I’m Rachel Dickson: TEDx speaker, storyteller, and truth-teller exploring what it means to return to your truest self. This is a space for healing, authenticity, and the bold inner work of choosing yourself, unapologetically.
Bare Bones: Standing Lighter at the Edge of a New Year 🌿 — Field Notes with Rachel Dickson
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12/31/25 Greetings Wildhearted Souls! I had just finished doing some work clearing brush from an embankment on some very wild and rustic mountain property and paused for a few moments to bathe in the surrounding silence. While working I noticed that I could hear traffic noises from I-26 (very deep and low truck sounds), which was a little surprising because I was quite a few miles from the highway. (Sound travels and bounces around in odd ways in the mountains.) But from this...I began to isolate each sound I heard...an airplane overhead, the distant silence among the trees, the trickling sounds from the creek below, down to the point that I heard a single leaf rustle across the bank in front of me. From this...I decided to intently listen and bask in these quiet stirrings. (Mostly because you never know what you might hear whispered on the wind...an adventure in and of itself.) I leaned up again a very large rock that was on the bank overlooking a lovely rippling creek and was suddenly captivated by this tiny leaf skeleton laying there right in front of me. I immediately wondered just how long this leaf had been laying there in order to turn into this shell of itself? I didn’t dare touch it because I instinctively knew it would disintegrate right before my eyes. Time didn’t seem to matter here. The details were what mattered. There was a familiarity to me with this intricate and yet very complex pairing down from what used to be this leaf...to what this leaf was now. Bare bones. It is very clear to me that many of us are smack in the middle of a “pairing down” phase in our lives. The sorting and clearing and de-cluttering, some things even have been ripped out from under us seemingly without our having any real choice in the matter. To sit within the feeling of what we used to feel like...to how it feels now...so very different...yet also from deep within it all...there is a “freeing” feeling. Maybe some of the heaviness is gone...maybe things feel a bit lighter. With the things we are able to sort through...each and every decision is based upon…“Do I really need this anymore? Does it hold the same purpose it once did?” From within what I’m describing here...you might be able to tell (much like the leaf) that sometimes we find ourselves stuck on a rock with no choice but to change into the next version of ourselves. Like a leveling up. Remember those old video games where you moved from left to right as you progressed through the game? Each level has a progression of difficulty and challenge that came with it. And if you died...you had to start over, back at the very beginning of that level again. And always...ALWAYS near the end of each level was a very difficult challenge. And when you finally beat that level there was a brief moment of victory before you started the next level. But...because you learned and grew and expanded your ability to navigate the challenges in that last level...the start of the next was a smidge easier only because you’d made it through that big intense challenge at the end of the last one. Human crisis and challenge is where we learn the most about humaning. When the stress levels are high...when we are exhausted...when we falter at the face of another decision to be made...but as always...the intensity passes...we get through it...and then comes the sorting after. The shedding of details that are no longer necessary for us to continue to carry on our journey. We’re left with the bare bones. And there’s beauty there. So much beauty. The Chinese Lunar calendar of 2025 (the year of the Snake) began on January 29, 2025 and will end of February 26, 2026. Meaning then that the new year of the Horse begins February 16th, 2026. Stella Cereus brilliantly summarizes 2025 and presents 2026 in this way, “The Year of the Snake (2025) taught us how to shed. It was a year of quiet recalibration — not loud endings, but precise ones. The Snake didn’t rush us forward; it asked us to pause, to listen to the discomforts we kept ignoring. It showed us where we were living out of habit instead of truth, where we were staying small because it felt safer than being seen.
Growth in the Year of the Snake didn’t come through force. It came through awareness. Through honesty. Through the brave decision to let something old fall away even when no one else could see why. The lesson of the Snake was simple but demanding: clarity precedes change. Before anything could move, we had to understand what was misaligned. We had to name what no longer fit. We had to trust that shedding was not a loss, but a preparation. The Snake reminded us that wisdom often arrives quietly — and that not everything meaningful announces itself with urgency.
The Year of the Horse (2026) asks us to move. Where the Snake slowed time, the Horse returns momentum. This is a year animated by courage, motion, and trust in your own legs beneath you. The Horse does not over-analyze the road — it runs it.
It invites you to act on the truths you uncovered, to live what you learned instead of endlessly processing it. If the Snake helped you understand who you are becoming, the Horse asks you to embody it.
Together, these years form a powerful arc.
2025 stripped away what wasn’t true.
2026 gives you the courage to run toward what is!
You are not starting from scratch in the Year of the Horse — you are starting from wisdom.
You move forward lighter, clearer, and more aligned than before. The shedding is complete. The path is open. And now, you’re invited to trust yourself enough to take up space in your own becoming.”
So the shedding of things that no longer fit...is about to open doors into running towards a lighter, clearer, wiser and more aligned version of ourselves. I’m excited for what 2026 holds for us! I am also thrilled you are here on this journey with me. Let’s do it together. Cheers to the journey ahead! Onward and Upward! Wild-Heart Practice of the Week:“The Gentle Inventory”This feels like a perfect Year-End offering—no fixing, no manifesting, no pressure. Set aside 10–15 minutes. Light a candle if you’d like. Take a piece of paper and draw three simple headings: 1. What has already fallen away 2. What remains essential 3. What I no longer want to carry into the next season When you’re finished, place a hand on your heart and say: “I honor what carried me here. I trust what remains.” Optional closing ritual: Our First Wildhearted Gathering
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Rachel Dickson
I’m Rachel Dickson: TEDx speaker, storyteller, and truth-teller exploring what it means to return to your truest self. This is a space for healing, authenticity, and the bold inner work of choosing yourself, unapologetically.
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