Winter Solstice Letter from Cressida Pryor
December 17, 2025

Dear FOI Friends,

As the Winter Solstice draws near this year I feel especially anxious for its arrival.

The dark clouds of global conflict and destruction seem too close for comfort. The Solstice will be carrying a heavy weight of work to help drive light, hope and peace into our world.

One small harbinger of the increase in light was reading recently that scientists at MIT have captured one of the most extraordinary moments in biology: the exact instant fertilization occurs. And it's marked by a breathtaking microscopic phenomenon known as the "zinc spark."

This dazzling flash of light happens the moment a sperm successfully meets an egg. The egg releases millions of zinc ions in a sudden burst, creating a shimmer so brief it can only be seen with powerful microscopes. First observed in mouse eggs, researchers later confirmed the same phenomenon in human eggs, proving that this tiny spark is a universal signal of life beginning.

Beyond its beauty, the zinc spark is a critical scientific discovery. It serves as a reliable indicator that fertilization has truly succeeded, giving embryologists and fertility specialists a new tool to understand and monitor the miracle of conception.

Does this spark of light that heralds the start of new life, of every life, perhaps herald the Divine Goddess spark within each of us?

She is within us; plain old ordinary you and me…inviting us to take the risk of love, even though it opens up to the possibility of getting hurt, being scared and feeling disappointed…Perhaps acknowledging this universality can help us honour the dignity and value of everyone.

To conclude with the words of poet Christina Rossetti:

‘Dimmest and brightest month am I;
My short days end, my lengthening days begin;
What matters more or less sun in the sky,
When all is sun within?’

So, dear Friends, let us do our part in bringing hope, light and peace into our world; remembering and honouring the Divine spark within ourselves and every one of us…