January –

Wolf Moon - as hungry wolves howled when searching for food, this could be why the idea of were-wolves evolved. It’s also known as Ice moon for obvious reasons in the northern hemisphere.

February –

Snow Moon, Storm, Hunger – very appropriate for the dark month with frozen ground when the winter stores are at their lowest.

March –

Worm Moon – after the worm castes seen when the ground unfroze. Chaste, Death – maybe many people died in this month from lack of nutrition. Crust or Sap – sap rising makes sense, I’m not sure about crust though.

April –

Pink Moon – after a wildflower– Sprouting Grass, Egg, Fish - I think egg and fish come from Chinese moon names.

May –

Flower Moon – so many plants flowered on the vast prairies. Hare, Corn planting, Milk – Hares left their burrows and milk flowed to feed young. A great time for planting corn too.

June –

Strawberry Moon – named for the colour it sometimes has and the fruit’s short season in Northern America. Hot, Rose – for the colour and the summer heat.

July –

Buck Moon – named for the regrowth of antlers – Thunder, Hay harvest – both understandable names for this time of the year.

August –

Sturgeon Moon – named for the fish swimming upriver to spawn – Green corn, Grain, Red – again based on crops and Red was for the heat and sometimes the tinge of red in the sky.

September –

Full Corn Moon, Barley, Harvest – probably the most well-known name of all.

October –

Hunter’s Moon – the ideal time to hunt meat for the winter month ahead. Dying Grass, Travel – the last chance to get to a winter refuge perhaps.

November –

Beaver Moon – a busy time of the year for Beavers as they shore up their dams, probably a time for hunting them too for their waterproof pelts. Frost – I understand this one’s name.

December –

Cold Moon, Oak, Long night, Bitter – What great descriptions of the weather. Oak comes from the druids who revered the oak as a sacred tree, link this with the winter solstice and the name makes sense. 

These names are fun and popular and are thrown around social media sites every month for their novelty value. But they held great importance for the people who lived by the seasons and are a good reminder of how humans lived with nature rather than trying to tame it. Something to think about in our own gardens. 

And many people do garden by the moon.

As tides rise so does the moisture in the soil. Root crops and fruit trees like a waning moon, and they are planted just past a full moon. Leafy annuals and foods with external seeds prefer a waxing moon, and they are planted near a new moon.

Songs, rhymes, stories, and sayings have been influenced by this orbiting rock, for example – ‘It only happens in a blue moon,’ meaning rarely.

How rare is a blue moon?

The moon completes twelve full phases in 345 days. This means that every two and a half years there is a thirteenth moon in the calendar year. This is a blue moon. It can also be the name for a second full moon in a month.

I always thought it meant the moon looked blue, but it shines forever silver, sometimes tinged with pink or orange, but never blue.

And then we have a Super Moon. Is this like a super-hero, or super-powers, will we all become hairy and howl like a wolf?

No. It is when the moon is at its closest to the earth, a lunar perigee, and there is a full moon. When it is low on the horizon it looks huge. It can appear to be fourteen percent larger and thirty percent brighter than a normal full moon. Impressive.

There is also the opposite, but not so widely shouted about – the Micro Moon. This is when the moon is furthest from the earth – a luna apogee – and there is a full moon. When it is on the horizon it looks smaller than normal.

No wonder there are ancient tales of the moon being eaten or swallowed.

And what about moon babies?

The moon was thought to effect fertility and is often portrayed as female - the Roman Goddess Luna, Chinese goddess Chang’e, and Mama Quilla of the Incas to name a few. In the 1950’s an ancient Assyrian astrological text was translated stating women are fertile during certain phases of the moon and a family planning system was based on this knowledge. Even today it is believed that full moons herald an increase in births. Although there is no scientific evidence to support this, I love the idea of being a moon-induced baby. A quick look into my birth date and sadly I’m not a moon baby, the moon was waning gibbous.

I am sure this ancient belief in fertility is why the full moon is a symbol of romance and love.

Despite scientific exploration and evidence, the moon will forever have a mystical, magical, sometimes scary, and romantic presence in our lives and our night sky.

I will be looking up at the Worm Moon, tonight, (the 28^th of March 2021) and searching for evidence of lava worms on the moon’s surface. How awesome that would be…