Embrace the Buck Moon: Set Intentions and Achieve SMART Goals with the New Moon Journal by Namaste Studios

By Dennis Bluthardt at Namaste Studios

The Buck Moon, which is the time of year when male deer lose their antlers, also has significant connotations across many cultures. It represents renewal and growth, an optimal opportunity to align with our intentions. Gazing out into the night to see the full moon shining brightly back down at us, you cannot help but imagine the type of “blockage” at which you might like to take a shot with this bow-and-arrow-style model of how to maximize your potential with CUUP. Aiming capabilities aside, the event provides the perfect occasion to remind yourself to align your aspirations with the rhythms of the evolving world.

Beyond purchasing one of our chic “The New Moon” journal products, once the full Buck Moon is visible, why not engage with it as more than just a User in the commercial sense, but in a more instinctive, “animalistic” format? Thoughtfully designed for you to be better able to set and achieve “S.M.A.R.T. ” goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, or “stretch”, Relevant, and Time-bound), this journaling system is optimal for writing down regenerative, “seed-planting” intentions on the night of a New Moon.

Some other “intention-setting” activities you might also like to incorporate into this “new” you-optimized routine could be nature-based escapes, inspiration-rich vacation or holiday settings (the “holy day” connotations abound in both senses), or places in the world that you have a “returning to the heart” vibe with.

In other words, reflective of the dynamic “returning your natural shape after being deformed” (the “elasticity” definition of “resilience,” in this case) lifestyle for which these travel-focused versions of our top-selling “Empower” and “Stylish Botanical Gratitude Empowerment Journals” were conceived.

Releasing What No Longer Serves You

The Buck Moon is so named because this is when male deer (bucks) shed their antlers, a clear symbol of renewal and growth. Like bucks, we can use this phase to determine what is no longer “growing” on us in a healthy and supportive way. This can be related to heavy emotions, old perspectives, or relationships that feel energetically draining.

You can aid this process by doing physical grounding exercises. The release can feel energetically and emotionally “uprooting,” so exercises such as yoga or barefoot walking can help. The goal is to connect with physical “Earth” energy in a way that supports ongoing survival and enables you to stay in the current moment.

Just like all full moons, meditation rituals can work very well. The “cord-cutting” visuals I mentioned above work well with this ritual. Sit and imagine “cutting away” the energy that no longer serves you.

Energy Healing Rituals and Gratitude

The Buck Moon, aptly named for when bucks (male deer) start to grow their antlers, symbolizes growth and is an excellent time for energy healing rituals. I love a good moonlight meditation; it is one of the most liberating experiences to sit outside and bask in the moonlight. I visualize breathing out the mucky, negative energy and breathing in a powerful, positive light. I also enjoy creating a crystal grid for the full moon. (I like to use clear quartz and amethyst, but use whichever stones resonate with you at the time.) It’s about finding ways to create a sacred space to honor this time, to find your peace, and to be able to analyze where you are in life.

Gratitude is no stranger to the evolution of personal growth. It’s the road that many try to avoid, yet it’s also the main road that will awaken a new catalyst in your life. This magical perspective shift will take you from looking at the cup half empty to the cup overflowing. There is so much to be thankful for in the world, and much in your life is going right. Incorporating gratitude in my journal makes me manifest the high frequency even more so, and on the hard days, it is one thing that lifts me right back up. I encourage you to see life from the side of gratitude on a larger scale. 

This practice will change your mindset and is one of the most effective and immediate ways to create a positive shift in overall growth.

Astrologers suggest that the name Buck Moon gives practitioners a unique perspective on emotional creation, allowing a space for celebratory gratitude. The silver energy streaking across you has mirrored the creature of the God up above, leaping towards her destiny; know that no step taken is a step lost. We win or we learn.

What is the Buck Moon?

“Buck Moon” is the name given to the full moon in July by Native American tribes who named each moon (complete) after the life cycles of the natural animals and farming times of the year. The bucks (male deer) start to grow antlers at this point, hence the name. Interestingly, the timing of the cycles of specific animal life was predictable to the point where it could be named in a lunar calendar.

The Buck Moon is usually in mid to late July. I like the name “Buck Moon” because it just sounds cool. I will tell people to refer to my birthday as the “start of Buck Moon”. If you follow the blog, you know I always think of Slughorn when I see the word “buck”. If I were in Harry Potter, everyone would think I was referring to that. I don’t usually get to talk about Harry Potter and the moon, so this has been a treat for me. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have. This will bring today’s Word Wednesday to a close. Don’t forget to tell your friends!”

