Happy Solstice
May the light within you continue to shine bright and may we all remember to kindle it in this time of the longest night
Hello lovely people.
Happy Solstice. (Skip to the bottom of this Substack if you want to know more about my offerings and find a chance to apply to join the Unstuck Club for free!)
This year our family got to experience the darkness even more than ever - as we were without power for most of the last four days with it finally coming back on yesterday evening, just in time for the solstice. We certainly weren’t suffering by any means - we have lovely neighbors who had batteries and invited everyone over for tea and conversations to gather and connect. We came together, as humans often do, when there is a disturbance in the system. (My friend Colleen Kinder’s piece in the NYT this week about how she has her students go completely offline for her 4-week writing course in France reminded me that we humans are even MORE likely to connect when we’re not tethered to our wifi, which was certainly a factor in our community gatherings this week.)
In addition to spending more time with our community, the blackout gave us a chance to use our candles not just for decoration, but for candlelight dinners, a luxury we needed the darkness to remind us to indulge in.
Plus, my sleep and nervous system always feels good without the hum and vibration of the electric soup we all live in as our daily water. So I’m not complaining. It was certainly a gift.
Yes, we lost some things in our freezer, but our deep freezer held strong and it was a chance to clean out the depths of the freezer that probably needed it. So again, gratitude there.
Plus, the power came on just in time for me to be able to take a quick warm shower before heading to the StarHouse for their annual Solstice celebration which is always such a gift. Being in darkness and quiet and then eventually song when the first match is lit and one by one the candles on the immense tree are lit feels like the rekindling of our own light bodies in this time of rest and recharge. It’s always magical.
This solstice was also a reminder of trusting my intuition. With the electricity buzzing again, I woke up at 4am, and decided to start my day. I thought I might drive to Red Rocks and joining Drumming Up the Sun - a gathering of 1000+ drummers who gather there at the solstice to, as it says in the name, drum up the sun! (It’s intense and energizing!) But I also felt “behind” from four days mostly off-line and instead I started writing this.
Then I thought, “If one or both of my kids get up in time I’ll take them to Dharma’s Garden (a sweet little non-profit garden near us) for their solstice event down the road.” But no one woke up. So I almost just stayed home and finished this post…. but something said “Start driving and go see the sun NOW!” so I did. I drove up Flagstaff Mountain, heading to their open air amphitheater. I parked my car, opened my door, and heard a woman with two dogs standing next to me say “Daniela?” It was my friend Charissa. (Boulder is a small city, but not THAT small.) She was meeting two of our other friends there, who were running late, but she knew the way and we walked together in the dark to the amphitheater (which I certainly would have felt more nervous to do alone as, not unlikely my kids, I too can still sometimes feel a bit afraid of the dark). When we arrived to the amphitheater, I thought there would be dozens of people gathering to watch the solstice sun, but instead there was only one lone person there, basking in the red of the pre-sunrise glow… and it happened to be another friend, Morgan.
So in the end, my intuition led me to watch the sunrise, in a place where I, unknowingly, was going to get to do so with four friends.
Ahh, the universe. I’m grateful.
I am calling in more flow in my next year, with the ease and grace of trusting when things are aligned. I’m also calling in more time in communities that feel aligned - with people whose energy lights me up. This morning was certainly a good step in that direction. I’m calling in more movement (my body certainly needs it!) and our first day on the slopes today is hopefully helping to manifest that goal of my year. And going to another solstice event this evening, at Yellow Barn Farm down the road, with my whole family snuggled up listening to storytelling and song, is moving me towards the direction of another goal: feeling closer and more present with my husband and our boys. Thank you lovely solstice day for bringing me closer to my desires!
Another desire is to bring my work out into the world more fully as the whole me: not just the “I work in academia” me on some days and the “I am calling in the magic of the universe” me on other days. Both are me and as I step into 2026 I plan to bring the whole me into the spaces I work.
So, with that said, I want to share some things I have been working on with you. While this Substack was stagnant for a while, my energy was not, it was just moving in different directions, many of which seem to be coming into fruition now as we wrap up the year and move into our next cycle. Here is a bit more about some of them in case you want learn more or get involved:
danielapapi.com - In the past, even just buying that URL would have made me cringe. Now I recognize that we each have our own magic to bring into the world and owning mine, like you owning yours, is part of being able to contribute fully in this lifetime. So, that page is about me and some stuff I care about, things I am working on, and some people who have shaped me. Feel free to check it out, and if you want to add yourself to the newsletter there, I will send out info about those things from time to time!
Unstuck Club - I am launching something next month that I am so psyched about: https://unstuckclub.com/ It is a community of people getting unstuck to thrive, a virtual anointing of the modern renaissance people the world needs in these times. We all get stuck: in work, in relationships, in our connection to ourselves, in rushing through life… whatever it might be for you. Feeling stuck means we have hit an edge, and it’s an invitation to expand.
