We’re 21 days into the brand newest year, into the virgin ONE on the calendar (the one you SHOULD have bought from us!) and if you’re like most human beings, there’s still a lot of you that feels like it’s still 2024, that you’re still carrying baggage from last year, perhaps the year before that, or the year before that, and on and on and on to probably when you were about 17 years old. Right? Right. Anyway, today we’re gonna do something about that, and we’re gonna start in an unassuming place that’s lurking right beneath your nose.

Let’s get into it…

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This is not a political post. This is a human plea. This is a rallying cry shouted into the final eve before things change once more. Things always change once more, then once more after that. Nothing stays the same, nothing lasts, what will come will go. In the meantime, we have work to do.

Anger is the easiest outlet for those who do not wish for tomorrow to occur, rage the expression of least effort. Some smug disdain the easiest for those who wish what will be to be. The first of these can be channeled into something better, the latter cannot, so I urge both to heed this reminder when I offer it:

We have work to do.

Yes, both of us, on both sides of a very divided aisle, both sides of a fractured country. We have stitches to sew, we have threads to pull tighter to bring that chasm closer together, to shrink the distance to a width that will allow our voices to carry far enough to be heard.

There will be two ways the Inauguration will be witnessed tomorrow, two different viewpoints of the very same event. The event will occur, but we will not watch the same things, we will not hear the same words—for some it will be the black and white world of Kansas before the tornado came and swept Dorothy away, for others it will be the technicolor wonderland of Oz once the house landed and the ruby slippers were snatched from those feet soon to shrivel. Two ways, one event, and this is the way of it.

To those who will sit and lean against their tired couch cushions tomorrow with sorrow in their souls, who will scoff and sigh with each word Trump speaks, I ask you for the empathy to look beyond the preconceived notions you may hold, not of the man who will be promising to take care of this country, but the people who voted him into this office. Not all are as you paint them, not all are hateful, spiteful, not all are racist. Not all are phobic about sexuality, nor enemies of the LGBTQ community. They are as we are, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, they are family, they are those we stand beside in grocery stores and sporting events, those who listen to the music we listen to, binge the shows in late night hours and say “just one more,” when they should shut the television off. They are we, we are they, and we are more alike than we are different at the source of it all.

Find the ways we are the same, find the things we share instead of the examples of our dissonance. This is the beginning of empathy, and it takes work to do this. The longer we try, the closer those gaps will begin to appear, the louder the voices of us both, standing on each side, the less we will be forced to shout.

Still though, be prepared to teach them, be prepared to be guardians of what is good, and feel no fear in this. Gently, I ask you, but firmly, remind them of what equality means, what it should mean though it hasn’t had the chance to do so all this time, in all this expansive land. Do not abide the unkindness of those who prove themselves more different than the same, who highlight the worst parts of the movement that keeps moving further and further right, who keeps isolating their race against all others, who keeps trying to prove superiority.

Do not sit and watch as those who wish to burn down what we have spent centuries building gather their hammers and torches, do not wait until the fires have begun. Be vigilant, be wise, but always above all, be kind.

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For those who will watch tomorrow with a sense of pride, who will listen to Trump take the oath of office again and will believe in his promises, I ask you for the grace of compassion and understanding for those of us who do not believe in the veracity of his words. Open your mind and let in the light of those who do not agree, see things how we see them, with worry, with fear, with apprehension that is born from the experience of the years we have already spent with your choice of captain at the helm.

See things through the eyes of LGBTQ families who worry about their right to love, to be loved, to be married, to adopt children, to have their own biological children with the help of IVF treatments. Try your best to understand that there are millions of Americans, just like you, who are terrified of their access to health care, who worry of their ability to make decisions of their own bodies, their own lives. These fears are real fears, they are justified in every possible way, and they are phobias that were created by threats and promises already made, some already delivered.

You, too, must be vigilant, and I ask this of you. Hold your leaders, those you campaigned for and fought for, and some even rioted to uphold, to a higher standard than ever before. Make them keep the promises that they make to ALL of us, make them prove every single day that their viewpoints are not falling into white supremacy and domination. Make them prove it, make them distance themselves from the worst of their followers, those who choose violence and destruction over peace and unity. Force them, with the constant threat of the loss of your support, to be better than they were, better than the minimum. Force the best from them, and have the courage to admit when they go astray.

Remember, too, that there is a reason so many are distrustful. Do not look across at us and see only those furthest left. There is a Venn Diagram in these United States, and more of us fall inside that center circle than you’d ever realize, if only we stripped out all the extraneous bullshit that taints the messages those above us speak in.

We love, we hurt, we laugh, we cry, we try our very best to take care of those we call our own.

We have work to do, my friends, all of my friends who will be watching tomorrow together. All of us who will be feeling so many different emotions, who will be shedding tears—some of terror, some of elation—we are more alike than we are different, and this is the first bit of work we must do. Remembering this. Focusing on this.

Be brave, be open-minded, be compassionate, be kind. This is what I ask of you, this is where we begin to heal.

Hold tight, we will get through it together. If this is my office, this is my oath.

To you.

Song of the Week

I’m really loving sharing so many unread poems with all of you, and I truly hope you’re enjoying it too. It seems like the new policy of sharing the poem for all to read, and then leaving the deep dive, the process analysis, the story or my thoughts and emotions behind the poem for the upgraded subscriptions has been working, and I hope it encourages you all to join us on the other side, if you haven’t yet. Your support truly keeps this place alive, and the little extras you receive are so fun for me to give you. Anyway, the option is there if you wanna help support, just click the button below!

Today’s poem felt so appropriate for today, as snow is beginning to fall again, as the Arctic Air blast is about to plummet our temperatures into the negative degrees by magnitudes of double digits. It was a custom poem, which as a reminder I LOVE writing and still offer them up in the shop if you want a really beautiful, bespoke gift!

Custom Poems Written Just For You!

Let’s get into it, and dive headfirst into this poem. As usual, the breakdown and the full spoken word audio version are below!

