Episode 12: 2026 – The Year of Embodied Imagination

As we arrive at the end of 2025, this episode of Root + Rise is an invitation to take stock of all that this year has asked of us – personally, collectively.

I reflect on 2025 – the year of the Wood Snake in the Chinese calendar – as a year of profound shedding, completion and a time when old systems, identities, and ways of being have been chiselled away to reveal something more essential beneath.

Moving from personal reflection into the wider collective field, this episode explores what it means to stand at the threshold of a new cycle. I speak to the collapse of unsustainable structures, reclaiming energetic sovereignty in an age of hyper-stimulation and surveillance, and why rooting in inner authority is essential as we move through these times.

At the heart of this conversation is the reclamation of imagination through an exploration of what it truly is, beyond just make believe, and why it matters so much at this time  – and the threats to it. I introduce the idea of embodied imagination, and how that's an access point to our mutlidimensional human potential.

As 2026 opens as a 1 year numerology, the beginning of a brand new cycle, this episode is a call to step into your role as a steward and architect of what’s emerging, via your imagination and grounded in the body, the nervous system and your inner authority.

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Intro & Outro Music: Coniferous Forest by orangery on Pixabay.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:22

You hello and welcome to root and rise this space where we drop into the deeper, faster, multi dimensional rhythms that direct and govern life. I'm Rohini Walker, thank you for tuning in and wow. So here we are at the end of 2025, and doesn't this year feel like it's really flown by. I know it feels like that every year, and this year that feels especially true, like, how is it the end of December already? And to be honest, I've had some interesting experiences with linear time this year that have been quite revealing in terms of it not being quite as concrete as we're led to believe. And the hyper accelerated experience of 2025, points to that for me as well. But if I was to say one thing that my experiments with time have shown me this year is that the more I slow down and pause and breathe and attune to my own pace and suspend the belief that there isn't enough time, as Well as release any misaligned doing time seems to expand in response. It's like it exhales, because I'm not trying to do everything, and I'm not trying to fill up every moment with doing and with consuming information, and in that space, everything that's supposed to get done is done. This has also given me a slowed down, contemplative experience of what this year has been, and it's been a lot. Yep, 2025 has definitely tested our limits and boundaries, collectively and for many of us personally too, to put it mildly, and I want us all to celebrate ourselves for having made it through this year like seriously and having made it through the past five years since the beginning of 2020. Can we just take a moment to acknowledge all that this year has been, all that the past five years have been, and honor all the ways that we have risen to it, and also honor all the ways that we have not likely because we didn't have the capacity to And to let that be okay. Can we honor our full spectrum humanness for having lived through 2025 because we have lived through it, and here we are on the threshold of a new unfolding, collectively and globally and personally, for many of us, 2025 has definitely lived up to being the year of the wood snake, which is what it is in the Chinese calendar, the year of shedding what's ready to be shed. In numerology, it was a nine year, which is the completion of a cycle before a brand new one begins with a one year, which is what 2026 is, and more on that in a minute, collectively, what we've witnessed in 2025 and will continue to witness, and which really began in 2020 is old systems and structures dissolving astrologically and from a human design perspective, this has aligned with what 2025 was expected to be. But don't worry, if you're not an astrology or human design person. I'm not going to start talking about that. I'm distilling my own understanding from astrology and from human design for what 2025 has been and what 2026 promises to be and has in store. So yes, systems and structures that can no longer sustain themselves have begun to crumble and collapse. The Rot in existing rotten systems has finally set in and is being exposed for all to see. And it's not a pretty sight, of course, for the first time in history, we're seeing conversations taking place in mainstream spaces, questioning the status quo, questioning left and right, because neither work, and questioning accepted narratives and the invisible power structures that keep them in place. And it's taken a lot to get here, for sure, it hasn't been an enjoyable ride, albeit a wild one. We've been in it. Like I said, from the beginning of 2020 a lot is under threat as well. A lot of the freedoms and rights that have been hard won. And I really want to highlight that it's completely necessary to both feel the