On The Blessedness Of Strength

A homily for the New Moon on January 18, 2026. Written, as always, without authority.

Dearly Beloved,

Blessed New Moon, dear ones. I greet you in the name of Aphrodite and the name of the Divine on this, the New Moon in (double) Capricorn.

Dear ones, I am not okay. As my country slouches almost gleefully towards fascism and war without end, I am wearing many hats in my various roles and offices as I try to do everything I need to do before I die. While I hope that is not for about 30 years, I have to be realistic. Things are bad and they are getting worse, and I am in a number 1 target demographic for the enemy. If Jesus—whether magus, avatar of a deity, some combination of both, or something altogether different—couldn’t avoid getting killed by the state with all of the power reported of Him, I doubt that I will fare much better.

So this New Moon I want to talk about what I need right now. What we all need right now, if I may presume to speak for you, dear ones. I want to talk about what is going to get us through this, the Long Night.

I want to talk about strength.

As my regular readers know, one of the two strongest people I have ever known was my Grandfather (the other one is my spouse). He spent his entire adult life in service to principles larger than himself. He served his country, first for 20 years in the USAF and then another 20 years in the US Postal Service. He served his family, taking care of a wife with both physical and mental health issues for most of his life and first raising one child (my mother) and then a grandchild (me). And he served the basic principle that the strong should care for and protect the vulnerable. He did all of that all of his adult life, and as far as I could ever tell, he did it without complaint and without regret. He was a serious person in every sense, but he had an amazing laugh like warm thunder and his blue eyes twinkled when he smiled. Yes, he was my abuser and he was my mother’s abuser. It was not okay to try to mold me into a weapon starting at age 6 and what he did to my mother was worse. But he also taught me so much about how to be a person that I can’t help but still look up to him. He taught me about duty, and as everyone who knows me personally knows, duty is one of my primary motivations. I still love and admire my Grandfather deeply and talk about him constantly. Every night, I give offerings to my ancestors, descendants, and spirit family, and he is always there, helping to keep the steel in my spine and to keep me on-mission. If I am strong now, it is largely because of him and because of the strength of duty.

But there are other kinds of strength.

For almost 5 years, I have served as a priestess of Aphrodite. I also worked with Her closely for about a year before that, essentially serving as a novice as She taught me what She wanted of me (and for me). Over these six years with Her, I have been devoted to the paradox of love, the weakness that makes us mighty. I have learned how strong you have to be to let yourself be truly vulnerable. How determined and sure of your own values and purpose you must be to wear your heart on your sleeve, especially when you know damned well the world is just going to break it. I learned at the feet of my goddess how to be strong all over again, a profound strength that has swept through my whole life and remade me. I learned the strength of love.

These two types of strength, the strength of my Grandfather the dutiful and the strength of Aphrodite the loving, now guide my life. As the world burns, duty and love are there. As almost half of my country fantasizes about the suffering and death of the rest of us, duty and love are there. As my health fails and my pain grows, duty and love are there. Duty and love keep me strong when the enemy wants me weak, and duty and love orient what strength I have towards protecting, healing, and supporting those who need it.

These are only two forms of strength, of course. There is the strength of parents, teachers, and clergy, a strength that brings forth our children and our values. There is strength of the engineer, the architect, and the construction worker, a strength that builds and maintains the structures that allow for our communities. There is the strength of the farmer, the hunter, and the forager, the strength that brings us our food. There is the strength of the poet, the musician, and the painter, the strength that reaches into the heart of the world and brings forth beauty. There is the strength of the philosopher, the scientist, and the doctor, the strength that brings forth new knowledge and applies it to helping us all.

And these are just a few examples, a few types of strength. I am sure that you can think of many more, dear ones (share them in the comments, if you would like). Many ways to serve the world and many ways of, as my wife puts it, being a serious person. We are going to need all of these forms of strength and many more. We can’t leave anyone behind or take anyone for granted. We need each and every one of us to weave our strands together if we are to win through the Long Night and see the coming Dawn.

We must be strong.

Blessed New Moon, dear ones. May all of the blessings of the god be with you in the coming weeks.

In love,

Soror Alice