FULL BUCK MOON, THE FULLNESS OF SUMMER

     The last two nights, the full moon has been unusually bright and “luminous”. The Native American name for this full moon is the full buck moon as the bucks begin to grow their antlers about this time. Deer and its ability to grow antlers have long been a symbol of regeneration for many cultures. As well this is a time when the promises of life regenerated are fulfilled. This is a time of the year when life is abundantly apparent in the Northern hemisphere. A time when all sorts of food was, and is available from fresh fruits, and vegetables, to new meat, and fish, to grains, and wild herbs, and copious amounts of fresh honey.

  A month ago was summer solstice, also known as Midsummer, and in less than a month is Lammastide, which celebrates grain harvest, and is the first of three harvest festivals. If we look at a wheel of the year. The south point is summer solstice. To the peoples of antiquity, it was the time when all their work tending flocks and herds, and tilling and farming fields and gardens, has paid with the bounty of Mother Earth herself. While Yule, the winter solstice, northern most point of the wheel, signifies death and rebirth, summer solstice, called Midsummer because to ancients it was the middle of the season, signifies LIFE. The earth has gone from a maiden who has reached her time of fertility, on Candlemas, to conceiving at spring equinox, called Ostara, to a woman full with child on Mayday, called Beltane, pronounced (BEL-tin-uh),  to summers fullness as Mother, and the earth gives birth to all life.

     The three quarter and cross-quarter days between winter to summer were fertility festivals in hopes of a bounteous year. The three quarter and cross-quarter days between summer to winter solstice are harvest celebrations, in thanksgiving for the bounty the year has provided.

      Summer solstice is sometimes called Litha, a Germanic word for “time of calm seas”, which the Saxons then used for the name of both June and July inclusively. But mostly it was referred to as Midsummer. The ancient peoples as I have said once before did not measure seasons by a specific day but by the signs of change which might be different from year to year… its an early summer.. or we are having a late spring this year… however summer solstice was the “sun”  measure. one of the four points of the year to mark the years passing. It is the day when the sun rises and sets on the horizon at the northern most points, before it goes in the other direction. This means because of the clockwise curve of the suns path in this hemisphere that the sun has a centered zenith on this day at midday closest to the celestial equator, and its path is the longest traveled… making it the longest day. Sol-stice means roughly sun-stop. And this was certainly the day to peoples of antiquity when all things in nature were and are at their greatest bounty… the middle point of the year, significant to their year and spirituality, and the Middle of summer’s ample blessings. To the ancient peoples, it was not the beginning of the season, but its fullness and the culmination of the years work come to fruition.

                                    

     And it was one of the biggest outdoor festivals of the year with much merry making, and eating, and drinking. Naturally a place to take time out from chores of raising food, and before the chores of harvest times come, to just enjoy life. Midsummer was a time for  a well-deserved, mid-year rest.

         Mayday, which came earlier in the year, is the day of the maypole dance, and is certainly a fertility festival. It was most often celebrated outdoors being that it was now warm enough to get outside. This was the day or night, as celebrating started in the morning and lasted by the fire till late night hours, it was customary to get betrothed, or basically announce an engagement. I’m not referring so much to arranged marriages, but the romantic love of the pagans the bards sang of. Spring is a frisky time when love naturally seems to blossom, so some folks would be paired by this time and thinking of walking through life together. So it became customary to make the announcement of the intent to marry, at this time of the year, while folks are gathered together.

     So the next big festival being the great outdoor Midsummer, in some cultures, celebrated at night under the full bright moon nearest summer solstice, would naturally be a time of weddings, or as most cultures did...handfasting. This was and still is the ceremony where the couple hold hands and have them bound together with a chord as a symbol of the marriage commitment. It is the origin of term tying the knot. To this day we still have June as the wedding month in many cultures. It also was the time when mead, made from the year’s first honey was ready, and was one of the first alcoholic drinks ready in the year. Mead, also called honey-mead is a fermented honey drink, similar to beer, often with grains included in the process of making it.  So we have alcohol, merry making around a fire, feasting, and night time outdoor weddings. We have folks being married, under a full moon in summer, and drinking honey mead. The next tradition was to set off to a pasture or meadow and consummate your marriage that evening, outdoors under the stars and moon… the honey-mead moon… which gives us the honeymoon we practice today. 

     Midsummer was a time of magick, and love, and blessings. The abundance and merry making gave pause in the year’s middle. Farming and gardening tasks were reduced to the least work, and herds and flocks were in the pasture. For a time there was so much food, just about anything you could want. It made sense in a hard life to rest here, the middle of the year… the “food” time.

Summer grace all

 for want is not

 upon the year is full.

And bellies be filled with the blessings.

 For bodies have work a half year more,

to reap for the good winters fetching.

     And for us, still today in the grocers and markets,  summer is the time for fresh fruits and vegetables. Berries and cherries and melons. Fresh cool desserts like strawberry shortcake, and wonderful lemon meringue pie. It’s a time for ice cream socials, and cooking outdoors so as not to heat up the house.  It’s a time for wonderful cuts of fresh meat grilled to perfection, for picnics, with fresh garden salads and cold potato salad, or cole slaw. And summer is, here in the southern US anyway, the time for cold beer and cold watermelon, to combat the hot nights. We are pretty much still doing the same things ancient peoples did. Enjoying being outdoors, drinking and eating the same foods, in the same ways. I doubt too many people get looped on honey-mead, and consummate their marriage in an open field, too bad for that really… but they do have weddings and go on a honeymoon. We still take time out from our work to rest mid-year before the rest of the year’s work ahead. We call it vacationing.

     And so the Father Sun has stopped, and changed direction, the Mother Earth has given birth.  The hot days will become warm days with cooler nights. Vacations will be remembered, and seasons will change, as our moods… our body clocks, with them. Revel in the lazy days of summer and her earth gifts, delicious fresh food, and time, and outdoors, while you can. For the wheel of the year never fails to keep turning. 

                                                 Blessings mez amis.