Hello Dear One,

As we arrive at the last Super Full Moon of the year and edge closer to the winter solstice, I’ve been thinking about how much of our lives are quietly governed by cycles we rarely name—light and shadow, hellos and goodbyes, beginnings and endings.

Years ago, in my doctoral work, I wrote a capstone paper on the relationship between lunar rhythms, menstruation, and the endocrine system. I wanted to understand something I kept feeling in my own body and hearing from patients:

Does the moon really impact my cycle, my sleep, my mood?

This letter is my way of returning to that question with you...

Thursday’s Super Full Moon in Gemini arrives as Lunar energy at its Yang peak—bright, airy, and expressive—just as the season itself leans deeper into Yin and the long dark of winter. It’s a moment where outer brightness and inner descent meet: the sky expanding while the roots of the body draw down and in.

In this issue, I’ll share how Classical Chinese Medicine understands the Full Moon and explore the concept of Lunaception (the idea of living in time with the moon) and turn toward melatonin as both a hormone of timing and cycles and an ally for a nervous system flooded with artificial light and stimulation.

As we move toward solstice, my wish is that these letters help you feel less alone in your own cycles—lunar, hormonal, emotional, ancestral.

Thank you for reading, and for letting this rhythm find you.

On your side,

DJV

7-Year & 8-Year Cycles in Classical Chinese Medicine

The Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Classic) says that:

• What it calls “women’s” bodies move in 7-year cycles

• What it calls “men’s” bodies move in 8-year cycles

The text was written in a very binary world, but it’s really talking about patterns of Jing (essence) and how bodies unfold over time.

Traditionally, the 7-year cycle is linked with bodies whose primary hormonal story is blood, Yin, and cyclical fertility (what we’d now describe as many AFAB / estrogen-dominant bodies) first bleed, peak fertility, perimenopause, menopause, and a “second spring” after.

The 8-year cycle is used for bodies described as more Yang and gradually unfolding (often AMAB/ testosterone-dominant bodies)—with different timing for growth, sexual maturation, and decline.

Today, we know that gender, hormones, and lived experience are far more diverse than the original language allows. So I hold this teaching as a pattern, not a rule—a poetic way of saying:

Our bodies tend to move in chapters, in waves of 7’s and 8’s and beyond,and those chapters don’t always line up neatly with the categories we were given.

However you identify, you’re invited to notice:

What “chapter” does your body feel like it’s in right now—and what is it asking for?

Super Full Moon in Gemini — Yang at the Edge of Winter

A supermoon happens when the Full Moon draws a little closer to the Earth than usual. It looks slightly larger, brighter, almost overlit. The oceans feel that nearness. Sensitive bodies often do too.

In classical Chinese medicine, the Full Moon is Yang at its peak. Qi and Blood rise toward the surface, fluids move outward, and the Shen (spirit) sits closer to the skin. Manageable feelings may become undeniable. Dreams grow louder. The body becomes a little more transparent to itself.

This one arrives in Gemini, an Air sign linked to lungs, breath, voice, nerves, and the space that exists between two truths. In Chinese Med language, you can imagine Qi moving into the upper burner—chest, throat, and mind—stirring conversations, ideas, and long-held questions.

All of this is happening as we move toward the winter solstice, when Yin reaches its deepest point and the season asks the body to descend, root, and store. So we are standing in a paradox:

• A sky that is full, bright, talkative

• A season that is dark, quiet, and pulling us inward

Neither is wrong. The Super Full Moon in Gemini simply illuminates where we are split between what wants to be spoken and what wants to rest.

It may highlight:

• Thoughts that have been circling without a landing place

• A conversation you know belongs to this year, not the next

• Two paths, identities, or desires you’ve been trying to hold at once

• Changes in breath, voice, or sleep as your system processes more than you realize

The moon doesn’t create these tensions; it casts light on the pattern that is already there.

As the outer light swells and the days grow shorter, you might ask:

What is reaching for expression before the year closes?

What is asking to be laid down gently at the altar into the void to root and re-form?

In my doctoral capstone, I explored the idea that menstrual cycles, sleep, and hormones might be more deeply entangled with light and lunar rhythms than modern life allows us to notice.

One book that kept finding its way back into my hands was “Lunaception” by Louise Lacey—a text from the 1970s describing how women may sync their cycles to the moon by sleeping in near-total darkness most of the month, and then introducing a few nights of light (traditionally around the Full Moon). The premise wasn’t just fertility; it was reclaiming the body’s relationship to natural light and dark as a form of regulation and feminist self-knowledge.

