A full moon arrives about once a month, roughly every twenty nine and a half days, so the schedule walks slowly backward through the calendar across the year. Most years hold twelve of them. Because a dozen cycles fall a few days short of the full year, about every third year squeezes in a thirteenth, and the extra one is the true blue moon. The names below are the ones farmers and almanacs hung on each month's moon, and they are really a plain record of what the land was doing when it rose.
The twelve named moons
January is the Wolf Moon, named for hungry packs heard in the cold. February is the Snow Moon, for the deepest snow of the year. March is the Worm Moon, when the ground thaws and the earth softens. April is the Pink Moon, after an early spring wildflower, not a pink sky. May is the Flower Moon, June the Strawberry Moon for the short picking season.
July is the Buck Moon, when deer regrow their antlers. August is the Sturgeon Moon, for the great fish once hauled from the lakes. September brings the Harvest Moon, the full moon nearest the autumn equinox that rises close to sunset several nights running and once gave crews extra light to bring in the crop. October is the Hunter's Moon, November the Beaver Moon, and December the Cold Moon, the long night moon of deep winter.
Harvest and Hunter's drift
Most of the folk names are locked to a month, but the Harvest Moon is tied to an event instead. It is defined as the full moon closest to the September equinox, which usually lands in September but can fall in early October. When it does, October's moon becomes the Hunter's Moon one slot later. This is why some years a calendar seems to move the names around. It is the equinox, not an error.
When the full moon actually rises
A full moon rises as the Sun sets and stays up the whole night, which is why it feels like the Moon owns the sky on those nights. Near the horizon just after it rises it looks enormous and often golden. That size is an illusion of the eye and the gold is the same thick air that reddens a sunset. Climbed high and small later in the night, it is the identical disc.
Getting the exact dates
Folk names tell you which moon, but not the day. The precise date and clock time of each full moon shift a little every year because the cycle does not divide evenly into our months. The live page carries the exact date of the next full moon and the current phase, computed rather than printed, so the schedule is never a year out of date.
Be under it, not reminded of it.
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