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Only two weeks into a brand new year, WE still get to decide what we wish to fill the year ahead with, we get to decide who we wish to become. There is a freedom in the blank sheets of calendar paper ahead of us, there is liberty in understanding that all the came before, does not have to come again. Today we’re going to do a spin something old school, and instead of doing a vision board of what we want to become, what we wish to achieve (as science shows vision boards categorically do Not work) we’re going to instead focus on something that Has been proven to help. Here’s what I wanna try:

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For 22 years I watched three British men drive in cars.

This is not impressive, though the fact that I don’t even care about automobiles, I’m not a gear-head, not a fan of supercars or sports cars or even care that I’ve only ever driven Subarus in my adult life (with the exception of a short-lived stint in an old 4Runner to carry two giant golden retrievers), does add a bit of wonder to how and why I managed to do this. 22 years of life changes, of growth, of setbacks, joy, sorrow, poetry, photography, travel, and loss, these three men wandered a planet testing cars, taking wild adventures in strange vehicles, and generally causing mayhem wherever they went. 22 years.

I cried when they wrapped up the final moments of their final adventure together. I do not feel shame in admitting tears, not ever, doubly so for ones that fall for things that feel bigger than you expected.

When they finally came to rest, somewhere in the far wilds of Zimbabwe, I knew it then and it wasn’t the finality that caught up to me, it wasn’t the fact that there wouldn’t be more hijinks and silly shenanigans to follow, it was something more. It was the loss of constancy that I knew was coming, that’s been coming into my life for the last few years at a startling regularity.

This is the tragedy of aging, the humbling loss of constancy.

The things we come to expect, the people we rely upon, define as steady, the things that excite, the people that soothe, those we love, trust, adore, and just grow so accustomed to having around—they all will end. They must, as all things will end, but the pill of this loss is a bitter one and my god we turn our lips from the fingers that try so hard to force them into our mouths.

Curious that I lead this essay with the loss of the constancy that was 3 silly British men wandering a silly planet in silly cars then, when we’ve lost friends, we’ve lost family members, we’ve seen such catastrophic loss on such a global scale. Why?

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Because, really. Because over the last 22 years, some of which were the most tumultuous and trying of my life, those men, in those cars, on those adventures, were a constant. They showed up when others couldn’t, they were there bringing new hilarity, random bits of touching emotion, and the nagging understanding within me that I too wanted a life like that, filled with those things, and I could have it if I wanted it bad enough.

They were there on lonely nights when I realized I hadn’t used my voice for three straight days, when I forgot to turn on the light in the dining room to eat my dinners alone. They were there, like clockwork, on silent weekends and unshared mornings, over mugs of tea and no one on the other side of the steam that rose. They were there during exercises done with nervous anticipation and no spotter behind me, on nights I couldn’t quite fall asleep and so kept the television on.

They were there, and now they won’t be, and I don’t know how to reconcile that.

There are a million instances of this loss of constancy, and as trivial as it may seem, as it most likely is, this is only one of them. Every step we take further into our own process of aging is another into the full light of this truth.

We live, we lose. There is no other way.

So what then, what can we do to remedy this, to provide salve to the wound it causes? How can we insulate ourselves from the pinpricks of such enduring disappearances? We cannot, but we can prepare, I believe. We can understand.

The Dalai Lama has long posited that the first step in a happier life is learning, is increasing our awareness and understanding. I believe in that wisdom, and I try my best to practice it. Ajahn Chah, a Buddhist monk once said, when handed a beautiful new cup:

The cup is already broken. The loss of constancy is already coming, we can learn this, we can focus on this and understand this as hard as it is to do, and we can do it before the loss has occurred. Before the break has happened. It’s taken me many years to work on this, years to focus my present energies on the inevitable future losses, and for many of those years it felt fruitless and futile, it felt morbid and pessimistic. Only after I meditated on it longer, after I fully sought to understand, did I see the truth: There is no way more beautiful to look at anything we care for, anything we call dear.

By seeing the things we cherish as destined, fated, for destruction, for cessation, for death, for cancellation, we can open our eyes to their present presence and truly celebrate it for still being here, still existing, still gracing us. Every moment from this moment until that heartbreaking inevitability, a gift, a rare and splendid blessing that comes without us doing a single thing, that exists as it is, and awaits our celebration.

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“Because I know its fate, I can enjoy it fully here and now.” Fully. Here, and now. The things we love, the constancy we wrap ourselves in, we will lose. If we know this, if we focus our gaze upon it, we can enjoy everything more fully, here, and now.

What if we lived this way? What if we loved this way? What if we invested ourselves into every moment of our life this way? What then would become of the tragedy of aging? Would it be so tragic, after all?

It’s work, and I know this. It’s hard, and I understand. Point is, we can do something about it, we can change the ache that comes, transform it into something better, something bigger, and we can do it before it even begins to show its face. We learn, we study the pain that will appear despite all our protestations, and then we see. Then we feel it.

Still though, we will miss. We’ll still feel little pangs when we turn to the things we once felt so very soothed by and find them lacking. I’ll still wish that Jeremy, James, and Richard would get into some outlandish cars in some country I’ve never touched the soil of, and immediately get into some sort of trouble. I’ll still revisit them, from time to time, still rewatch their adventures and call them new, though I know they are not.

All things will end, and this loss of constancy will be bitter. This is how we age, but if we just shift things a bit, if we realign our own views on things, maybe that bitterness doesn’t have to be quite so bad, maybe it doesn’t have to linger quite so long. Maybe we can settle into our wrinkles in a gentler way.

Maybe, along the way, we can find so much more joy. Maybe, all this time, it’s been hiding in plain sight—that all things will end, and that’s precisely what makes them so damned beautiful.

