Also called July full moon, Thunder Moon, Half Summer Moon
The Buck Moon is the popular name for July's full moon, from the season when a buck's new antlers are growing fast. Its rite is a growth and strength rite for something you are building up over the summer.
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
Take care: Keep any candle on a fireproof dish and never leave it burning unattended. If you go outside at night, dress for the weather, take a light and tell someone where you are. Moon names tied to specific Native nations belong to living languages and ceremonies. Read them as those nations' own knowledge, not as rites to copy; the steps here are an open seasonal practice anyone can do.
Buck Moon is one of the names that appears directly in Carver's 1778 list, as the fifth month of a year starting in March. The Old Farmer's Almanac cites Carver as its source for the name.
The almanac lists Thunder Moon as a Western Abenaki name for this moon, fitting the summer storms of New England. Other almanac entries include Salmon Moon for the Tlingit and Raspberry Moon for the Algonquin and Ojibwe.
Ojibwe language resources give July names such as Half Summer Moon, Blueberry Moon and Picking Blueberries Moon. They follow the berry harvest that fed families in midsummer.
A buck's antlers are shed each winter and regrown each year, covered in a soft skin called velvet while they grow, and July is when that growth is in full swing. The Old Farmer's Almanac explains the Buck Moon this way and credits the name to Jonathan Carver, who recorded it in his 1778 account of the upper Mississippi and Great Lakes region.
Other July names in the almanac's collection include Thunder Moon for the Western Abenaki, Feather Moulting Moon for the Cree and Moon When the Chokecherries Are Ripe for the Dakota. The 1937 Maine Farmers' Almanac, by contrast, used English farm names like Hay Moon and Grain Moon for its summer moons. Modern pagan writers sometimes call this the Mead Moon, but that name has no clear early source.
A Sunday ritual that borrows the ancient laurel crown of victory: you name one goal, write it on a bay leaf, and keep the leaf where you will see it until the goal is met. It is a focus ritual for a specific achievement.
A short Tuesday ritual under Mars that makes a small courage charm to carry into a hard conversation, a stage or an interview. It is a modern working built on old martial symbols.
On 1 August, the first bread baked from the new wheat was blessed, and an Anglo-Saxon charm book directed that it be broken into four pieces and laid in the four corners of the barn to protect the stored grain.
Tell us what you need and we will craft a custom spell, charm or reading for it. Or call to book a reading or a road blessing in person.