despair and anger and fear that's coming up and to know that we get to be the stewards and architects of what's emerging if we want to be, if we're being called to be, because as old hierarchical, top down power structures inevitably crumble little old. You and me are going to matter when it comes to visioning and building something new, because as of 2026 we're going to be well and truly in the gravitational field of the Aquarian Age and a whole new epoch that's ruled by the air element, which means many things, one of which is that what we put our attention on consistently is really going to matter. It's also a time where each of our unique sole purpose really gets to be the field through which we co create what's emerging for the collective I know many of you are feeling like you were born for this moment in time, and you're feeling that way because You were pay attention to it and call your energy back to you, gather your energy back by intentionally breathing it back to you. Every time you notice it's becoming scattered and dispersed and hooked into and drained. Sovereignty over your energy is going to be especially important moving forward. So of course, what we're seeing now as old systems and structures are dying off, are their final flailing grasps to hang out onto power, a rise in conservatism, a rise in moral absolutism, a rise in polarization. Big tech is being used for hyper surveillance and hyper polarization to control and manipulate and to keep people's energy and attention hooked in to constantly, endlessly consuming information from screens and from algorithms, which are more and more dictating our reality, to the point where it's common to feel anxious and untethered unless we're Engaging with screens, because that's what's being normalized for us. We're being trained to find our center in this screen and in consuming information from out there, and when we're doing that, we're disconnected from an unconscious of our true center within and of our inner authority, because when we're rooted in our inner authority, we can't be controlled and manipulated. We have our own powers of critical thinking and discerned feeling and sensing and being able to be with Nuance. We have all of those powers online, and I can't overstate the importance of this right now, especially if you're being called to step into CO creating new emergent systems that are not just another version of what came before, but something radically different for me, 2025 has been many forms of shedding, and one of those has been stepping off online spaces that feel dissonant to my nervous system, that feel like my energy is being grabbed at and hooked into because it is and that leave me feeling drained and depleted. It's not healthy to engage with real life human connections and make us feel this way. And the same goes for online spaces. So pay attention to how you're feeling and let that guide you, instead of the shooting voice that tells you that it's not possible to be a valid human in the world unless you're on Instagram or Tiktok or Facebook. Is Facebook even sort of thing, or wherever, while your nervous system is pleading with you to stop it already. Someone recently asked me why I stepped off Instagram, and the answer that blurted out of my mouth was because junk food makes me sick. And to me, Instagram feels like junk food. It may not feel that way for you, the invitation here is to feel into what's true for you and trust that be guided by that regardless of what anyone else says. And really 2025 has been personally for me, down on following my own inner guidance and inner authority on all fronts, even when it doesn't make sense. This meant a lot of intentional and spontaneous shedding of misalignment, including misaligned connections and being with any sadness that comes up as a result, as well as allowing in the relief that's also present, it's meant leaning into the resulting empty space without rushing to fill it up. And these last two months, the heat has definitely been turned up in the crucible of transformative shedding that this year has been and that's saying something, because there have been some full on personal experiences of loss and grief and straight up What the f is going on moments throughout this year. I know many of you can relate, and this doesn't even include what we've been moving through collectively. I remember listening to or reading a human design transmission at the beginning of the year, and it said that you won't feel like the same person that you were the beginning of 2025 as you will at the end of 2025 and of course, every year, every cycle works us and changes us. This year, though I'm remembering that and I'm feeling the truth of it, I've sat in a lot of emptiness this year and allowed it to chisel away at me, not to make me different or more or better, but to chisel away at what was in the way of my essence. And I think for me, that's why I've had to step off spaces that require performance and hype and always being plugged in and especially performing and commodifying my process, which erodes true intensity of life. In my opinion, periodically throughout this year, I've remembered what Michelangelo was supposed to have said about every block of stone having a statue inside