Song of the Week

The Matchbook, as I’ve mentioned a few times over the last few posts, is an ever-evolving beast. Sometimes it will be the video blog that Lady G and I do in which we share a few random things we’ve found interesting, sometimes it will be brand new, never-before-read Typewriter Series poetry and the backstories behind them, sometimes it will be just a completely out-of-left-field rant about something, and sometimes, like today, it will be like a book club or rundown of things I’ve read, watched, enjoyed/disliked, and consumed.

I thought it’d be fun to share things I’m consuming, and in the process, maybe point you towards (or away) from them. Why not? For anyone who wants to join in the fun, and there’s plenty of it coming this 2025, feel free to upgrade the ol’ subscription, and help keep this place going!

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Onward…

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I’ve always had trouble with Resolutions, especially those of the New Year’s persuasion. I’ve always thought they feel like punishments, rather than encouragements, more like harsh limitations we put upon ourselves rather than uplifting bits of spark and shine that help us become actually better people. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and with the changes in this Kindling series for 2025 and them becoming much more “Life reboot” prompts that help you find more “Sparks for a Brighter Life” (See the new tagline in the Subtitle up there, yeah, it’s fun haha).

Today we’re gonna do that, and we’re going to do it in a way I think is maybe the most important. If you’re going to do a New Year’s Resolution, it should be this, and it should be this every single time, as I think it’s maybe the single most important shift into what we carry into the year to come. Let’s go…

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I don’t much believe in regret, don’t find value in the looking back of it all. We can’t undo what we did, can’t reach our bony little fingers back through some wormholes of time to un-stir the pots we stirred, can’t remove the stitches we sewed into the fabric of our lives. We did what we did, we are who we are because of it.

We can look forward, sure, can aim our sights at higher grounds, those shining hills of moral graciousness. We can learn from what we’ve done, all those unchangeable actions that acted like dominos to unveil the giant picture of what we’ve become, and there is hope in this. Even still, the future is as foreign as the past if you look at it right, what’s coming is going to come, like a wind blowing across the surface of some globe-spanning ocean, all we can do is try to adjust our sails before it arrives.

That’s what this is then, this first week of a brand new year, that’s what it’s always been.

Now is the time to adjust our sails, now is the time to point ourselves at the land we’re seeking.

I’m not going to sugar coat, I don’t do that here and if you’ve been around a spell, you know it by now. I think we’re in for a wild gale, I think we’re in for a tumultuous few years and I think the tempest is just now building on the far horizon. I think the clouds just above the sea line are growing, I think they are taking on that green hue that means something primeval and feral is building, and I think we’re going to need to hold tight to the rails of these boats we’re on. Together, more than all other things, together.

So how do we get through it, what direction do we point our bows, how do we survive the hurricane that could come? I don’t know what it will be for all of you, but I know my plan, and I’d like to share it with you:

I’m going to stay curious.

That’s it, really. I’m going to work until I’m exhausted to replace judgement with curiosity, frustration with fascination. I know it sounds hokey, I know it sounds overly simple and it probably is, but it’s what I’ve got, and it’s where I’m going.

I believe curiosity to be the foundation of compassion, and I believe compassion to be the roof that protects us. If we can stay curious, seek to discover the why behind the actions we don’t understand, the where the motivations came from, the when of the events that led to the shaping of their souls, all those that test the patience we’re working towards, perhaps then it dispels the anger that might otherwise build.

Perhaps we have more power than we believe, and the root of all that power is understanding. All divides across all time measured comes from a lack of this, a lack of knowledge shared between those screaming from both sides of a chasm. We are made to be Venn Diagrams, but somewhere along the way our circles stopped overlapping.

Curiosity beyond only this, too, is what I’m aiming for. While it may be the net that catches that butterflies of our misconceptions, it can also capture so much more. There IS magic left out there, despite the lies a frozen January on the precipice of such change will tell you, despite the poisoned honey it will pour in your ear. There is so much magic and we can seek it with our wide-eyed inquisitiveness. We can find it with our cameras, our words, the walks we take daily, the errands we run, the conversations we have, the strangers we meet.

It’s here, I think, that our salvation lives. It’s in the asking of questions, not the passing of judgements, it’s in the wondering, not the declarations. It’s in the what if, not the no, because, and it’s in the naiveté, that taboo noun we run from like we’re too sophisticated for it.

I think we’ve been so busy pointing fingers, we forgot to use our hands for better things, forgot that they were made for holding, for soothing, for investigating, for making. We’ve spent so many years idle watching the separations grow between us all that we forgot our own curiosity, forgot that it’s this that all great discoveries have always been born from—around us, within us.

I still believe in magic, and I always will, and I’m tired of pretending it’s been washed away in some tsunami we all somehow lost the recollection of. We’re fresh into this new year, just days into a brand new lap around a sun that still burns and throws heat from miles and miles away, and I just want to remind you that we get to decide where to go from here, though the big bad they might try to tell you otherwise. We’re still the captains of our ships, we’re still the hands that raise our sails, we’re still the defiance against the typhoon that is certainly coming.

Stay curious, and let it transform itself into compassion for all you don’t understand. It happens on its own, we only have to practice one for the other to grow, and you can start with either I think. Seek first to understand, to relate, to find that gorgeous middle bit where what we are overlaps with whatever they are, and go from there. See if you can’t widen it, see if you can’t inflate it like a balloon of celebration, see if you can’t make the lonely bits on the edge of the Venn just a bit smaller.

Seek magic, appreciate it when you do find it, and tell those eyes in that head of yours that they aim forward for a reason.

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Song of the Week

First new words of the new year, my friends, first new bit of poetic wandering. For those who want the full breakdown of the creative process that led to this poem, the backstories, the insights, the full spoken word audio recording of it, feel free to upgrade your subscription and join in the fun. The community you gain access to is worth so much more than the price of admission, I promise.

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I write about space a lot, I have since I was a kid, since I was lucky enough to meet and become close friends and pen-pals with a NASA astronaut named Sonny Carter. Somehow, the far reaches of this universe seem to still leak into so many of the things I write, so much of the inspiration behind all I see.

