"We are not islands. We are part of a vast interconnected web, and our well-being depends on recognising that connection." — Sharon Salzberg
Photo by Krisztina Papp
How has your year started? My January was bittersweet with birthdays to celebrate, a few days holiday in the New Forest and seeing my son head back to his retreat facilitation work in Jamaica. Hopefully hurricane season is well and truly over!
Whilst I was away, I pondered how we genuinely connect, both at distance and face-to-face. Mark and I can still share great conversation thanks to mobile communications. Yet our reliance on such tech can disconnect us from the people standing in front of us. I was amused and frustrated when a spa receptionist pointed me to the website instead of simply answering my question.
February is a funny month—often the coldest, always the shortest, includes the start of Lent and Valentine’s Day, traditionally a moment of romance and connection that we’d ideally celebrate year-round!
The Snow Moon – 1st February
Photo by Caleb Falkenhagen
February’s Full Moon, known as the Snow Moon, falls on Sunday 1st February at 22:10 GMT. The name comes from the heavy snowfall common to this month in Native American and European traditions, a time when the world is covered in white, sounds muffled, and life slows to its most essential rhythms.
This moon invites simplicity and preparation. Not the frantic kind that exhausts us, but the quiet, considered kind, taking stock of what we have, identifying what we truly need, letting go of what no longer serves. In deep winter’s stillness, it becomes easier to see what’s essential and what’s merely habitual.
Photo by Caleb Falkenhagen
Gate 19 — Approach: The Need to Find Inclusion
As the Snow Moon reaches fullness, the Sun illuminates Gate 19 in Human Design, Approach, also known as The Need to Find Inclusion. This gate carries a profound teaching about how life connects us all, about our urge to end separation and re-establish unity.
Gate 19 holds a particular sensitivity. Those who carry this energy often sense others’ needs more clearly than people sense their own. There’s an internal drive to make contact, to establish connection, to create a starting point for deeper realisation. This isn’t superficial networking—it’s genuine reaching out that says, “I see you, and in seeing you, I remember we’re part of the same whole.”
The shadow? Co-dependence, losing yourself in others’ needs, making their well-being more important than your own, reaching out so constantly you forget to come home to yourself. The friend who always listens but never speaks. The colleague who always helps but never asks for help. The family member who senses everyone’s mood whilst their own feelings remain invisible.
The gift that emerges through awareness is sensitivity, genuine sensitivity that honours both self and other, that knows when to reach out and when to step back, that understands connection doesn’t require fusion. The highest expression is sacrifice, not in the martyrdom sense, but in the sacred sense of offering what’s truly needed without depleting what’s essential.
Line 6, The Sage, speaks to teaching about inner growth from your own depth of experience, not from theory or should-be wisdom, but from what you’ve personally lived through, learned from, integrated. When we share from this place, we provide immense support through imparting compassionate wisdom—not fixing, not rescuing, but illuminating possibilities others might not have seen on their own.
The dilemma? Heresy. The fear that your way of connecting, your particular sensitivity, your approach to unity might be wrong or unacceptable.
Bottle 19 — Buddhic Bliss
The Colour Mirrors system offers something beautiful through Bottle 19, Buddhic Bliss, with its blend of pale magenta and pale gold. This bottle speaks to resurrection and new beginnings—not the dramatic kind, but the gentle dawn after a long dark night.
The pale magenta denotes Divine love lit up and shining upon you. The pale gold underneath speaks to a deep sense of your own power and beauty, finally recognised after perhaps doubting it for too long. Together they say: you’ve come through something. You’ve walked through difficulty and emerged changed. Now it’s time to own heaven’s blessings of joy and love.
Gate 19 teaches us about reaching out. Bottle 19 reminds us that this works best when we’re well-resourced. You are the power in your life, not in a dominating way, but sovereignly, standing in your own light so clearly that others can find their way too.
This is a time of peace and plenty, even if the outer world doesn’t reflect it yet. The resurrection this bottle speaks of is internal first, recognising you’ve survived what you thought might break you, discovering you’re stronger, clearer, more compassionate for having walked through it.
Together, Gate 19 and Bottle 19 offer this teaching: reach out from fullness, not emptiness. Connect from overflow, not depletion. Share wisdom from lived experience, not obligation. Trust that the right people will recognise what you’re offering because it comes from genuine compassion rather than unconscious need.
Working with February's Energy
Simplify one area:
What’s one part of your life that’s become unnecessarily complicated? What would happen if you stripped it back to essentials?
Share from experience:
What wisdom have you gained from your own depth of experience that might really help someone else?
Honour your sensitivity:
If you naturally sense others’ needs, how can you honour this gift whilst also protecting your own energy?
Recognise “resurrection”:
What have you come through recently that deserves recognition? What strength did you discover in yourself?
Practice presence:
Like the turtle below, slow down enough to notice what’s around you. Connection requires presence, and presence requires time.
Book Corner
This month I’m recommending Lessons of a Turtle by Sandy Gingras. It’s whimsical and delightful—a small book filled with watercolour illustrations and gentle wisdom about slowing down, appreciating simple pleasures, and carrying your home within you.
In a month that asks us to simplify and prepare, to reach out without losing ourselves, this little book offers the perfect reminder: sometimes the wisest thing we can do is slow down enough to notice what’s around us.
The Inner Forge — New Moon Circles 2026
Our first New Moon Circle on 18th January was a beautiful beginning—a gathering of people willing to show up for themselves and each other without agenda or performance. If you missed it and wish you’d been there, you’re welcome to join us next month.
Our February New Moon Circle is on Tuesday 17th February at 7:00–8:30pm GMT. These monthly gatherings with Kit Mills, Mark Stevens, and myself are a space to pause, reconnect, and tend your inner resources in community.
Final Thoughts