it, and that it's the sculpture's task to discover it and liberate it, and that's what 2025 has felt like for me, and I'm still in that space for sure, life in all her wisdom is still chiseling away. Let's take a moment to pause here and tune into what your process has felt like this year. How has the shedding and the completion of cycles shown up for you? It could be completely different to what I've just described as mine. Can you take a moment to acknowledge all the ways that this year has radically worked. You do you feel different to who you were in January? And it doesn't matter if you don't. We are all moving through this pivotal time together, and life has been chiseling away at you too, regardless of whether you feel different. So on winter solstice earlier this month, I was sitting outside absorbing the solstice sunlight in the morning here in the California high desert where I live, and I spontaneously dropped into a sort of remembering and reflecting of this year. It all passed before me in my awareness, and it felt so profound and so like I was being guided even during the really heavy and challenging moments, and the times when I was in resistance, how life was showing up for me, and when I was being shown deeper, unmet shadows. And right then, sitting in the winter solstice morning light, I was seeing it all from a newer, wider perspective, and my whole system opened up to receiving it all and celebrating myself for having moved through it all. And the message that came through is that we're all being prepared, which I knew intellectually, like that surface level mental knowing, but this time it landed deeply, somatically in my belly. So whomever that resonates with on a somatic level as well. That's for you as well and prepared for what well. That depends on the timelines we put our energy and attention on in this coming unfolding new cycle and any new creative cycle that's evolving beyond what came before begins in the space of our imagination and in our capacity to hold new possibilities. And one of the big themes of 2025 for me, has been about getting clear and intimate with the true nature of the imagination, because 2026 and beyond is going to require us to work with our imaginations to create and innovate beyond the bounds of what we've been told is, quote, unquote, possible. And more importantly, 2026 is an invitation to stop outsourcing our world creating powers of imagination to big tech, and especially to AI, which is ultimately, at least for now, run by big tech and its handful of oligarchs who certainly don't have the well being of humanity in mind, or if they do, they're doing a great job at hiding it. Okay? So I'm not going to go into a whole thing about AI right now that probably needs its own dedicated episode. And I'd love your questions around that. If you are interested in an episode around that. What I want to say now is that I'm not necessarily anti AI. I use chat GPT sparingly now and then. It's helpful for tech related questions and occasionally as a VA or virtual assistant. And I also can't stop thinking about how much water and power My questions are consuming. I'm not anti AI. I'm wary of it, and I'm definitely not jumping on the bandwagon. First of all, because I don't think humanity's collective consciousness has evolved enough to work with AI in a responsible, life affirming way, which we're seeing right now. We're like a child behind the wheel of a very fast and powerful car, and there's more to say on that, but I'll leave it there for now. But on the topic of the imagination, I'm wary of AI, because we're outsourcing our innate powers of creativity and imagination to it in the name of convenience, which is essentially scarcity based thinking not enough time, I'm not good enough and so on. And the world that wants to be born right now that has the potential to be born at this time requires humans who are in full possession of their powers of imagination, also from a human design and astrology lens. The next five to 10 years and beyond is going to be the period that holds the potential of us fulfilling our human potential, not through machines, but through the evolution of our own consciousness and our capacity to integrate and embody who and What we really are, which is a lot more than we've been led to believe by the dogma of scientific materialism. So what I mean by imagination is not only make believe in fantasizing, our powers of imagination also allow us to feel and sense and see and perceive what's not yet manifest in physical 3d reality, imagination is the space in which we get to connect with what's waiting to emerge into material reality from the subtler layers and dimensions of reality. There's a brilliant graphic novel series called Promethea by Alan Moore, who is a wizard. And I highly recommend Promethea if you're into alchemy and mythology and the Kabbalah. In Promethea, the imagination is brilliantly rendered as the immaterial, which is also what my sub stack newsletter happens to be named after. The immaterial is the dimension of reality that gives rise to all form and phenomena and materiality, what we'd call physical reality, and we can perceive and access this dimension of the immaterial through our imaginations, and from there, allow