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My friends, my dear, dear, beautiful friends, we’re back here again somehow, here at the end of one year and the blossoming of the new.  We’re here, these people we’ve spent so much time creating and molding, these people we should be so proud to be.  That said, it’s entirely ok to have something you want to aim for in the year to come, something you wish to change.  That’s what we’re going to talk about today, but with a huge restriction.  Are you ready?

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I don’t know how it happened, I don’t know how we’re here, I don’t know the machinations of time, I just know it’s the closing of another year, and I know I need to try to reconcile that here, today, for you all.

I know I need to speak about all that we’ve been through, and I know I need to speak about the changes that are going to take place on this Signal Fire in the year to come, changes I’m really excited about and I think you will be too. Changes that I HOPE, all my hopes, will convince some of you that get this newsletter faithfully every Sunday morning, to upgrade your subscriptions and join this stunning, beautiful, magical community that I’ve been building for over FOUR years now. A few of you have, and you can speak to the truth of how magical this place truly is, but strangely, the number has stayed almost precisely the same for over 3 years, and I don’t know all the reasons why. I know money is hard, I know times are tight, I know the inverse is also true. I know that $5 a month is a lot of money, and some of you just can’t make that decision, and I get it, I truly do. All I am asking is, if you can, if you have it, consider investing it here, in this Signal Fire, in the hope it brings, in Me. I work my ass off on this, and I give 99% of it away for free, and I always have. If you value it, if you wish to help me keep it going, this is a perfect time to do so, just click the little button below and we will greet you with wide open arms.

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Now, I’m going to tell you what is to come, what little exciting additions, alterations, and plans I have.

First and foremost, I’m going to revamp The Kindling newsletter that goes out every single Tuesday. It’s come to my attention, from some of you, from some of the people I love and trust, that not everyone likes to write as much as I do. :) I add that old man smile face there because I don’t know how to do a semi-sarcastic “no shit” face any other way. Every Tuesday, for those of you who aren’t paid subscribers, I have been sending out The Kindling as a way to get, and keep, Your creative juices flowing. I have a writing prompt each week, and if you’ve the time and inclination, you can send in your work to the group and we can all comment on it, interact with it, share, and grow. While I love it, and refuse to make it go away entirely, I am going to revamp it a bit as not everyone wants homework each week, not everyone wants the stress and pressure of having to write in front of an audience, online though it may be.

Now, it’s going to be so much more of a LIFE spark, not just a writing one. Now, it’s going to pull from my own experience as a teacher of life reboot courses, and as the co-author (with my lovely Lady G) of the book Miracle In The Mundane: Poems, Prompts, and Inspiration to Unlock Your Creativity and Unfiltered Joy, in which we really do help you reboot your life and re-find not just the creative spark you might be missing or wanting to grow, but the life spark that really does unlock your unfiltered joy. I am going to make The Kindling more about this, about mindfulness, about your path to being happier, more fulfilled, and a more well-rounded human being. Your time is valuable, and I want to fill it with more value, and that’s what The Kindling has always been about, providing you the little bits of firelighter that will start the bonfire that will become YOUR Signal Fire, your beacon in the dark that will inspire others. Instead of homework, you’ll be given amazing challenges, and how you decide to respond to those, if you decide to share with us or not, remains up to you. I’ll give, you’ll receive, no pressure for anything more. Rather than asking questions you might not feel comfortable answering, I’ll guide you through simple tips, exercises, reminders, and weekly challenges that help you feel better.

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In addition to this little gem of radness, we’re still going to be doing The Matchbook, and you’ll get to see the lovely face of the loveliest Lady G more often when we can. It’s a time consuming process doing that little video escapade, but when we have time, we’ll make it.

Also, and I think most excitingly because I love poetry and believe so deeply in its importance in this world, this is still THE place to read my poetry, all of my never-before-read words that have been sitting with me for the last few years as I transitioned away from giving all that away for free on Instagram. I got very sick of that algorithm, and even more sick of the idea that Zuckerberg was making money off my words, and refusing to show the poetry to all of you beautiful souls who chose to follow so you could read it.

Finally, and what I hope You will find most exciting: LIVE CHATS AND EVENTS! Finally, at long last, Substack has released the ability to host live chats and events with paid followers, meaning we can do poetry readings, I can take requests for which words you want to hear, we can have cool personal campfire sessions, therapy sessions, even maybe live movie watching events or something like that. I’m very open to ideas on how we can best share together, and do more fun live stuff. Please, ring in on how you’d like that to look.

Bottom line, 2025 is going to be absolutely amazing. More of the stuff you love, more photography, more poetry, more Sunday Editions where I dive deeper into life, love, adventure, sex, pop-culture, music, poetry, interviews with people I admire and respect and love, and a whole slew of other things. Which brings me to something I’ll get to below, and I hope you’ll ring in to that by clicking the link to the Google Form.

I want you here, I want to share this with you, I want to grow this place into something bigger than it is, and the only way that happens is with your help. Share the posts you love, email them to people you adore, spread the word on this weird little corner of the internets. JOIN OUR COMMUNITY, become a paid subscriber, dive in, dive deeper, and truly make 2025 the year you embrace all I work my ass off to offer here. I hope you will, because dammit, it’s special. It is the work of passion that is my life, and I pour all I am into it.

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Finally finally, today is Hobbes’s birthday, and while she’s been gone quite awhile, I’ve never stopped missing her. Not ever. She would have been 19 today. It’s strange how you just never stop hurting when you lose a pet. I look at those eyes up above and it breaks my heart into pieces all over again. She saved my life, in a million ways, and I will never stop missing her. Not ever.

Alas, go forth into the next few days as the holidays wind down, celebrate the passing of another year, the page turn of the calendar into the year to come. Celebrate all you’ve endured, all you have in front of you. Celebrate with me, here, with us, here.

I love you all infinitely, and am so honored you choose to spend ANY time at all with me. I truly am.

Here’s to 2025.

