drive in front of us. We’d spent the week in St. Joseph, Missouri, learning how to build small homes, and now we had hours of open road to fill. Adi, ever the opportunist, asked, “Do you two mind listening to something on your drive?”

Wesley and I exchanged a quick glance. The answer was obvious. “Well, yes—of course.”
After all, the only real answer to Adi’s suggestions is “yes.” It saves time—her persistence always wins. When Lucy had an idea, Ricky knew it was easier to just submit.

There’s something about being on the road, with time stretching endlessly ahead, that softens you. The miles loosen your grip. The landscape rolls by like a slow meditation. And suddenly you find yourself willing to enter conversations you might normally let pass by. So, we opened Spotify and pressed play.

Enter the 13 Sacred Nights of Winter—a tradition that begins on the Winter Solstice and moves through thirteen consecutive nights, carrying you from Christmas Eve into the first light of the new year. I had never heard of it before.  And yet, within minutes, I felt myself leaning in.

In many ancient lineages, these nights are considered a time outside of time—a sacred stillness when the veil thins and the year ahead reveals itself one night at a time. Each night corresponds to a coming month, inviting reflection on the year behind you and insight for the one stretching before you. Dreams become maps. Symbols arrive unannounced. Quiet moments turn into conversations with the Divine.

The winter stillness becomes a teacher—one that whispers rather than shouts.

I was hooked almost immediately. For years, I’ve felt conflicted about the materialism of Christmas, even though there has always been something undeniably spiritual about this season. Not in the commercial sense we’re handed, but in the quieter, older way—something more instinctual, more aligned with the rhythm of the earth.

I’ve long suspected that our modern calendar intentionally—and perhaps by design—pulls us out of our natural rhythms. We race into January 1 as if the new year begins the moment the ball drops, when in truth our bodies and spirits—much like the earth herself—are still in winter’s deep rest. This is a season meant for reflecting, listening, and gathering insight, not for making resolutions we’re already too weary to keep.

The beautiful practice of the 13 Sacred Nights invites us back into harmony with the natural order—honoring winter as a time of inner stillness and preparing for the new year that, in many ancient traditions, truly begins with the arrival of spring on March 21. Instead of jolting into motion, we begin by going inward. Instead of striving, we listen.

Here is the beauty of the practice:

Each of the 13 nights becomes its own doorway.  Starting on the Winter Solstice, you move through them one by one, night after night, almost like stepping stones into the year ahead. And here’s the fascinating part: every night represents a month of the coming year—Night 1 is January, Night 2 is February, and on it goes.

On each night, you are invited to do three simple things:

1. Reflect on the past year
Look gently at what this past year has held. What did you learn? What completed itself? What still asks for your attention?
This soft review opens your inner landscape.

2. Dream or meditate with intention
That night’s dream—or the images that arise in meditation—offer a glimpse of the month ahead.
You don’t force meaning.
You simply receive.

3. Set a quiet intention
Not a resolution, not a demand—just a whisper of alignment.
What quality do you want to bring into that month?
What would harmony look like there?

And then comes the most important part:

4. Journal—faithfully, honestly, specifically

Each morning, write down everything:
What you dreamed.
What you felt.
What someone casually said that somehow landed deeper than it should have.
These small details often become the clues that guide the month that night represents.

For the corresponding month ahead, write your intentions with clarity:

• What would you love to accomplish?
• Who would you like to meet or reconnect with?
• What projects call for your energy?
• Which family members do you want to visit?
• What places do you feel drawn to go?

Let your journal become the blueprint.

This is where the teachings of Neville Goddard come alive.
As you write, you are not hoping—you are assuming.  You enter the state of the wish fulfilled.  You write as though the month has already blossomed exactly as you intended.
You step into the feeling of “this is done,” and that feeling becomes the spiritual seed.

As the nights progress, a subtle architecture forms.
A map reveals itself.

And by the time the thirteenth night closes, you meet the new year not from exhaustion, but from clarity.

Not from pressure, but from presence.
Not from force, but from divine alignment.

And then comes the part most people overlook:
you keep the journal close.

As the year unfolds, you return to the reflections from the night that corresponds to the month you are in. You read what you wrote, what you dreamed, what you felt. And more often than not, you’ll discover that your intuition and highest self knew things your conscious mind couldn’t have imagined.

Patterns reveal themselves.
Connections appear.
Moments line up with eerie precision.

And in that recognition, something beautiful happens—you begin to feel the quiet wonder of life again. Not the holiday “magic” many of us were taught as children, the kind built on stories we eventually learned weren’t true. As well-intentioned as those traditions were, they often undercut our own credibility and left many of us skeptical when real magic tried to show up later in life. In trying to create wonder, we accidentally taught our children not to trust it.

But the deeper magic—the true magic—has always been there, woven quietly into everyday life, waiting for us to slow down long enough to notice it.

This is the magic of alignment.
This is the magic of listening.
This is the magic of a life lived in rhythm with something greater.
This is the true magic of the season—reclaiming the power that has always lived quietly inside of us.

Adi and I plan to begin this practice on December 21.

It feels like the start of something new for us—a tradition rooted not in obligation but in intention; not in noise, but in feeling; not in schedules, but in intuition. A way of living that honors the quiet wisdom of winter and the subtle guidance that rises when we finally allow ourselves to pause.

And instead of buying more physical gifts, we’re choosing to offer something far more meaningful—the gift of remembrance. The remembrance of who we are, what matters, and what has always lived quietly beneath the surface of our lives.

This year, we’re choosing to listen.
To reflect.
To dream.
To step into the new year with clarity instead of pressure, presence instead of haste.

And if something in you feels drawn to this as well, consider this your invitation.
Join us on the Solstice.
Thirteen nights. Thirteen doors. Thirteen moments to reconnect with yourself and with the deeper rhythm of life.

Perhaps this year, we can all begin again—intentionally, intuitively, together.