the creative impulses of what's waiting to emerge to become embodied and expressed through us. Maybe the best known advocate for the imagination was Einstein, who famously said Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there will ever be to know and understand. And he also said, logic will get you from A to Z, imagination will get you everywhere. This isn't to say that logic and knowledge don't have their place. They absolutely do, but they operate within the bounds of what's already known, logic and knowledge are necessary to maintain existing systems and structures because they're a product of them. They're closed system mechanisms and in themselves, logic and knowledge that they don't birth radically new innovations and systems and structures which come from open system, thinking, feeling and perceiving, and which is what 2026 and beyond has the potential for. Because, as we're seeing, the old unsustainable systems are on their way out. And then when new systems emerge, the logic and knowledge that are relevant to them will be implemented to maintain them until they're ready to dissolve and evolve. So we can't co create new realities when we are operating from the logic and knowledge of the systems that are dissolving. We go beyond the city limits into the wilderness and uncharted terrain and into open system, thinking, sensing and perceiving and the architecture of the imagination is that of an open system. It's right brained, and it has the capacity for multi dimensional feeling and sensing, again, not only make believe, but also our innate capacity to perceive and neurocept beyond the physical 3d level of reality, to really engage with our imaginations in this way, not only for our own personal lives, but for the collective and in communities with others. This evolves our own human consciousness, which can then maybe allow us to work with AI if we choose to to implement innovation responsibly, rather than outsource and abandon our own innate powers in the name of convenience and speed. This brings me to embodied imagination. And again, this isn't about make believe and fake it till you make it, which has nothing to do with true embodiment and integration. And in fact, fake it till you make it actually causes more stress in our nervous systems because of the lack of embodiment and integration, and it creates weird distortions in our energy fields. Embodied imagination comes from the somatic, felt sense experience of our multi dimensional natures. Okay, let me back up a bit. Anything. That we want to and are inspired to create or make or experience is first and foremost perceived in the imagination. So say I want to make something delicious to eat, even if I'm following a recipe, I experience it first and foremost in my imagination, which sort of downloads it into my physical senses. And depending on what that experience feels like, I'll go ahead and get the ingredients to make it the spark of desire and inspiration, which is the first experience of the thing that's being created, happens through our capacity to imagine. And the same goes for everything that we're inspired to create. And then we experience the thing that is created on the physical level of reality right at the end, that's the very last bit of the process. It begins first and foremost in our imaginations, in the unmanifest, in the immaterial. The thing we're inspired to create or experience already exists on that plane, and we access it and get our first taste of it via the imagination. Without the imagination, we wouldn't be able to create and innovate, and we are inherently creative beings. So when we marginalize and trivialize the imagination, as we've been trained to do with our education and schooling systems. We're cutting ourselves off from our innate creativity and potential. Okay, so back to embodied imagination, the capacity to somatically, physically feel and sense. What we're connecting with in and via our imaginations is embodied imagination. In a nutshell, in esoteric alchemical terms, our bodies and nervous systems are becoming the vessel in which spirit and matter are being united, and a whole new creation emerges. Our capacity to create, even something mundane and pedestrian and every day and to engage in the process of creation is a profoundly divine and mystical act, and it all begins in the imagination. Again, it bears repeating that embodied imagination is not vacant till you make it. Embodied imagination is when you genuinely feel and know yourself and all of existence as multi dimensional, and so when you're touching into something that you're inspired to create via your imagination, you genuinely feel and know it as real, just as real as the chair you may be sitting on your understanding and experience of reality as multi dimensional has expanded to go beyond the closed system constructs of scientific materialism that says that this physical 3d reality is all that there is. There's no faking and pretending happening. You're having an embodied experience of the truth that you are multi dimensional and that you have the capacity to access and create from multi dimensional states of consciousness, and it all happens via the imagination and through our bodies and nervous systems in collaboration. Okay, so