*Now, a last piece of effort if you please…either in the comments below, or by clicking this Google Form Link, let me know what you like about this place, what you want more of, what you want me to write about in the Signal Fire: The Sunday Editions, and all that stuff. Kinda like a course evaluation, I suppose. Be gentle.*

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Song of the Week

It’s CHRISTMAS EVE!  Hands down this is one of the best nights of the entire year, the day that I used to run, horizontally inside my sheets, to try to wear myself out each night so I’d actually sleep.  I couldn’t WAIT each morning to watch people open the gifts I’d chosen for them, I couldn’t WAIT to see if Santa came, to eat the breakfast all sleepy eyed and worn out from staying up trying to listen for reindeer.  I love Christmas Eve, plain and simple, and I love all of you, so today, I’m going to give you a direct line to Santa himself.  Oooh baby, you’re welcome…

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I’ve spoken about Doctor Who at great, great length on this Signal Fire, and to be truthful, I probably always will. I could say it’s because it’s the longest running science fiction series on television, that it just celebrated it’s 60th anniversary, I could say it’s because this time of year always reminds me so much of it, in that the Christmas Special that they are absolutely famous for, or if I’m being completely honest, I could say it’s because it truly got me through one of the hardest times of my entire life. I could, and I have, and I am sure I will, but on top of all these, and because it IS only 3 days away from this year’s special, I wanted to talk about it today because of something else, something it represents and always has—to me and the rest of this world:

The endurance of hope.

Don’t we need more hope in this world, don’t we now more than ever, now in the face of so much sadness and turmoil around the world, now with so much divide and angst and furor and hate?

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After last year’s special, a doozy in which two things happened that I was monumentally happy about: 1) David Tennant, the 10th Doctor and my FOREVER Doctor, made a triumphant return to the show and was not only allowed to be him again (which he always will be) he was emotionally deeply invested and truly honored to be there again, and B) The NEW Doctor was finally unveiled, and Ncuti Gatwa was groundbreaking in 1000 different ways. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, please revisit this post of mine which gives a very, very brief primer on what Doctor Who is and what it means:

Where things get interesting this time around, is that Doctor Who, a show already miles ahead of others and has been for years when it comes to inclusivity and the messages it spreads, decided to take things a step further and be bolder than they “needed” to be, by introducing a non-binary main character in their Christmas special. They included dialogue about pronouns, why representation matters, and what’s even bigger, even bolder, even more stunningly beautiful, is this time around, the new Doctor, for the very first time, is not only the first black man, but the first openly queer actor to ever step into the shoes. Huge, brave, and perfect.

That’s the beauty of this show, and it always been. Right when things are going well, right when you truly fall in love with the Doctor and the actor portraying them, something happens, something shifts and they regenerate (again see the article above if you’re very, very confused) and a brand new actor steps in to take over the role. You’re heartbroken, you feel the despair of losing someone you loved and trusted and adored in that role, and you have to start all over again. All the way, you just have to trust that you will love them, too, you have to hope that you’ll fall in love again, that you have in you the ability to be curious instead of judgmental, and that true power lives there, in that hopeful curiosity.

This show has always been about hope, always the electrical undercurrent that hums no matter what shenanigans the Doctor gets up to, no matter the depth of despair and heartache and loss and challenge and trouble that the Doctor must face, still, there, is hope. It’s where it hides, in truth, right in the thick of the deepest darkness, the heaviest despair. It’s where it always hides, not just in some strange sci-fi cinematic universe, but in life, in our lives, all around us, all the time.

I know this time of year is usually for Santa Claus and gift giving and lights and Bing Crosby singing the same stuff over and over, and I know we’re only 3 days away from the big kahuna event, but for me, this time of year is always (well, when we’re lucky enough to get one) about the Christmas special, and the way it makes me feel. You’d think I was British.

Don’t we need it now, more than any other time, don’t we need that reminder in the middle of a holiday season that can be so heavy for so many? Don’t we need that Mad Hatter-esque energy, the bizarre hilarity, the deeply sorrowful but hauntingly beautiful hope that shines out of every crack? Don’t we?

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For the first time in a long time, we have a Doctor that is not afraid to cry, and often. We have one that is not afraid to love, to open themselves, to admit they are wrong. We have a Doctor that embodies so much to so many, represents them in a way that they’ve never been able to be represented, especially not on this scale, especially not with a character this HUGE and beloved.

As the show runner, Russell T. Davies spoke about when interviewed about the new Doctor and what this show represents, he said something wonderful about why it’s going this way, why now, why Hope, and I’ll quote it here:

The world is in a rough place, the future can look bleak, but dammit, there is still reason to hope. To laugh. To weep with the full width of your emotions, to hug, to hold onto someone else with all you’ve got, to flirt, dance, sing, to TRY. To just try to make things better, to be that change you want to see, to learn, to be curious and not judgmental, to believe, to understand. To hope.

Just to hope.

That’s why I tune in, that’s why I’ll always tune in, why I’ll follow the Doctor and his TARDIS anywhere it travels, anywhen it visits. I always will, because I’m a proud WHOvian, and I always will be.

Here’s to hope, and here’s to the brave souls that remind us just how courageous it is to do so.

3 days my friends, 3 days until we go again. I’ll see you there.

Song of the Week

Going forward on this here Signal Fire, I’m gonna be releasing all brand new Typewriter Series and other poems first, and then the full creative breakdown (and the spoken word audio version!) will follow. If you want to dive deeper into the craft behind each poem—upgrade your subscription for exclusive access to my creative process, insights, and the stories behind the words.

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People talk a lot about HOPE. Sandra Bullock was in a movie about it, and I never quite agreed with the title of it. Hope doesn’t float, I always thought. Never has. Hope, I thought, was heavy.

