A sneak peek at the 2025 planner!

Cover reveal & some other changes & updates

I’m a little late sending out this newsletter because we went on a little babymoon out to Cape Ann in Massachusetts (one of my favorite places) to soak in the sea air and do some exploring. More on that another week though.

Cape Ann is a small piece of land that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. It is home to both the country’s oldest art colony and a thriving local fishing industry.

Instead I wanted to share some exciting news this week. Some of you have been asking and I did just send in the final edits of the 2025 planner to our printer! Once everything is finalized, I’ll open pre-orders and we can get these out to you a little earlier this year so I have time to prepare for baby. Also, because of this big change, I’m having a smaller batch printed this year so its a bit more manageable for this increasingly pregnant lady to ship.

But in the meantime, here’s a little sneak peek.

1. The theme for next year’s planner is folklore. I love exploring our relationship to plants and land. Folktales hold secrets to these relationships as they relate to a specific culture. They display these relationships in such colorful and sometimes surprising ways. They’re one of my favorite creative learning tools for understanding how people interacted with and viewed the natural world throughout time.

   
   With that in mind, I’ve been unearthing some old folktales that needed a dusting from around the world. I’ve edited and curated them to be sprinkled seasonally throughout the planner for your own contemplation and exploration next year. You can find my own little musings at the end of each tale as well for some deeper insights.

2. I love getting your feedback with each edition of the planner so it can grow and shape shift as needed. One thing I changed upon many requests is to sprinkle these folktales and journal sections throughout the weekly spreads instead of just at the beginning of each month. This way you have a new story or exercise to work with every week. I love how this has made the planner even more of a seasonal guide.

   

   Each weekly spread has a full page for planning, notes and daily tasks. The other page holds a folk tale such as The Enchanted Horse, an old German story about our human nature and giving ourselves grace.

   

   On weeks with a full or new moon, I’ve added a full page for journaling, bringing you into the present cycles of the season.

3. Thirdly, many parts of the planner have been simplified, so that other parts can be amplified (such as the extended folktale sections). The beginning of the planner was originally packed with extensive planning and reference sheets, mostly on gardening. While it can be fun to plan, I’ve found personally and from your feedback that most of us here are intuitive beings. We work better in the moment than trying to detail each plant variety, transplant date, etc. So instead, there are strategically placed planning and project sections at the beginning of each month that are more open-ended so you have space to change and flow.

   

   At the beginning of the year, there are spaces for dreaming and planning, as well as journal prompts with more specific thoughts to consider when entering a new year.

   

   The new monthly overview section gives you a snapshot of that month’s lunar cycles and gives you space for general project and goal planning.

4. One of the new sections I’m most excited about is the monthly ritual sections. If there is a specific turning point in the wheel on that month (spring equinox, summer cross-quarter, etc.) you will find these rituals nestled in with the weekly spreads. On months without a specific turning point, they will be scattered without. Each ritual is one that I practice each year, and which I find to realign my senses and spirit to the current season. They are simple but powerful. I hope to make these rituals a staple in the planner for years to come so they can become a tradition for you too.

   

   An example of a monthly ritual, this one for the winter cross-quarter. Most of these rituals are meant to nourish not just us and our connection with the land, but to nourish the land and wildlife too.

5. Finally, next year’s cover is finally finished! It is inspired by a couple of things. The first was a newsletter I wrote at the beginning of the year called God is a seed. The second was a painting I saw at the very back corner of a thrift store. It showed someone praying in a field. It touched something tender in me. What better shrine than a seed? What better altar than the soil?

   

   I made this cover design as a woodcut, a medium I’ve fallen in love with as I’ve dove deeper back into my creative practice. The design is drawn and then carved into a piece of wood. This block is then inked and printed onto a sheet of paper. For my purposes, I then digitized the design so it could be printed on the planner. Working with this block of birch, an extension of the land, in this way, for this purpose was so magical. The final print retains some of the character and spirit of the wood that was carved.

   
   Here is a little process video of printing the block. I didn’t get any film of the actual design or carving process which is the most time consuming, but hopefully it gives you a good idea of how special this type of art is.

That’s about it for the updates. Many of the staples such as the monthly phenology wheel, wheel of the year, journaling sections, and lunar transits will all be making a return. It came out to exactly 200 pages of seasonal goodness, which I am so excited about and hope you are too!

I will send updates on when the planner pre-order will be available.

Much love,

Val