July 2025 Full buck moon in Capricorn: steady surrender

There’s a full moon rising in the grit and grind, strive and shine sign of the sea goat.

The full buck moon will peak on Thursday, July 10, at 4:36 PM EST at 18 degrees of Capricorn.

Each month, the moon moves through eight phases, cycling through energy and culminating in the full moon, our point of culmination and total release when we’re meant to purge, howl, claw at the sky and dare to hope the lunar light will light our way.

This month, the full moon falls in Capricorn, where our dented sky mirror is said to be in detriment, meaning it’s challenging for her to express or embody her lunar power.

Meaning of the full moon in Capricorn

The moon governs the unseeable, the intuitive and the emotional — while Capricorn rules pay dirt, tangible structure, resilience and reward.

This is an earth sign that venerates a ‘grin and bear it’ ethos, where you don’t let the bastards get you down or see you cry.

Although these energies seem at odds, Capricorn is symbolized by the mythical sea goat, a creature of intersecting opposition: half goat, half fish — a marriage of hard-won, hooves-down wisdom and sage surrender to the variable tides of life.

This moon teaches us that to climb, we must first learn to swim.

The moon will form a powerful trine with Mars, our planet of will, giving us a jolt of courage and a beneficial sprinkling of BDE that encourages us to own our capabilities and be emboldened by having survived our failures.

You can’t spell confidence without con, folks.

The full moon in Cap Daddy will also see Saturn (the ruler of this moon) form an exact sextile to Uranus, our planet of disruption and revolution.

In cahoots, the planet of upheaval (Uranus) and the planet of karma and legacy (Saturn) can aid and abet radical, meaningful changes that are built to last and designed with our betterment in mind.

Full buck moon 2025

During the full moon, Saturn will also be cheek to cheek with Neptune, our planet of dreams and delusions, ideals and escape.

When planets are in close conjunction, their energies blend and this mix is particularly beneficial — as dreams are anchored by action and reality is sweetened with the perfume of possibility.

Saturn will also form a sextile with death daddy Pluto, a planet of power and transformation, suggesting how we structure our lives and conceive of the world at large (Saturn) could shift dramatically and irrevocably (Pluto).

Bear in mind my babies, that Saturn and Pluto are rarely gentle but always pushing us, often on hands and knees with throats raw and cheeks wet, toward a brighter beginning we can’t see from where we fall.

July full moon 2025

The full moon always shines in the sign opposite the sun. This week, that polarity falls on the Cancer/Capricorn axis. Known as the axis of family, this polarity is home to the dual forces of intimacy and ambition.

In terms of archetypes, Cancer is the great, cosmic, moon-synced mother, drunk on t-t nectar and sea spray, high on intuition, and hyper-sensitive to both beauty and brutality.

Capricorn, meanwhile, is the stern, tough love, black coffee, punishing standards, no-sugar daddy of the zodiac.

Both signs are concerned with security and investment, but their approaches differ wildly and swing between unconditional and conditional love sources.

This full moon asks us to consider what we’re made of, where we come from, what we’re building, and who we’re lifting the stones of tomorrow for.

Capricorn finds its footing in form, and Cancer moves through feeling.

As Cancer Sun, Cap Moon artist Edgar Degas moodily espouses, “Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.”

It shows that Degas would draw inspiration from sex workers and dancers — as both express the crux of this axis, the transmutation of the ephemeral to the material, feeling to form.

What is a buck moon?

As per “The Old Farmer’s Almanac,” July’s full moon is known as the buck moon — an homage to the male deer whose antlers are in full-blown growth mode during the deep heat of summer.

Bucks grow and shed their antlers each year, producing more elaborate sets as time passes. When the antlers are fully grown, they harden to bone.

The buck moon will be most visible on the night of July 10 and into the early morning hours of July 11.

The full buck moon spiritual meaning

In addition to bucks sprouting their horns this time of year, nature is in a state of ripening, readying and renewal.

Indigenous tribes of Alaska, including the Haida and Tlingit, refer to the July moon as the “Salmon Moon” because it signifies the onset of Chinook and steelhead runs when the fish flee the sea to return to their home rivers to spawn and die.

This trajectory of return and purpose, home and destiny, beginning as ending, is an apt metaphor for the Cancer/Capricorn axis of this here full moon.

In the words of the dearly departed chef, wanderer and Cancer sun/Cap moon Anthony Bourdain:

“It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of it, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.”

“Maybe that’s enlightenment enough—to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.”

Here’s to the cycle of sanctified struggle and strength through surrender, to standing still long enough to see where we’ve been and humble enough to see how much further we can go.

When is the next full moon?

The next full moon of 2025 will be the full sturgeon moon in Aquarius, rising on August 9th.

---

Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture, and personal experience. To book a reading, visit her website.