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We’re THICK into the season of frantically buying gifts, checking our lists, checking them twice, finding out who’s been, well you know the drill.  Instead of asking for the gifts you’ve given, the ones you’ve received, I want to suggest something else, something a bit more pointed, but a lot more necessary.  I hope you agree…

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Six days from now we’ll be there, we of Northern Hemisphere, shivering in the cold. Six days until we are surrounded by darkness, the shortest day of the year, the day the tiniest slivers of light, six days until we hit the bottom of this valley.

On the darkest day, the Winter Solstice in which we tilt ourselves the furthest away from the sun we will be for another full year, we have a choice as to what we focus on. We can feel the weight of all that night, or we can remember, we can hold tight to the truth that gets left behind:

The light is returning.

Six days until we celebrate this Solstice, until the festivity that was transformed into what we know as Christmas, begins. Six days until Yule, until the rebirth of our sun, our light bringer, until we realize something profound that has always been there, humming at the edges with warmth—We too can be light bringers, we too can shine in the emptiness.

For those of you familiar with this place, with this strange voice of mine, you’ll be no stranger to the theme that arises more often than almost any other around me, beside me, within me, this dichotomy between darkness and light. More than almost all things I sing of this juxtaposition and its role in my life, between the depths I fall to, the heights my arms can help me to soar to reach. This time of year, these days of such pitch and shadow, I find myself reflecting more than almost all others, and I find them deeply spiritual in so many ways. This year, especially after last week’s post on the desperate need to shine our lights into this night to remind others that you’re there, I’ve been thinking so much about not just shining a light, but being one.

Especially now.

This whole month kicked off with a plea, a North Pole Ninja plea to make kindness the entire point of this holiday season, to show the world that it still matters and that empathy and compassion not only have a place, they are the shapers of the place itself. So much of this is being a light bringer, a harvester of the glow we all miss so intensely this time of year when days get short and nights get long and the weight of so much night begins to crush us like rubble we’re trapped beneath.

What light, you ask, what possible shine can I offer this cold, dark world? You who might feel so heavy hearted, who might shuffle through the days of late sunrise and early sunset? What light can I give?

Ah my friends, my dear ones, I hope the fact that you’re reading this, that you found your way here to this Signal Fire (my goodness what a perfect name, I’m so proud that I chose this name for this place) means that somewhere within you, you know your light exists. Though you may doubt, though you may lose sight of the immensity of your warmth, somewhere within you it’s there, and I want you to see it again, to love it again.

Light is knowledge, it is love, understanding, light is compassion. Light is a helping hand, a listening ear, light is a meal made with care for someone too tired to make their own. Light is showing up, even when it’s hard, it’s hope thrown to another like a life saver overboard, it’s the defiance against the drowning that tries so hard to come. Light is a yes when a yes is needed, a No when it’s you that needs the space to say so. Light is love, it is love given so freely without any worry about reciprocation, it is reflection, it is kindness, my god it’s kindness in the end.

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For you who feel this darkness encroaching, for you who forget the light of their being, there are ways to find it again, and I want to help. Here’s a little, short, tiny list of ways you can be a light bringer this Solstice, for yourself, for others, and they cost so very little.

• Begin with Ritual - Create a ritual this Winter Solstice, hell start now if you wish, the days are just getting darker until the 21st, around the actual act of bringing light. Sometimes by beginning literally we can put the pieces into place for the metaphorical to take over. Each evening light a real candle and place it in the center of the darkness around you. Smell the smoke, the wax as it melts, watch the flame dance, watch the shadows it casts. Understand that even the tiniest flicker can transform the largest emptiness.

• Reflect Internally - Next step in finding that light, is to reflect on the importance of it for you, in you. It’s to reflect on what light you know exists within, and to meditate on that truth. Mindfulness and gratitude on this brings about awareness, and that awareness breeds confidence. The more we study our own light, where it is brightest, where we need to add more fire, the more we can share it with others. This is the start, the next step is the advancement.

• Kindness - This is the heart of the North Pole Ninjas book, the heart of what we’ve been trying so hard to revitalize in this season, the simple acts of kindness that can cost absolutely nothing but impact so much. Follow the missions in our children’s book you SHOULD ALREADY NOW OWN IF YOU FOLLOWED THE PLEA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MONTH (hahaha) and choose a different mission every single day from now until the holidays are over. Feel the way that light begins inside, warms you to your edges, and then spills out onto everyone else. It happens, I promise promise promise. That’s three times I promised. You’ll see.

We’re six days away from the darkest day, the longest night, but we get to choose how we see this, what light we decide to bring.

The point is, bring it, bring the light.

You are a light bringer, born to share your shine, I’m just here to remind you, I’m just here to ask to see it.

Hang tight my friends, we’ll get through it together.

Song of the Week

I forget what some of the custom poems I’ve written are about, truth be told. Some are so long ago the details of the story elude me, sometimes the bits blend together, dozens of your stories bleeding over into each other and staining the memory.

Today unreleased Typewriter Series poem, all I remember was a few hazy details, the name of the person it was written for, the little nugget of truth that she fell in love after a single cup of coffee, and he by the end of the second cup shared. I loved that little image, that little tidbit into the inner workings of a story that then grew and expanded and blossomed to include some branches of such joy, some of sorrow, but grew all the same.

I am filled with your stories.

I adore writing these custom poems, falling into your lives for awhile, getting to spin tiny little illuminations into a little bonfire that you get to hold and own and keep for all time. I Love it. I’m still doing them if you are in need of a good holiday gift. Just click the button, check out, and we’ll start the conversation.

Custom Poetry by Tyler Knott Gregson

Anyhow, on with the show, the poem of it. As always, this place is the only place I’m releasing brand new poetry, the never-before-read stuff, so if you’d like to read it, just upgrade your subscription and join the party. You can gift a subscription too, should you think someone else would enjoy this beautiful place.

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Below is the poem, and the spoken word audio file of me reading it to you. I hope you dig it.

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When I walk outside in December, when I glance around at the billions of little diamonds that snowfall throws on the surface of all things, I start thinking of magic, I start thinking of wild things like destiny, and so I wanted to bring you along.  I don’t know whether or not you’ve seen the snow diamonds like I have, but that doesn’t matter, it’s time to think about destiny.

