The moon, and all of the the faces she presents to those of us gazing up from Mama Earth, are central to the practice of witchcraft. We work our magicks by the light of the moon, we cleanse or charge our crystals, we make moon water, we manifest, release and embrace according to the phases.
We put great store in the sun sign influencing any moon, the astrological house the moon rises in, and the season when the full illumination or dark moon occurs. We call the moons by traditional names, chosen for the seasons in nature—the weather, planting or harvesting crops, and animal behavior.
The thing about the moon, though, is that she rules intuition. Shouldn’t we connect to her magic by feeling her energy, not by what a book or witchcraft influencer tells us?
The Moon In My Blood
I have been deeply connected to the moon since I was a child. Perhaps because of family iconography that loomed large in our mythology. My Slavic Grandfather named his tavern the Blue Moon. He served strong drink, and meals hot from my grandmother’s kitchen, mostly to sailors and dock workers in the gritty, industrial port town. Together they raised eight children living in the shotgun apartment above their bar, eking out the American dream carried with them across the ocean.
On my mother’s side I am far removed from the indigenous blood quantum of my Ojibwe ancestors, but have always felt their influence. A very dear friend of mine is a member of the local Band. We’d known each other for years, and she’d shared much of the Ojibwe cultural and spiritual traditions with me before we discovered (to our great surprise) that our family trees are linked.
But it was less surprising when I asked to be named by an elder of my friend’s community, and the name given reflected my deep connection to the spirit of Grandmother Moon. Not knowing me, never having met me before the naming ceremony, the elder consulted with the ancestors and they told her, Ningaabii’an giizis gichi ikwe—loosely translated, Setting Full Moon Woman. This was validation of what I’d always known about the moon and my magick being intrinsically linked.
This kind of knowing, that seems to come from deep in my blood and bones, is what I’ve called intuition. I don’t hear the ancestors whispering in my ear. I don’t hear voices at all. I rarely, if ever, get physical sensations with my intuition, no tinging spine, no chills, no hairs standing up. When it comes to the moon and magick, I know what I know.
I know that it’s not the same moon for everybody, or even the same moon of the month for one person, year after year. I believe we’re going about it all wrong when we put so much emphasis on the astrology, the seasons, and the traditional names of moon.
Naming The Moons
There are many lovely names for each moon. Finding them all can take you down the rabbit hole of googling, and tangle you in the web of conflicting information that is the internet. It’s maddening. Instead, why not start a tradition of naming the moons yourself? After all, isn’t that what our ancestors did?
Take this February moon for example. I’ve found information in my own library of books and on the internet, that names it Chaste, Quickening, Storm, Snow, Wild, Wolf, Hunger, Bone, Frost, Milky, Eagle/Bald Eagle, Ground Hog, Raccoon and more. Many of those names are also associated with moons of other months in the year. It seems obvious that different people, living in different regions, would name moons to coincide with their lives and the nature around them. It also seems quite possible that much of what can be found is regurgitated, copied from one source to another, and much like that old game of telephone, it gets a little jumbled.
Some of the traditional moon names work for me. When snow is still on the ground in February—and it always is where I live, it mirrors the light of the full moon on a cloudless night, creating an otherworldly glow. Then, Snow Moon feels very right. But friends in more temperate zones are sharing photos on their social media of crocus blooming and trees already blossoming. Surely the snow moon doesn’t feel right to them.
Another consideration is the moon shifting through the days of any month from year to year, not to to mention the shifting of seasons due to climate change. February’s full moon does not always rise so close to the end of the month. In years of late, the early days of February feel all too much like the deep freeze of January. The full moon shining down on sub-zero nights, with the land imprisoned in a thick layer of ice, feels quite different than this later February moon. Then it is the Icy Moon, the Frozen Moon, the Unforgiving Moon.
Trust What You Know
Weather aside, for me, the February moon feels very liminal, with life straddling the unpredictable borderland between winter and spring. I can fling my doors open one day, letting warm breezes chase the stagnant winter air from my home, and the very next day be huddling by my fireplace with a storm raging outside, bringing two feet of new snow to blanket the land.
My feelings at this time of year are anticipation, expectation, a mixture of hope and faith that winter is ending, even when it seems not.
It might be sunny and warm on my south facing deck, yet the snow is still piled high. I feel the pull to be in my garden, but the warm days of spring planting are months away. I want to get in my car and drive to my sister’s. Not 400 miles away it’s a zone warmer and almost a full month ahead on spring’s arrival.
We’d spend a day out shopping, browsing antique and vintage shops without the hindrance of cumbersome winter coats, boots, hats and scarves, a rite of spring that feels like freedom. Later in the afternoon, we’d sit outside with a cup of freshly brewed coffee and a sweet treat, our mother’s tradition carried in our DNA. Tucked in a southwest corner, protected from the wind, we’d let the sun bake our winter sore bones and scheme ways of leaving the bitter cold north we were born to. It feels like opportunity and possibility.
This moon is fickle, a bit of a tease, a flirt and then a cold shoulder. She is the Impatient Moon, the Dreaming Moon. She’s the young maiden, anxious to step into her sovereignty, but not quite ready yet—the Hesitant Moon, the Burgeoning Moon, the Teasing Moon. She’s the Anything Is Possible Moon.
In the Ojibwe tradition, when we talk with the moon she is always Grandmother, the wise feminine energy. Each month, when I light my candle, and offer sacred smoke, I honor the energy of the moon as I know it. I ask Grandmother who carries all the experience of the Maiden and Mother within her, what she wishes to share with me. Then I listen to what I know in my blood and my bones, and her answers come.
Moon of February adorned in silver
Not of Winter, nor of spring
No longer child, not yet woman
What magick do you bring?
Moon of dreams, of hope renewed
Of yearnings past, and yet to be
Of great expectations and power
You manifest endless possibility.
So mote it be.