The Liminal — Snow Moon Cycle — January 2026
JANUARY 18, 2026 · THE SNOW MOON · NINTH ISSUE · WWW.FOXANDTHISTLE.STUDIO
THE FOX & THISTLE Liminal
A MONTHLY CREATIVE ALMANAC weaving together ART, EXPRESSION, and REFLECTIONS
Look Out For: Leafless trees, holly berries, camellia flowers, winter jasmine, roadside grasses, wild onions, winter wheat, greens in hoop houses, empty fields, frost-heaved soil, thin ice, Canada geese, mourning doves, cardinals, nuthatches, blue jays, busy crows, rabbit paths, deer tracks, chimney smoke, gloomy skies, early darkness, & long nights.
Look Up For: A new moon on January 18th darkens the sky, stretching long winter nights. The full Snow Moon—named for deep midwinter snows—rises on February 1st, brightening frozen fields and bare trees. As the Moon wanes from full toward mid-February, it offers dark skies for stars and constellations, while Jupiter shines high in the evening and Saturn glows low after sunset.
THE SNOW MOON CYCLE → → → ● 1/18 🌙 1/25 ◯ 2/01 🌙 2/09 ● 2/17 ⋯ NEXT: THE WORM MOON
THE LIMINAL is published in concert with our 2026 FORTNIGHT CALENDAR, a free download is available for subscribers.
Inside this Issue: Stepping Stones, Early Italian Printing, Necessary Limitations, Dolphin & Anchor, Grief & Guardianship, Winter Pruning, a Meditation on Uncertainty, Winter Lentils Recipe, & the 2025 Doomsday Hintercast
Fox & Thistle Studio has reached a small but meaningful milestone: we are now certified as a Small Business through Virginia's SWaM program.
Thank you for your continued support as we grow our studio.
CERTIFIED Small, Women, and Minority-Owned SWaM Supplier Diversity Strengthens the Commonwealth by the Virginia Department of Small Business & Supplier Diversity
PLINTH & LAUD
"Those who cultivate letters must be supplied with the books necessary for their purpose..."
Aldus Manutius was a humanist and scholar who combined typography and editorial excellence with elegant design. He pioneered the Aldine Press, one of the most influential printing houses of the Italian Renaissance. It produced some of the first printed editions of many Greek and Latin classics, and introduced the octavo format which is considered to be the predecessor to the paperback, revolutionizing personal reading. The printing house also played a crucial role in standardizing punctuation like the comma and semicolon; and was instrumental in the proliferation of what later became italics; which was introduced in its 1501 edition of Virgil.
PLINTH & LAUD is a short highlight paying homage to the influential visionaries whose legacies continue to captivate and enchant our imaginations.
FESTINA LENTE — MAKE HASTE SLOWLY
Part One: CONSTRAINT — Motion gains meaning with Resistance.
The ALDINE PRESS adopted the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor as its emblem—one of the earliest known examples of commercial branding in printing.
The scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam later associated this pairing with the phrase Festina Lente, a maxim often attributed to Augustus Caesar. Both the image and the motto can be traced further back to ancient Greece. On the island of Delos in the Cyclades, a floor mosaic depicting the same motif from the end of the Hellenistic period appears in the House of the Trident.
In the coming months, I'll be exploring Festina Lente and reimagining different historical representations of the age-old push & pull between urgency and deliberation.
I've chosen to limit this study to a monotype woodcut style. The narrow parameters allow several things at once—a focus on composition and symbolism, the simplicity transfers well onto products in the shop, and any designs that come out of this project can be reworked into more sophisticated pieces later.
Over the next six issues:
Dolphin & Anchor: CONSTRAINT
Snail & Rabbit: TIME
Crab & Butterfly: TRANSFORMATION
Turtle & Sail: AGENCY
Diamond Ring & Foliage: COMMITMENT
Dolphin & Chameleon: ADAPTATION
The following images are drawn from different traditions that attend to the loss of a child—miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion, or early loss—marking presence where language falters.
JIZO STATUES
Jizo statues are placed throughout Japan as silent guardians of children who passed on before their parents. It is said that their souls are not allowed to cross the river into the afterlife, and they are condemned to stack rocks every night along the river's edge for the sorrow that they have caused. Each morning, the rocks are knocked down by a devil and they need to begin again. They are commonly adorned in red by those left behind, to protect them from this terrible fate. They stand quietly through the seasons as reminders of love and grief.
no words
THE DRAGONFLY
Dragonflies spend the majority of their lives underwater, and their transformation is no less miraculous—if less performative—than that of the butterfly. In their fleeting, luminous time in the air, they flit around with the same agility and dexterity as hummingbirds. Unaffected by the affairs of humans, they often seem companions, moving just beyond reach. In their brevity, they signify continuity, visitation, and reshape our expectations of what presence means.
nearby
CHERUBS
In ancient Jewish texts, cherubim were majestic, multi-winged guardians of sacred spaces and the boundaries between realms. Centuries later, Greek and Roman artists depicted winged children—Eros and Cupid—symbols of love and desire. In Christian traditions, these threads were woven together into the familiar cherubs, moving among the living and the lost, carrying messages of protection, presence, and the tender persistence of love. It is said they linger at thresholds, close by but unseen, offering gentle guardianship and quiet assurance that love endures beyond loss.
you matter
Limits make attention possible. Not to explain care, but to stay close to it, to practice it.