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Observations that I share here, come from here, and I hope you all know this. What I see, what I feel, say, pay attention to, notice, or believe, you do not have to see, feel, say, pay attention to, notice, or share the belief. This strange little haven on the monumentally bizarre world wide webs has always been a spot where my brain can rain, and I’ve always left it up to you to decide if you wish to dance in it, or shelter from it under umbrella and some Gore-Tex parka.

Today I realize that many of you won’t feel the same, that many of you probably observe the opposite of what I’m about to speak of, and to that I say: FANTASTIC! Truly, fantastic. I hope, so many of my hopes, that you have noticed the opposite of what I have noticed, and that you feel differently. If so, I implore you to ring out and say so in the comments, to tell us all tales of places that feel different, that feel better, and that have gone another way despite it all. We shall see.

Having come through the Halloween holiday just recently, having bumbled through the Thanksgiving debauchery that is stuffing ourselves silly with a tabletop of food, and now waltzing our merry way into the big gun of the holiday season, Christmas, my mind has been full of a strange observation that brought about a bit of heartache. If I’m honest, it’s more than a bit of heartache, it’s a swelling punch in the chest where that little kernel light of nostalgia lives, the place that makes you want to say “Back when I was young…” and trail off into some wispy diatribe about the beauty of what once was.

It was a lack that alerted me, more so than the presence of something else. It was the lack of orange lights or spooky skeletons around Halloween, a lack of pumpkins carved to look like ghosts or ghouls, zombies barfing brains, or smiling jack-o-lanterns. It was the startling lack of even front porch lights on, on Halloween night, the lack of bowls placed out even at the quiet homes where they can’t answer the door for trick-or-treaters, hell, it was the lack of trick-or-treaters over these last few years.

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Now, it’s another lack, and though it might still be early this year, I noticed it too last year, the year before, and the year before that. Driving around my sleepy little town used to look like you fell directly into a Hallmark movie, one that probably stars Lacey Chabert and probably involves a big city guy and a small-town hunk that owns his late parent’s tree farm or something. Everywhere you looked, lights, decorations, snowmen, music. Every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving in Helena, there was the Parade of Lights in which anyone could enter a parade float, travel down the length of the walking mall with fanfare and almost the entire town out to support. Anchoring the festivities was Santa Claus, and I mean THE Santa Claus, the actual one, I’m convinced of it. Photo proof attached below.

Over the last few years, things have changed. Fewer and fewer people come out for it, the parade floats have mostly been replaced by people towing their own snowmobiles on flatbed trailers, or driving those side-by-side four-wheeler type things with big stickers advertising Monster Energy Drinks or Red Bull or any number of other gas station favorites. Last year, there was no parade, instead they simply had the “floats” stationary on the sidewalk and people could walk by and look at them. There were 3, and that’s being generous as one was literally a plastic tree on a tiny trailer with a single strand of lights.

This long-winded rant about the slow decline of festivity and community based interaction is about something bigger, and for me, it’s the why. WHY have things changed so much? Why are community-based events so much quieter now, why do fewer people (at least here, remember I’m not commenting on what might truly be a Hallmark-esque haven wherever you call home) hang lights, come to parades, carve pumpkins, or ask for treats instead of tricks? I wonder of this, and I look back at my own photos, my own observations, and I cannot help but notice a trend.

That trend emerges with even greater clarity for Sarah and I, as it might for any of you feeling the same and also in the same position we are in, and I think that’s because we’re co-raising teenagers.

Distraction, in the end, just simple distraction.

We’ve had this chat before, I wrote an entire piece on it back in April, and it’s below for any who might have missed it.

Nevertheless, I think we’re all victims to this now, this great distraction, this constancy of something, of everything, to provide the distraction. With our mobile phones, with streaming services piping in fresh, hot content 24/7 onto our giant TVs on our walls, onto our little iPads on our laps, onto our even littler iPhones in our hands, with any song you can ever imagine at your fingertips, every film you’ve ever seen a click away, how then are we ever bored?

If we’re never bored, how then do we seek out something to cure that boredom? How then do we need something else to make us feel connected. We’re always connected, aren’t we? Always.

I’ll ask you a simple question, and perhaps you’ll tell me it’s not so simple at all, but I’ll ask all the same: What happens when we are no longer ever bored, what happens when we no longer have to wait a week for an episode of our favorite tv show, when we no longer have to find a way to distract ourselves, as all things are instantly in our palms?

What happens on a bigger scale, to community as a whole, as we become further and further isolated? Has this great wave of distraction taken away our collective efforts to be part of more communal based things? Has it stripped away the want as it decimated the need?

I know it seems a silly metric to define my own observation, but it’s the damn lights in the end that tipped me off, that got me wondering in some late night shower that had me asking bigger questions from smaller things. The lights, and as a chaser of the light, I suppose it makes sense. I remember driving as a child through this town, half the population then as now, and seeing the whole thing lit up. Everywhere, lights, everywhere, twinkling.

The lights were, and I still think are, a message, a signal fire of its own sort, that let everyone else know, proudly, Hey, we are here, we’re with you in this darkness, we’ll help shine it out. Winter here, especially here in Montana, is brutal. It’s dark until almost 9 am each morning, and then dark again at 4:30pm each evening. It’s cold, freezing cold with temperatures often hitting into the -40s Fahrenheit with wind chill for weeks and weeks at a time. Then, the snow. Mountains and mountains of snow that have you up before sunrise to shovel off the driveway, sweep off the cars, and hope the plows make it to your road before you have to go. It’s brutal. Plain and simple.

The lights help, they’ve always helped. They used to go up early in the season, they used to stay up later, a little message of hope that the warmth will return, and that until it did, we’d defiantly throw glow into the gloom. As a child, my Dad would comment anytime we drove through town, labeling any house without a single light as a “Bah Humbug” house. We’d tsk, we’d shake our heads, we’d feel sad for them, albeit a bit disappointed.

