buck moon diary

August 1, 2026 | Central Time | 70° & rain | The Spirit Room by Michelle Branch

| I’m growing my hair again even though I’m tempted to chop. There are times to times to hang on, resist the urge, and there are times to acquiesce. One’s hair is pretty connected to creativelifeforce so I trust there’s something swelling in me trying to reach the surface.

| K told me that her fiancé won’t make a change in his life until he’s pushed off a cliff. I told her I’m constantly looking for cliffs to launch myself off so I can make a costume change mid air before landing in the water, meanwhile, my fella’s collecting cool rocks along the path leading up to the cliff. There’s value in both parties’ approach to cliffs. Synchronizing the one, two, three, jump is the art.

| A and I went to Puglia in June. We barely posted about it because the Adriatic kept laughing at us trying to take a decent photo. The sky felt so close to our faces we couldn’t accurately capture that color blue either. A got some incredible shots on film, mostly of cats and blissed out bronzed octogenarians and octopus. I think there are certain places you know you need to feel in person and then you go touch them. I don’t know where those places are for you but I think you should go and go soon. Or go seven years from now, because that’s what A and I did about the heel after talking about it in 2019.

| One of the reasons I’m not cutting my hair is because I’ve been clearing other spaces. Literal closets, inside a family home I haven’t been to in years. I’ve been power washing the deck and flagstone, clearing cobwebs from screens. My sister and I are throwing dinner parties, creating a library, and singing Michelle Branch with our guardian ghosts. Mint, lavender, sage, lemongrass, lemon balm (thanks T!) have all been planted on the perimeter of the house. We’ve been making gorgeous teas.

| Yoda asked me what the difference is between metabolization and integration. I told her the answer feels awfully blurry right now but I think they need to happen ideally in the right order and maybe I’m trying to do one of them too soon. I’m hoping August helps me get there.

| J’s staying in our NYC apartment in August while I’m hanging at the lake and it’s making me really happy. I’ve always wanted to do life with friends in ways where we shuffle from place to place together even though we’re not physically together. Life feels that way right now. J’s hair is also long right now. Once she had a pixie cut. She grew it out in Portland. It was maybe the greatest benefit of her living in that city, an opportunity to wear a beanie while her hair grew.

| My fella made venison wellington on the night of the full moon, using deer that he harvested in the woods here last fall. Incredible. We lit candles and our little cousins wore white gloves to make it feel fancy. It feels extra charged to be in the midwest for the buck moon because our hometown has a lot of lore related to animals with antlers. I thought about posting a photo of the meal but didn’t because I was feeling really connected to all my vegetarian friends during the full moon for some reason.

| July was chaotic and dry. On the last night of the month, we slept with our windows open to the rain. I don’t know what the statistics are on this, but I think August often arrives in soft rain. That seems to be when I’m most likely to arrive here on Substack too. Not that I needed another sign for water and I being in cahoots. The eighth month of the year is one of my favorite months. Summer has felt like a school of a million flickering fish. The scales within me are starting to settle, play nicely together. August will be gold flecked and slow, a luxurious rainbow.

how I’m trying to be in August