The hard science on strict “moon syncing” is mixed, as cycles are influenced by many factors: stress, hormones, nutrition, trauma, age. But what we do know is very clear:

• Light at night changes how we secrete melatonin

• Melatonin timing influences sleep, cortisol rhythms, and reproductive hormones

• Over time, disrupted light–dark cycles can distort mood, metabolism, and menstrual regularity

So whether or not you bleed on a Full Moon, your endocrine system is listening to light all the time.

Descartes, the Pineal Gland & the First “Light Map”

In the 1600s, the philosopher René Descartes drew one of the first diagrams of how light enters the eye and travels into the brain. In his sketch, rays of light pass through the eye, travel along the optic nerves, and converge at a tiny structure he believed to be the meeting point of body and soul: the pineal gland, which he called the “seat of the soul.”

Modern anatomy refines this, but his intuition was powerful: that light, vision, inner experience, and a central gland are all speaking to one another.

Today we know that:

• light hits the retina

• signals travel along a special pathway into the brain’s master clock

• that clock signals the pineal gland, which releases melatonin when darkness falls

From there, melatonin helps set the timing for sleep, cortisol, thyroid function, ovarian hormones, and more. In other words: Descartes’ hunch that light, perception, and a tiny midline gland were intimately connected turns out to be deeply true.

Melatonin is the body’s hormone of timing.

It’s made in the pineal gland when the eyes report, “Night has arrived.” I don’t think of it as a sedative so much as a signal—a whisper to the endocrine system that it’s safe to cool the mind, soften the edges, and move into repair.

Have you ever taken melatonin and felt really groggy in the morning, heavy in your mood, or strangely “off”?

That’s usually a sign that the dose or timing is not working for your circadian rhythm. It doesn’t necessarily mean melatonin “doesn’t work for you”—it may mean your system needs much less (often 0.5–1 mg, sometimes even 0.3 mg) and/or an earlier time in the evening, not a big hit right before bed.

When I talk about melatonin with patients, I tend to see it as a tool:

• First, we work on light hygiene—dimmer evenings, fewer screens, more morning light

• Then, if it feels appropriate, we explore very low doses instead of the mega-doses lining store shelves

• We use it as a short-term ally to help retrain timing, rather than a forever fix

Melatonin doesn’t force sleep the way a sedative does; it acts more like a timekeeper—a signal that it’s safe for the body to shift from doing to repairing.

When melatonin is released in a clear, consistent rhythm, it helps:

• Anchor the circadian clock (our 24-hour body time)

• Coordinate sleep onset and depth

• Modulate the dance between cortisol, thyroid, and reproductive hormones

• Support more coherent menstrual and perimenopausal cycles over time

When evening light is chaotic—bright screens, overhead LEDs, constant stimulation—the message to the pineal gland gets scrambled. Melatonin may be delayed, blunted, or released at the wrong times, and the body’s internal clocks start to drift. That drift is often felt as:

• Irregular or more symptomatic cycles

• “Tired but wired” nights

• Mood swings around the luteal phase or perimenopause

So when I talk about melatonin, I’m really talking about timing: helping the body remember when night is, so it can remember how to cycle.

Lunaception, darkness rituals, screen boundaries, and—when appropriate, thoughtfully dosed melatonin—are all different ways of sending the same message…

AMR Art DUMBO and Annabelle Rinehart

Consider this a shameless plug for someone most dear to me, my love and partner, Annabelle Rinehart, and her gallery, AMR Art DUMBO.

Established in 2024, AMR Art DUMBO is an art space in Brooklyn’s arts district, run by queer women and devoted to representing women and LGBTQ+ artists. Annabelle has spent years as a passionate collector and supporter of artists, and AMR is the natural extension of that devotion—a gallery that discovers and champions underrepresented voices through real community and connection with curators, collectors, and fellow art lovers.

In our own ways, both of us are working toward the same thing: creating spaces where people who have been overlooked, erased, or minimized are given room, visibility, and advocacy. I do this through bodies, stories, and medicine; she does it through paintings, installations, and conversations held under high ceilings and great light! At the core, it’s the same commitment: no underrepresented voice left without a place to land.

This Saturday, from 12–6 PM, is a beautiful time to visit: AMR Art DUMBO will be open for a special gallery day celebrating the opening of her new group show. You’re invited to stop by, wander through the work and meet the community around it. I’ll be there!

You can learn more and see what’s coming at amrartdumbo.com, or follow along on Instagram: @amrartdumbo

If something in today’s Lunar Medicine Newsletter offered clarity or comfort, you’re always welcome to write back or ask questions. This space is meant to nourish your journey. Simply hit reply—I read every message.

If you have a friend or family member who might benefit from these reflections, feel free to forward this newsletter along.

Thank you again for being here.