CP NEW MOON NEWSLETTER - DECEMBER 2025

Jennifer Jewell
Dec 19, 2025
4 min read

Luminarias in the Canyon Creek Garden - December 2025

Happy New Moon of December 19, 2025

“The significance of the winter solstice geophysically is truly mind bending.

Thank you for the ongoing wonderful shows....I am never disappointed and am always touched or inspired in some way!”

— Dr. Phil Filbrandt, Chico, CA

With today's last new moon (the darkest night of the monthly lunar cycle) of the calendar year paired with the Northern Hemisphere's Winter Solstice (the longest night of the annual cycle) taking place on Sunday the 21st, the physical world is doubling down on its annual offering of dark this year.

Dark.

It is a critically important, essential, aspect of our lives as living organisms on the planet. We plants and animals all need a healthy balance of daylight and dark. Darkness allows us to rest, to re-set, and re-orient. Darkness and its gifts are powerfully cleansing: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The plants and animals of our gardens and ecosystems know this and every single year they model for us their reliance on and embrace of the darkness. Our bodies, too, know the dark to be our ally, and beg us to embrace its needed gifts monthly and annually.

And yet, dark is a word and state of being heavy from centuries of mixed-message linguistic and cultural connotation–to the detriment of us all. In many ways as a result, and as we humans populate the world in greater density across the globe, we diminish, damage and sometimes destroy altogether the healthy dark of the natural world. Additionally, there is no denying our collective despair over these "dark" times for humanity. Humanity's darkness is something else again. Humanity's "darkest" side bullies us towards fear, doubt, division.

Natural dark asks us to see our way differently individually and communally; asks us to slow down and feel our way–by touch, by scent, by sound, by intuition. Healing dark asks us to get beyond what our eyes can see in daylight and which we often, mistakenly, accept as the whole truth.

Natural healing dark asks us to rest and to reflect.

How we embrace more fully and more intentionally the dark that heals and restores us all, and how we transform humanity's darkness, that on most days feels as though it is close to destroying us all, are ongoing questions for humanity. And these is not one answer to these questions; there are 8.3 billion answers.

Let us, like the plants with whom we live and by whom we navigate, be among the answers–in our gardens, in our cultivating lives, in our deep winter sleeping, resting, dreaming, reflecting.

For hundreds of thousands of years humans have kindled mid-winter bon fires, lit mid-winter candles, strung lights across homes, towns, and trees, no doubt to ward off fear, but just as adamantly and poignantly to mimic the light, to celebrate and offer thanks for the return of the light in balanced equilibrium with the dark.

Happy New Moon, Happy Solstice, may the season's gift of darkness bring you stillness, solace, restorative rest, and reflection for the coming year.

Warmly,

Jennifer & The CP Team

PS: We are thrilled to mark our first year as a non-profit organization for the public good this month! For our first impact statement, please scroll to bottom. We are profoundly grateful for all of you who have sustained this purpose and passion work. Together we grow the world better & beautifully!

SUPPORT

Salvia confertiflora and paperwhite narcissus blooming together, with Oregon grape, in the December garden @ Canyon Creek, Butte County, CA — ***Salvia confertiflora*** **and paperwhite narcissus blooming together, with Oregon grape, in the December garden @ Canyon Creek, Butte County, CA**

CP PODCAST:

Every episode of Cultivating Place introduces us to another point of light, another cultivating human nourishing our world through their caring cultivation of place. Some dedicated to one place over time, others dedicated to one lesson for all places, others complete generalists.

They each have something to teach me, which is why you'll find me, Ben, and Abra back here for another year (our 11th year) of these growing conversations in 2026!

Until then, enjoy catching up on your listening with episodes from the last month (click each image for the audio link). We have one more conversation to go in 2025 - and then, we'll talk to you on the other side of the calendar year.

Thank you for being here, listening, and growing along.

SUPPORT

CP: THE POWER OF GARDENERS FILM SERIES:

As we enter this next phase of the film series Cultivating Place: The Power of Gardeners, we are so excited to invite you to join us on over on Substack. Here, we weekly highlight CP podcast host Thinking Out Loud thoughts and observations.

AND NOW, filmmaker Myriam Nicodemus, of EM EN, has recently debuted her new monthly series: Thinking out Loud: Behind the Lens.

Her first post, The Ending of Filming, The Beginning of Becoming, so beautifully shares her insights, surprising moments of belonging and beginnings, and different access points into these universal stories of Gardeners cultivating their places as powerful keystones.

If you would like to speak with us about partnering for pre-screenings events in 2026, screening events in 2027, gift licenses for school or garden groups, etc. please reach out at any time! cultivatingplace@gmail.com

Listen, see, and grow - yourself.

AND FINALLY......

Our CP 2025 Year in Review impact graphic! Enjoy and know,

WE ALL (you + me + all of CP)

GREW THIS TOGETHER!

PS: Still looking for special items to delight the gardeners you love this holiday season, don’t forget the CP Shop….might have just what you’re growing for!

You made it to the end - Huzzah - I will leave you with this winter wreath and fragrant Meyer lemons. Symbolic of all that we cultivate together coming

full circle!