Your invitation to the Unstuck Club (yes, YOU are invited!) comes with keys for transmuting that stuck energy into thriving, as we learn tools, gain perspectives, and create time to practice, together. The offer: three calls per month on Tuesdays at 12pm Mountain Time, starting on Tuesday January 13th. 1-2 calls each month are with me: peer-to-peer mastermind groups and practice sessions where we put some of what we are learning into practice. (Which will perhaps include some components of fostering a systems lens, as I tend include that!) The other 1-2 calls each month are with different facilitators - most of whom are my teachers - people who have taught me things that I find important for getting unstuck: I’ve learned about meditation from Sophie, cooking and the basics of flavor from Katerina, Feng Shui from Cody, and the Re-mind tools from April and Erik (incredible audio tools to help people shift stuck energy around things like past trauma or intense emotions). Jenny is our couple’s therapist and she teaches about the feminine/masculine polarity we each internally and collectively possess. Myranda Pretty Owl has taught me that each of us has a right to connect to ancestors who lived in Indigenous ways, as we ALL have people in our lineages who knew how to be present in nature, in community, and in connecting with their own higher knowing in ways that most modern societies have forgotten. Chelsea has taught me that we each manifest in different ways and knowing your aligned way to manifest the life you want can help you do so. Deb has helped me hone my intuition (a key skillset for these times). Mary has shared the paradox process with me, another tool for getting emotionally unstuck. Dawn has helped me feel less overwhelmed by AI tools. Lara’s music and sound healings have already been healing for me, and I can’t wait for more. Nadee has helped me bring more joy into my work. Kenlyn’s work with women in community and her teachings on the cycles of these times has inspired me, and I know I have so much more to learn from her. And while I haven’t yet studied deeply with Alexis in her death doula work, I know her to be incredibly powerful as a human and I can’t wait to learn more because our impending deaths is something that might get many of us feeling stuck.
These people are all INCREDIBLE! And for the moment, you can sign up for discounted Founding Membership of the Unstuck Club for only $333 total for the first 5 month trial period. That is less than the cost of what many of those practitioners charge for just one session! Plus so many of THEM are planning to join the community too - so you will not only get to learn from them, but with them. It is going to be an magical crew of people. Please join us in this founding cohort. I haven’t yet set up the discount code on the membership site - but if you are like I AM INNNNN - then sign up here for the discount rate and be among the first people in! It might be the best thing you do for yourself in 2026. And if you just want to learn more and get the full schedule - fill out the form on the website and I’ll send you the details!
Systems. Change. Educators. Unite. (SCEU) - I realize I haven’t really introduced SCEU to this list yet either…. my goodness! SCEU launched last month and it is a rebirth of an educator community I had loosely been nurturing for more than a decade. As I alluded to, a lot of my work moving forward will be (and is) about nurturing communities where I find energetic alignment. This SCEU community certainly meets that: the members are almost all “educators” in some way (from formal classroom educators to coaches/facilitators/trainers etc) who either work in systems/systems change, or do “change” work in some other social impact way (social entrepreneurship, internal organizational change, etc). The SCEU community is designed to help connect them, help fuel their work, and help foster systems understand across the network. In case you didn’t pick up on this yet: I believe we are in complex times and therefor the skills to understand and navigate complex social and environmental systems are ESSENTIAL skillsets for our times. Educators are an important node in the systems that fuel our collective ability to navigate complexity. SCEU is part of how I want to contribute to helping bring systems and complexity learning into the mainstream. If YOU are someone who would benefit/contribute through being in SCEU, or you know someone who would, please connect! The hope is to raise funds so that the SCEU membership can be accessible to all, so if the price point it out of your range - FEAR NOT! We want you there, no matter what price you can afford, so just reach out and we’ll make it work. And if you are looking to offset some taxes this year, you are more than welcome to make a donation to SCEU through our fiscal sponsorship with SIMA. We are looking to raise funds to support the work of an Indigenous educator cohort and to expand our offerings and make them more accessible to all. Please help us do so!
Sacred Systems - My friend Mikaila Maidment and I made a sacred systems card deck. It teaches you about systems and also brings in the oracle card aspect of randomly pulling a card and seeing what it might teach you. We describe it as an oracle deck fit for the board room. (It’s also fit for a classroom, your team office, or your home alter.) The Kickstarter isn’t up yet (we are going to launch if after the holiday madness!) but we are looking to get pre-orders in so that we can get 500+ copied printed. Want to be some of the first to buy some decks for you and your friends? Do it! And if you are looking for a last minute holiday gift, feel free to pre-order a gift for a friend and then message me and we’ll send your friend an email with an image from the card deck letting them know about your gift and that it will be arriving in April once the decks are printed and arrive! https://sacred-systems.com/
Sacred Feminine Portal - For the last six months I’ve been running a monthly in-person gathering of a sacred feminine collective in Boulder, Colorado, and, like with the Unstuck Club, different facilitator are guiding us each month. It’s has been a beautiful community experience and offering and I feel so grateful to all those I’ve had the chance to meet and grow with these last months. (FYI, sacred feminine work is not about gender - it’s about a sacred feminine/masculine balance, a yin/yang, we can each cultivate internally, and that we can cultivate collectively.) If you are in Boulder, or know people who are, check out our in-person offerings. (Our 2026 dates aren’t on the site yet, but upcoming sessions will be soon.)
Through the Sacred Feminine Portal and a partnership with a potential future funder in this space we are going to be offering 10+ free or discounted spots on the Unstuck Club’s initial 5 month offering. If you want to apply for that, or you know anyone working in this space, the ask is that they fill out this survey designed to help us map/understand offerings related to the sacred feminine (or sacred masculine / sacred union). Those who fill out the survey and indicate interest in the Unstuck Club at the end will automatically be entered into a chance to be selected for free or discounted membership to the Unstuck Club! Join us!
I also still offer 1:1 coaching, and you can always reach out about that work.
OK… so that is A LOT of info…. and I hope something in there might have resonated with you! Reach out, write a comment, or share this with others if so!
And happy solstice, you lovely humans you! May your next journey around the sun be blessed.