As the year turns, we’re invited into a season that often arrives wrapped in a package of expectation: celebration, connection, spiritual renewal, reflection. Yet the holidays also hold multiple truths at once, and for many, the season arrives with more complexity than cheer—distance from family, uncertainty about the future, unresolved conflicts, and more questions about spirituality and religion than answers; alongside the not-so subtle pressure to reinvent ourselves on January 1st.

Layered underneath that fabric of an unhealthy masculine ideal is the broader objectification and commodification of women and gender expansive people, and a culture that too often confuses coercion with consent.

The past few months have been politically tumultuous, to say the least. Geopolitical volatility, waves of tariff threats, misinformation and angry rhetoric from political leaders, talk of a looming recession, lost jobs and the continued trend toward authoritarianism in the U.S. are but a few of the issues facing us in this moment. Add to the mix the climate crisis, the ongoing wars and global conflicts, and the air around us suddenly feels tinged with an Orwellian climate of fear.