Solar Rhythm: Winter Solstice 2025

Solstice means “Sun Standstill,” and Winter Solstice is the shortest day and darkest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It marks the place on the Wheel where the sun, which went deep into the dark space of the womb during Samhain, is reborn. After this point, you see a gradual day-by-day increase in light until it reaches its peak at Summer Solstice and begins its turn toward the darkness once again. Winter Solstice, also known as Yule, typically falls between December 20 and 23, and is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. It functions as the seed point for the solar cycle, just as a new moon does for the lunar cycle. This seed point also symbolizes the opportunity to plant prosperity intentions that can grow and flourish throughout the year. Its impact functions in your life for a full year, a complete growing cycle.

Winter Solstice is seen as the time when the Goddess gives birth to the “sun,” or “son,” the masculine principle. The light of the sun emerges, reborn out of the darkness year after year. Thus, traditionally, you honored this point on the Wheel by bringing evergreen trees into your home to represent the everlasting nature of the Earth Goddess. They were decorated with images representing what you wanted to bring into your life for the coming year. Gold balls represented the life force of the sun, icicles symbolized rain, paper money or coins stood for abundance, pinecones and acorns implied fertility. These symbols of abundance remind us that Winter Solstice is also a powerful time to align with the energy of prosperity, setting the tone for financial and material growth in the year ahead.

During this time of the year, a time of the holy days and holidays, most cultures engage in celebration. As part of your celebration of the festival of light, and as you honor Winter Solstice, give deep thanks for the bringer of light, the sun, and all it contributes to your life. Consider ceremonially hanging lights from your home to illuminate the darkness and recall the rebirth of the light.

During this darkest phase of the year, you are called to reflect on the past year, giving gratitude for all your blessings, and to dream and create the next stage of development for your desires and goals. How you begin this cycle can influence your entire upcoming year.

Choose the one or two ideas you need most to work with, then focus on those. Intentions function best when there are only one or two to concentrate on in any cycle.

☀️ Personal Action Suggestions for Winter Solstice:

• Honor and give deep thanks for the bringer of light, the sun, and all it contributes to your life.

• Connect to the light within and light a candle to honor your inner light.

• Allow time to turn inward. Nourish yourself, taking quiet time to reflect. Allow yourself to rest as nature is resting. Allow the darkness to nurture you.

• Determine where in your life you are ready for renewal and rebirth.

• Ask yourself where you need to be more whole and complete unto yourself.

• Plant creation seeds for your life to expand during the next growing cycle by creating a dream board for the year ahead.

• Create a yearly completions and blessings list from last Winter Solstice to this one.

💻 Business/Professional Action Suggestions for Winter Solstice:

• Express gratitude for all you’ve received in your business throughout the seasonal cycle this year. Create a simple ceremony or altar to honor your creations for the past year.

• Allow the elements to support your new growing cycle. Tune into Air and ask for information about your most effective focus for the year ahead.

• Connect with Earth, and plant creation seeds for your business and professional development to expand during the next growing cycle by creating a dream board for the year ahead.

• Pay attention to Water to determine what feelings you need to connect with in order to magnetize your desires.

• Ask Fire what right-aligned actions you need to take to energize your creations.

• Open to receive support from Spirit.

• Infuse grace and ease into your business for the growing cycle ahead. Ask yourself how you can allow things in your business to be simpler and flow even better, creating more abundant success.

💰  Prosperity Action Suggestions for Winter Solstice:

• Reflect on the abundance you have received over the past year, and give gratitude for your financial and material blessings.

• Set prosperity-focused intentions for the year ahead by visualizing the financial outcomes you desire and creating a money magnetization journal or vision board.

• Call upon the elements to guide your financial growth:

  • Earth: How can I create more solid foundations for my wealth?

  • Water: What emotional blocks to abundance need clearing?

  • Air: What new ideas or inspirations will lead to financial success?

  • Fire: What actions will ignite my prosperity goals?

  • Spirit: How can I align spiritually to receive financial blessings?

• Create a Winter Solstice prosperity altar with symbols of abundance, such as coins, evergreen branches, and candles, to call in financial growth and stability.

• Review your spending and saving patterns, and align them with your long-term financial goals. Ask yourself: “What seeds of wealth can I plant today that will grow throughout the year?”

Elemental Guidance:

If you have an Elemental Forces of Creation Oracle, you may want to draw cards for additional guidance from each element and/or add insight from other decks.

• Give thanks to Earth and ask:“What is my creation message for the year ahead?”

• Give thanks to Water and ask:“What is my creation message for the year ahead?”

• Give thanks to Air and ask:“What is my creation message for the year ahead?”

• Give thanks to Fire and ask:“What is my creation message for the year ahead?”

• Give thanks to Spirit and ask:“What is my creation message for the year ahead?”

• Now ask the unified field of all of the elements and Spirit for a unified message for the year ahead.
  

  

  Continue the Enchantment into the New Year

  If your heart is craving a gentler way to walk with the returning light, I’d love to companion you with my new book, Everyday Soul Enchantments — 366 daily reflections to deepen your intuition, soften into presence, and weave quiet magic into the year ahead. It’s a tender way to keep listening to your soul as the light slowly grows.
  

  To help you shape your next season in a nurturing, non-hustle way, I’m also offering a cozy at-home retreat: Pajama Planning: A Sacred Personal Retreat for Cozy, Nurturing Life & Business Alignment
  

  We’ll gather for a 4-hour sacred planning session (with a replay you can revisit anytime) to release what no longer serves, listen for what truly wants your attention, and shape gentle, soul-aligned priorities for the months ahead — pajamas, tea, and blankets encouraged.
  

  As a special Solstice blessing, you can receive Pajama Planning free when you support the book with a review. Here’s how it works: 1. Order Everyday Soul Enchantments

  2. Leave a review on Amazon once you’ve had a chance to get a feel for the book

  3. Email a screenshot or link to your published review to us at info@Lisa-Michaels.com. We’ll send you your complimentary access to Pajama Planning (a $47 value) and the replay, so you can return to this cozy planning ritual whenever you need to realign with your own inner light.