The Power of Setting Intentions

Setting clear intentions is one of the most powerful practices for altering your life’s path.

Namaste Studios and its artisans have created an excellent vehicle for doing just that with The New Moon Journal.

With its warm prompts and not-so-simple exercises, this little book beckons you to embark on the not-so-little journey of self-reflection. It encourages you to set not just any intentions, but those that are personalized and meaningful, which might alter the course of your life. In July, the “Buck Moon,” named after the time of the year when bucks begin to grow, serves as an opportunity for renewal. Let the spirit of the Buck guide you into your strongest self. Simply by writing these desires down on paper, users validate these desires and conceptualize the path to manifestation. The journal also functions as a “companion” of sorts, meant to be used as a tracker of one’s steady progress through the moon cycle.

Creating SMART Goals

The SMART criteria provide a helpful protocol for goal forming. They are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. You clarify your goal by making it Specific. Make your goal Measurable, and you can monitor your progress. Achievable goals will be within your competence to complete. If goals’ fit’ with you because they are relevant to your life’s ‘bigger picture’, you are more likely to fulfill them. Being Time-bound creates an ‘edge’ of time limit; it presupposes what you want to achieve will happen by a set time limit.

As the Buck Moon rises, it prescribes abundance, giving you something you can sink your teeth into, and you want to do something with this time. You may have to sort out the exact kind of goal you create using the SMART goals criteria during this lunar phase. To do this, think about what it is you want to make a change in, exactly. If your main goal has to do with health, be even more specific in the exact changes you want to create, e.g., have sustainable and maintainable health (mental and physical) to be able to exigent myself more, e.g., by doing physical activity/exercise/sport/frequent short walks in the outdoors, nature, at least three times a week.

Then, work out a way to instill in your mind how you will use the criteria you will use to ensure your goal is measurable, yes, how you will measure this. Then, rank/record the extra effort, how often, and how long it went on for. After running through this exercise, you need to have stretched it more than previously—try for within the next week, ‘officially’ to have noted it, and back it up with proof of your growth/effort/improvement.

With this, you could instill in yourself to use the following characteristics of a simple notebook, like a New Moon Day, an occasion that you have in the past been able to call up to mind helping you. At whichever phase of the moon it is, at precisely the right time, mark it (give it a tick), half-way through, three-quarters of the way through, crescent (depending on the intensity it is at) using symbols or senses drawings, just as a reminder that later can be activated using other signs.

Affirmations and Positive Mindset

Affirmations are habits or practices that can help to motivate and encourage us to be our best selves. By repeating positive statements, we build our mental picture of what we genuinely wish to achieve, step into, or manifest in our lives. If the thought is the spark, the affirmation is the kindling. This gives you everything you need to know about your affirmation. For the sake of our exercise, I am a Buck poet, and we will keep our sights set on affirmation and how it pertains to this series. The Buck Moon period was an expensive period, with themes of growth and abundance. These should give you a fair index of indicators to run with. For your affirmation, strength, will, and abundance? “I am statements of development. ‘I am attracting _ leading to my success?” “I am developing as a __.” The definition will change depending on how you might see the role of the Buck (these are my ideas), working with your place in the natural world. Consider the sidebar below.

The Buck Moon, so named because male deer begin to grow their antlers during this time, can have many symbolic meanings and interpretations. I look at it as a symbol of growth, renewal, and nature’s abundance in our lives. Just as the full moon is seen in the night sky, we can think of areas of growth we have experienced and the intentions we will set for “what’s next.” Or, we can think of “New Moon intentions,” which we set two weeks earlier. (“… What’s next?” message to your subconscious: “More, please. Okay, something like this…” Good news: We’re on to something.)

The Namaste Studios New Moon Journal has a structured format that I can use to set intentions and then write them down. On the second page of the journal (the right-hand side), New Moon’s “thought graphics” present well-defined challenges to me; I am strongly encouraged to explore precisely where I am__emotionally, and where I’d like to be: plans have a way of working out in that manner. This. Is. Your. (Second.) Journal.

To learn more, visit our Moon Journal Blogs at Namaste Studios or buy a New Moon Journal on Amazon or our Namaste Studios Bookstore. 

For a Limited Time:  Get your NEW MOON JOURNAL for a massive discount at Amazon here!

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