Category: Finding Magic

2026: A Wild Rabbit Year

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This evening, as I was walking home with our New Year’s feast from Lotus Express Chinese restaurant, one of our wild city rabbits hopped out from a driveway and down the sidewalk in front of me.

North American cottontails don’t dig burrows. They get through the winter outdoors, sheltering in bushes and under porches. This one was certainly on its way home to some preferred back yard where it knows it has a secure place to keep warm tonight and something for breakfast in the morning. As long as I didn’t try to mess with it in the malicious way of those humans who think others’ discomfort is funny, it seemed content to share the sidewalk with me. So we lolloped along together for half a block. I lost sight of it when it rounded the corner ahead of me. It must have cut up another driveway to get behind the houses. 

I hope it was heading for our yard. We have the most trees and shrubs, thanks to my ambitious but overworked landlords. An accidental rewilding project.

I took this as a good omen. A rabbit-rabbit-rabbit charm, even if the moon is not yet full.

Rabbits symbolize fertility (obviously) and by extension prosperity. They’re survivors who thrive against ridiculous odds. Tiny and fragile, they will throw hands (paws) without hesitation when threatened or just pissed off. Omg, those little hooligans will come at you with intent. I just love them.

So I presume to take this rare winter encounter as a good sign for 2026. Confirmation of a feeling I’ve been having.

A headline from one of the 2025 wrap-up articles I have set aside to read later says, “This year ended better than it started.”

I agree. Granted, the landscape is still rolling dumpster fires as far as the eye can see, and if I were betting on it, I’d say 2026 will get worse before it gets better.

But for the first time in a long time, I have the feeling it will get better, maybe even quicker than expected.

There’s no particular event that makes me think this. It’s more a shift of energy. A societal mood swing. A ripple in the zeitgeist. A sense that people have had enough of this shit.

Which shit? All of it. All the 10,000 shits. 

A sketch of rabbits fighting in the spring.
When first you see the full moon’s light,
Say “Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit” thrice
For a month of fortune, joyous and bright.

I know I’ve had enough. My list of Things I’m Done With is long. I’m done with billionaires and maga, with marketing and media, with all the corporate shenanigans and snake oil. Just frikkin done.

And I’m done with a lot of myself, too. With old bad habits. (I need new ones!) With my waffling and procrastination, with half-assing my way through problems. With being so deep in the weeds, I have no idea where I’ve come to in my life. With my utter and complete disorganization.

When it comes to changing for the better, nothing just happens. You have to do it, and nobody does anything until they’re ready. Until they feel like it. That’s when they make their move. That’s when they quit smoking, change parties, leave that job, take that class, get out and vote, blow the whistle, clean their house.

2025 was horrible. No argument. I don’t need to go over it all here. If you follow me, then you probably also follow the news. It’s been a historically horrible year.

But as of this writing, on December 31st, 2025, We the People are not the ones freaking out and trying desperately to cover our asses. I won’t say we’ve taken control of the narrative just yet, but we have a grip on it, which is more than we had a year or even six months ago. It took us a whole year, but we finally have the ground under our feet again.

So despite skyrocketing costs, economic chaos, political violence, and a latter-day Nero fiddling with the White House as the dumpsters burn, I will take that little rabbit as a lucky charm. 

An omen of success against the odds, of building happiness by thinking quick, adapting to the circs, making do, creating a lot, and not being afraid to get into the fight when needed.

Thriving in 2026 might not look the way we expect, but life’s too short to be long about the forms of it. Whatever comes, I know we can make the most of it.

I’ll put that up over my desk as a motto for the year. “Whatever it is, make the most of it.”

Naturally, I have big plans, but I make no promises now. Between the world and the dramas we’ve survived, we are embracing a lot of change here at the studio and attached apartment, so I have no idea what I’ll do or when. I’ll just say my focus in 2026 will be on experimenting with new-to-me forms and media. There are skills I want to learn, and skills I learned the past couple of years that will get new uses and presentations. Some of you might not be into it, but some might like it better. I hope everyone will find something good here. But however it goes, 2025 is ending with happy outcomes we couldn’t have foreseen. I intend to make good on it.