if you're still here and with me after all this, I must be speaking your language. So this brings me to 2026, and beyond. For those of us feeling the truth of this, what I've just spoken to, we're being called to really step into and reclaim these world creating powers in our own lives and in our communities. And if that sounds grandiose, good, because 2026, is a one year in numerology, coming after nine, which is the end of and the completion of a cycle. A one year is all about the start of a whole new cycle and stepping into our own creative powers to become stewards and architects of something radically new and evolutionary. It's about stewarding those big, impossible dreams into physical reality, and equally, it's about staying authentic to yourself and not trying to live and create in ways that don't feel aligned. So it's all about really coming into alignment with your truth, your authentic values, and engaging your world, creating powers of embodied imagination from there and 2026 is also the year of the fire horse in Chinese astrology. And bear in mind, of course, that the Chinese, in their wisdom, follow the lunar calendar, and the lunar new year begins in February. So the energies of the fire horse also definitely correspond to everything I've just spoken to about the one year, especially the unapologetic stepping into your own potential and powers of creating. The Fire horse is all about innovating beyond the logic and knowledge and city limits of the systems that are dying in other astrological systems and in human design, these same overarching energies are present for what this year is heralding in, which is definitely not about recreating more of the same, but really getting behind the truth that everything that we've been told is too idealistic and unrealistic and impossible do actually get to be accessed by our imaginations from the immaterial where they already exist and birthed and stewarded into the world through us. For me, this means tuning out the noise regularly and tuning in and becoming really discerning and choosy about the information that I'm choosing to take in. It's about choosing spaces that don't feel like they're energetically hooking you, because then you have to spend time and energy clearing and unhooking. And I know I talk about this a lot, and it's because it's such a key ingredient to reclaiming and wielding our creative powers at this time, because the dying systems are doing all they can to hold on, and this means keeping our attention and energy constantly hooked into polarizing narratives and expiring paradigms. I'm also not talking about looking away from and bypassing the very real atrocities that are taking place. This is about engaging with what's going on from a place of energetic sovereignty, where you know and feel what your energy feels like and what doesn't it's not about emotional reactivity, because then you're hooked in and feeding what's ready to die, but rather, it's about feeling and processing our emotions and allowing the energy that's bound up in them to be released and integrated so that We have more access to more of ourselves. This is how we can actually best serve the causes that we're here to advocate for. Okay, so we've moved through a lot here, and while I could go on for the sake of digestion and integration, I'm going to stop here and just invite you to pause and take a breath together. Let whatever resonated for you land in your system and in your body with an inhale, and let whatever didn't resonate be released with an exhale. And if any triggers came up, yay, you're alive and feeling life, make some space for them and welcome them in with your breath. And for those of you feeling the call, feeling enlivened and energized by what I've spoken to, feeling ready to step into your new cycle of CO creating and working with your powers of embodied imagination, I'd love to welcome you into my membership space, root and rise, which is open for winter enrollment until January 5. Everything that I've talked about here are very much the waters that we swim in, in root and rise the membership, including trauma informed Somatic Experiencing practice, so that we can bring compassion and resolution and integration to any parts of us that are still looping in old patterns and all old trauma patterns, we root and we rise in community. The link to register is in the show notes. And I want to end with a quote from one of my favorite, favorite authors, Philip Pullman, from his latest and long awaited book, The Rose field. It's the finale to a two part trilogy that is very near and dear to my heart. So the rose field, which came out in 2025 is all about the imagination and why it matters and how it's under threat, and reading it was just such a delightful synchronicity of being met where I was in my own explorations this past year. So here's the quote that I want to share. Without imagination, you never see the truth about anything. Without imagination, you think you see more truth, but in fact, you see less. And with that, thank you for listening, for being willing to take part in this conversation. After all that 2025 has been may 2026 be your year of taking a bold step into your multi dimensional human potential, until next time you.