Now, it’s more humbug than it is hopeful, more darkness than light. Not always, not everywhere, but as a whole, it’s so much less light. I know this because I see it from where I live, elevated above the town in a jet-black house like Edward Scissorhands, a perfect view of the twinkling that does, or does not come.

Maybe it’s not the phones, maybe it’s not Netflix or HBO Max, or Hulu’s, or TikTok's fault, maybe. I don’t know, but something shifted, something changed, and we’ve all gotten so much quieter in our collective spirit. We’ve all battened down the hatches just a bit too tightly, forgot that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves. That the Signal Fire dies if we do not spread its message, if we do not light our own torches to show those miles away to do the same. Something changed, and it hurts.

Maybe you can tell me, maybe you can shine a little light of your own by telling me it’s not the same, not for you, not where you are. Maybe it’ll be the reminder you needed to put the lights up on your own home, no matter what you believe, what represents the holiday for you, be it Santa or the Menorah, Yule logs, or nothing at all. It’s just light, in the end, just a reminder that we’re all in this darkness together, and together, we can push back the shadow.

At least until the warmth returns. At least until the sun rises a bit earlier, and sets a bit later. At least until we’re there. At least.

Ring in if you please, tell me your opinions, tell me what you see. Light the lights, spread the warmth, hold the hope.

Song of the Week

Never done anything like this before on Signal Fire, but I figured why the hell not? I’ve been reading articles about how the number one most requested gift each year is either cash or gift cards, and while that’s economical and probably the least selfish way you could satisfy the requirements of your gift list, it also just kind of sucks. What also kinda sucks is randomly having to put stuff behind a paywall, but it’s what the experts say is the best way to convince people hanging out on the Free side to upgrade and join the real party (and help support my labors here!) so I decided as a little gift to all of you, this 2024 Signal Fire Gift Guide is free for EVERYONE! (That was said in the Scrooge joyful yell that ends A Christmas Carol, just so you know.)

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Let’s get on with it. Here’s some stuff that if you’ve got gifts to give, I think would make delightful additions, as they are all things that make my life better, happier, and generally radder. I’ll try to toss stuff in for all different budgets, so if you’re short on cash you can still give something groovy, and if you’re flush with it, you can also do the same.

Onward.

2024 Signal Fire Gift Guide

• Heated Neck Wrap Thing - We’re all on devices way too much, we’re all raising our shoulders to brace against the terrifying future that’s always knocking on our door, so we need help fixing the tight shoulders that plague us all. This helps. Microwave it, feel the weight lowering your shoulders, and feel a bit better. Call it resistance against the system we’re fighting. It is.

  

• Kindle Paperwhite - I thought “what do I use EVERY SINGLE DAY” and the first answer that came to mind was this. I am a book lover, but I also live in a frozen tundra, so the ability to read thousands of books with only one frostbitten hand sticking out from my nighttime covers (with a warm orange light in the dark) is magic. Plus, if you travel EVER, this is a space/weight saver. Plus, read more.

  

• A 2025 Chasers of the Light Calendar - If you don’t know what day it is, how can you know when to do the things you probably don’t wanna do? How do you know when to cancel your dentist appointment for the 11th time? You don’t. This one rocks and gives you art to look at every day. Rad.

  

• Loose leaf green tea + peppermint tea - We drink gallons of this every day, and if it wasn’t for buying in bulk we’d be broker than we are. That’s a truth. I love this company for its no frills 2002 looking website and the speed at which they ship. Way cheaper, and better for the environment than buying tea bags, plus it tastes better.

  

• California Cowboy High Sierra Flannel - It’s expensive, I know, but it’s like a shirt, a jacket, a hug, an adventure buddy, and a fanny pack all in one thing. So if you think of it that way, it’s not really. I’ve gifted these before and they were huge, huge hits. Daily wear, you’ve seen me in these a lot.

  

• A Signal Fire GIFT Subscription! - Cue *cringey* comments from the youths on this self promo, but, if you’re already here for freesies, you can gift yourself, if you’re a paid subscriber and want someone else to experience the majestic feeling of karmic bliss that comes with supporting me for all my hard work and deep care for all of you, that works too. This is a gift that keeps on giving.

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• ANY Used Fuji x100 Series Camera - You don’t need a new one, trust me, the frills are fun, but I actually think the older, shittier, slower versions, are more fun. They photos feel instead of look, and you can make your own film filters and you don’t even have to edit them once done. Plus it’s the size you can carry anywhere so you don’t miss a beat. I’ve been making monthly “Fuji Journals” with an old x100F that my buddy Gregory Alan Isakov gave me, where it’s just shit that happens in day to day life and I adore it. HIGHLY Recommend this.

  

• Spotify Premium - I’m sure there are better music services out there, probably cheaper, probably higher quality audio (or a shuffle that works better) but dammit, then you don’t get to join in the Spotify Wrapped frenzy that everyone else does. Music is peace, calm, joy, release, and medicine. Give it.

• CUSTOM Poem by me - Just like music is medicine, poetry is therapy. I’ve written HUNDREDS of custom poems, taking your stories, your loves, your fears, your wishes, and crafting them into custom-one-off pieces of art. You get the original, straight from the typewriter, the only one in existence. It’s a gift that I’m told has been super special 1000% of the time. That’s an insane ratio.

  

• Riff Raff Baked Goods Charity Loaf - My lovely wife, who operates started baking “The Helena” which is a loaf that you buy, but instead of eating yourself, get to donate to the Helena Food Share, providing healthy, homemade, artisan bread to those less fortunate. It’s at a discounted rate from her normal loaves, just covering her time and materials, and it helps provide sustenance to strangers. How beautiful.

  

Now I’m worn out, so I am gonna go write some new poetry. I hope this was helpful, I hope you had fun, and I Hope you found some fun ideas for your generous heart to enjoy.

I love you all.