And I hope you can find your own inner wild city rabbit this year, as well. Find the resources you need, whatever form they come in. Throw down and thrive. And when the odds are against you, ignore them. Winners don’t bet against themselves.

Happy New Year, everyone!
Let’s get into it.

Note: This essay contains 928 words, which according to western numerology, reduces to 10 and then to 1. So do the numerals of 2026. In tarot, 10 is the number of the Wheel of Fortune, and 1 is the number of The Magician. Interpretation: 2026 is a chance for us to direct our fate. I might write more about this at a later date.

Some of the work I did in 2025.

Finding Magic: a winter small works series

Jen

How to stay hopeful when it all gets to be just too much seems to be the question of the day, at least among the Youtubers and pundits I follow. How to weather the slings and arrows, pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and all that.

Well, honestly, I’ve always been too bloody-minded to lose hope for very long. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had plenty of dark nights, but I get too angry at the effrontery of upstarts to meekly accept whatever they want my fate to be. To me, hope has never been the thing with feathers fluttering in the deep recesses of the heart. Rather, it’s the thing that spits out a bloody tooth and wades back into the fight for another round.

Life has been a real fight lately, hasn’t it? We’ve all been well and truly in it, and there’s no end in sight. Here at the house attached to the studio, we’ve been dealing with medical crises and all the attendant crises that come along with needing urgent help. Don’t worry, it’s working out. Life was saved. Sickness was cured. Needed work is being done. But this past month has been scary and exhausting and expensive, recovery and caring are not yet finished, and neglected work, home, garden, etc., knocked into the proverbial cocked hat by personal disaster, are demanding to get back on the agenda. Time is ready to march on even if I’m not.

So, when all has fallen into confusion, when I’m hopelessly behind on every task, exhausted to the point that I can’t even sleep, and the 10,000 things rush to fill every hour of the day, I open my eyes and look for the patterns in the chaos. This is what I call magic. To find the hidden structures that reveal the sense of it all. Thus I orient myself, ground and center myself, and gradually regain control of my reality.

Art and storytelling are my arcane methods for that.

I cast spells to shine clear lights on dark things, draw boundaries, invoke powers, steer and shape energies, and explore mysteries – until I feel pulled together enough to stand stably on my feet again.

And this year, because we’re all really going through it, I’m sharing my magical explorations with all of you. From now through at least New Year – maybe to spring, I’ll see how it goes – I present “Finding Magic,” a small works series celebrating the winter months of 2025-2026.

Talismans and amulets, tiny things to accent a threshold or guard a book. Symbols of power, resilience, prosperity, emotions. Worlds in the palm of your hand. Portals to other realms. Small wishes to bring good things into challenging times.

In the northern hemisphere, where I live, winter is the season for new beginnings, containing as it does not one but four new years – the solar new year of the winter solstice, the astronomical new year at the close of the calendar, the planetary new year at Earth’s perihelion, and the lunar new year in February. It’s a season for resting and resetting, for looking back and ahead, for personal transformations, for the quiet inner work of healing and growth.

With “Finding Magic,” I invite you to come along with me as I do that work for myself and offer what I find to you.

There seems to be a trend – or I’d like there to be a trend – of artists celebrating the end of the year with affordable small works series to tell the story of the year that was. “Finding Magic” is about pulling ourselves together to wade back into the fight next year, stronger, refreshed, clear-eyed, and empowered.

It will be all small items in various media, priced for any budget at under $50 and under $100 depending on the piece. Follow this site for updates as new pieces are finished.

Jen Fries, Eye Amulets, pastel, watercolor, and ink on paper, roughly life-sized, $25 each, part of “Finding Magic.” Display, carry, use for ornament, journaling, or to ward off unwelcome pests and gossips. Email me if interested.

And if you happen to be in the Boston, Massachusetts, area this weekend, stop by the Brickbottom building in Somerville for our Open Studios event, November 22-23, 12-6pm. Info here. I’ll be in Unit C322, showing the first of the “Finding Magic” pieces along with larger works on similar themes.