WINTER PRUNING
Espalier is an ancient gardening technique, its origins captured in paintings from late Bronze Age Egypt. Trees are trained to grow flat against walls or supports, maximizing fruit production in limited spaces; the practice was later embraced by the Romans and further refined in the quiet monasteries of medieval northern Europe.
Low Tide
by Richard W. Saunders
am i missing out on all the things
i wish i would have done?
what is it i wish to do?
and if i do, i've won?
or have i gained on all the things
that were lost in none?
there is no solid in between,
and in between i've come.
More poems in the Verses section of our blog, IMPETUS INACTION
No praise is finer than that which is passed along by our readers, please pass the LIMINAL along!
KETTLE & CRUMB
Simple, seasonal recipes—tried & true, from Fox & Thistle's kitchen.
PREPARATIONS FOR SHORT DAYS & LONG NIGHTS
Winter Lentils
PREP 10 min
COOK 25-30 min
TOTAL 40 min
SERVES 2-4
Lentils are among humanity's oldest cultivated foods. This simple dish, finished with olive oil and sour wine, has roots as far back as the Bronze Age, long before any written recipes from that period have been found.
• 1 cup brown or green lentils
• 3 cups water
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 1-2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp dried oregano or thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
1. Rinse lentils thoroughly.
2. Place lentils, water, bay leaf, and onion in a pot.
3. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer.
4. Cook uncovered 25-30 minutes, until tender but not mushy. Add garlic in the final 5 minutes.
5. Remove from heat. Discard bay leaf.
6. Stir in olive oil, vinegar, herbs, and salt.
7. Rest 5 minutes before serving.
*Serve with rustic bread
In 2025, the United States faced a relentless series of natural disasters, health crises, and social challenges that tested the nation’s resilience. Wildfires tore through the West, with the worst early in the year near Los Angeles. The Palisades Fire burned over 23,000 acres, destroying 6,837 structures and claiming 12 lives, while the Eaton Fire consumed more than 14,000 acres amid drought and fierce Santa Ana winds. Across the country, more than 5 million acres went up in flames, causing tens of billions in damages in California alone. Severe storms, floods, and tornadoes struck from coast to coast. A massive March tornado outbreak produced over 100 confirmed tornadoes, and in July, catastrophic flooding in the Hill Country of central Texas claimed at least 125 lives. The Atlantic churned out 13 named storms, five hurricanes, and four major hurricanes—none of which made landfall, the first time this has happened since 2015. Alaska was shaken by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in Sand Point in July and another 7.0 near Hubbard Glacier in December. In the West, drought and water shortages worsened, with the Colorado River Basin remaining parched and fueling fire risk. Extreme heat swept the country, claiming hundreds of lives. Measles cases spiked to 2,444, the largest outbreak in decades, with roughly 49 flare-ups largely affecting under-vaccinated communities. Bird flu, tuberculosis, respiratory illnesses, and influenza added to the public health toll. Homelessness climbed, possibly as much as 15% over the previous year, as rising housing costs and natural disasters displaced thousands, with African Americans disproportionately affected. Mass shootings numbered just above 400, claiming roughly 420 lives and injuring approximately 1,900, down slightly from 2024. Police killings persisted at over 1,000, with stark racial disparities. Suicides remained near 50,000, and calls to crisis lifelines spiked during heat waves and disasters. Immigration enforcement actions reached historically high levels, with hundreds of thousands of deportations and voluntary exits. Food prices climbed, with overall costs up about 2.6% in 2025, groceries rising roughly 2% and meals out closer to 4%. Eggs, ground beef, and coffee were hit particularly hard by bird flu, cattle infestations, aging farmers, limited livestock supplies, and tariffs on imports. Science and federal data collection took major hits, as staffing losses and reporting halted at key agencies—including NOAA, census, BLS, education, agriculture, energy, and health offices—left many formerly reliable statistics incomplete, inconsistent, and no longer comparable to previous years, fundamentally changing how we understand what is happening in the world around us.
Sign up to receive this newsletter, THE LIMINAL to your email inbox on the NEW MOON of each month. Go to www.foxandthistle.studio to stay tuned!
WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK! Did a part of the LIMINAL resonate? Or do you have an idea to contribute? Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit—splat, boing, zing! We're on a journey, and your ideas can help shape it!
Thank you for reading. If it moved you, please pass it along.
If you'd like to support the studio, visit the shop or drop something in the tip jar.
Richard W. Saunders
*Photos used under Creative Commons licenses. Full credits at: https://foxandthistle.studio/pages/the-liminal-snow-moon-cycle-january-2026
THE FOX & THISTLE Liminal — is a production of GRIEFNGravy press
THE LIMINAL · Snow Moon Cycle · JAN 18, 2026
Attributions:
Aldine Press Anchor & Dolphin
Pietro Bembo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
"Theaterviertel auf Delos" (Theatre Quarter on Delos) by Olaf Tausch, licensed under CC BY 3.0. Original file: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Delos_Theaterviertel_22.jpg. No changes made
Jizo Statues
Free for use under the Pixabay Content License
Lentil Illustration - Public Domain
Lens culinaris Medik., syn. Vicia lens (L.) Cosson & Germ.
