The Winter Solstice & Melatonin
- Deborah Jayne
- Dec 28, 2025
- 4 min read
Darkness is a womb, the source of creation, the foundation of all wisdom and magic Without darkness, there is no light; without darkness, there is no transformation or rebirth.
The Winter Solstice marks the darkest point of the year and the longest night. It is a moment suspended between the past and the future. It's a time of profound stillness and silence when the veil between the worlds grows thin, and the boundary between the seen and unseen feels almost imperceptible.
The darkness is governed by the feminine; our ancient wisdom, intuition, and vision. Our bodies are not separate from the Earth—they listen to her rhythms of night and day, season and cycle, time and becoming.
At the center of the brain, in an ocean of cerebrospinal fluid, lies the pineal gland, like a seed suspended in still water. Its gift is Melatonin - the hormone released only in darkness. While daylight hormones help us act and achieve, melatonin governs restoration, regeneration, being, and becoming. It is the Mistress Hormone, the feminine intelligence that takes the lead when the world goes dark and quiet.
The name Melatonine, comes from melanos, meaning darkness. It is the elixir of night, known intuitively by ancient cultures through dream, ritual, and myth. The pineal gland—often called the third eye—is an ancient organ of perception, It listens to rhythm rather than image, to time rather than thought.
As Melatonin rises, the body repairs DNA, renews cells, restores mitochondrial energy, and calms the nervous system. The brain integrates experience, new neural pathways form, and the immune system strengthens. This is when the body prepares the ground for growth and becoming.
Melatonin supports deep sleep and dreaming, guiding the brain into intuitive, fertile states where insight, creativity, and vision are born. It regulates the entire hormonal system, ensuring that what we seed in winter has the strength to unfold in the months ahead. Without sufficient darkness and rest, the body struggles to sustain creation. What we gain in wisdom and insights in winter supports our health, energy, and creativity for the next six months
Why Winter Solstice is so important for transformation and rebirth
Melatonin reaches its peak around the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year—a sacred turning point. The quality of melatonin we cultivate during this darker season directly influences our vitality, resilience, and emotional balance for the next six months. It shapes our ‘rebirth’, supports our inner strength as we emerge into spring, increases our creativity and vision of our future, and governs our wellbeing and immunity as the light returns.
When we honor darkness, we are not retreating—we are gestating. Through melatonin, the body remembers how to rest, how to renew, and how to be reborn into the next cycle of life.
The days around the Winter Solstice—the three before and the three after—form a sacred threshold. They offer us a powerful invitation to return to harmony with nature’s rhythms and our own sacred flow. How we nourish ourselves during this time—through rest, sleep, dreams, visions, imagination and our relationship with darkness—shapes our rebirth and becoming in the next turning of the wheel of the year.
Step outside at sunrise and sunset. Breathe slowly and deeply, and feel the subtle power held in these liminal moments
Spend as much time in nature as you can. Nature holds the wisdom of light and darkness, cycles and seasons. When we are held by the natural world, our energy and nervous system naturally return to harmony.
Go to bed earlier and rise with the light. Turn off Wi-Fi, screens, and notifications in the evening. Sit by candlelight, and listen quietly to the wisdom of your breath and the ancient knowing of your body.
Journal: What is ready to be released before the light returns? What needs care and nourishment? What is quietly stirring in the depths, waiting to be born?
Chant Om, or hum - The vibration powerfully activates the pineal gland
Candle Meditation (see last email)
Take a Melatonin supplement
Immerse yourself in poetry, sacred writings, and ancient wisdom, allowing their words to guide you into deeper
Meditate - close your eyes and focus them in and up between the eyebrows/third eye point. This stimulates the optic nerve and awakens our pineal gland
Listen to binaural beats or frequency music before sleep. These sounds help soften brainwaves and guide the mind toward deep rest and dreaming. Here are a couple I found on YouTube
I’d like to share this beautiful poem by Mary Oliver, whose words hold the stillness, depth, and magic of the Winter Solstice.
Snowy Night by Mary Oliver
Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away,
I happenedto be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark treest
hat one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.
Wishing you a beautiful, magical Winter Solstice
Debs xxx
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