Strawberry Moon 2027: When to See It, What It Means and How to Use It

Strawberry Moon 2027 at a Glance

Date	Friday, June 18, 2027
Exact full moon	8:44 PM Eastern, 7:44 PM Central, 6:44 PM Mountain, 5:44 PM Pacific
Best nights to look	The evenings of June 17, 18 and 19
Zodiac sign	27° Sagittarius (Sun at 27° Gemini)
Solstice	June 21, about two and a half days after the full moon
Mercury	Retrograde June 10 to July 4, in Cancer at the full moon
Distance	About 402,000 km, near apogee, not a supermoon
Next full moon	The Buck Moon, July 18, 2027, in Capricorn

When Is the Strawberry Moon in 2027?

The Moon is exactly full at 00:44 Universal Time on June 19, 2027. For everyone in the United States that is the evening of Friday, June 18: 8:44 PM Eastern, 7:44 PM Central, 6:44 PM Mountain and 5:44 PM Pacific.

That timing is a gift. The Moon is full within minutes of rising on the East Coast, so you get the big, low, golden version at its exact peak, on a Friday, in June. The cosmos clearly wants you outside.

A full moon looks full for about a day on either side, so you have three good nights. In New York the Moon rises at 7:48 PM on Thursday June 17 (98 percent lit), 8:42 PM on Friday June 18, twelve minutes after the 8:30 PM sunset, and 9:27 PM on Saturday June 19. Friday is the night. Saturday is the encore.

How to See the Strawberry Moon

Face southeast at moonrise. No telescope, no app, no equipment: the whole point of a full moon is that you can’t miss it. Check your local moonrise time, get somewhere with a clear view toward the horizon, and give it twenty minutes.

Then notice how low it stays. The Strawberry Moon never climbs far, and here is why. A full moon sits directly opposite the Sun. In June the Sun is at its highest point of the year, so the full moon is at its lowest. At the exact moment of the 2027 full moon the Sun’s declination is 23.4° north and the Moon’s is 27.0° south, a little further south than the Sun is north because the Moon’s orbit is tilted about 5° to Earth’s path around the Sun.

The highest a body gets in your sky is 90° minus your latitude, plus its declination (minus it, when the body is south of the equator). For New York, at 40.7° north:

• Strawberry Moon, June 2027: 90 minus 40.7 minus 27.0 = about 22° above the horizon at its highest, around 1 AM.
• Cold Moon, December 2027: 90 minus 40.7 plus 26.3 = about 76°, almost overhead.

So the June full moon peaks at less than a third of the height of December’s. Further north it sits lower still. In Seattle it tops out near 15°, and in Miami near 37°.

That low path is also why it looks golden. A low Moon’s light passes through far more air to reach you, and air scatters blue light away, which leaves the reds and yellows. It is the same reason sunsets are red. The Moon isn’t changing color, your atmosphere is doing the filtering, and the effect fades as the Moon climbs.

Why Is It Called the Strawberry Moon?

The name marks the short June season when wild strawberries ripen and are gathered. The Farmers’ Almanac traces it to the Algonquin and other North American nations, naming the Algonquin, Ojibwe, Dakota and Lakota among those who used some form of “Strawberry Moon” for June, and the Old Farmer’s Almanac places the name with Algonquian peoples of the northeastern United States. The berry in question is the wild Virginia strawberry, which ripens in June.

It has nothing to do with how the Moon looks. The Old Farmer’s Almanac puts it plainly: the name “has nothing to do with the Moon’s hue or appearance.” If the Moon happens to glow pink or amber as it rises, that is the low altitude at work, not the strawberries.

Most popular full moon names come from a mix of Indigenous North American, colonial American and European traditions, and almanacs have published them since the 1930s. That is where the names most of us know, including November’s Beaver Moon, come from.

Other Names for the June Full Moon

June had a lot going on, so it collected a lot of names. These come from the Farmers’ Almanac and the Old Farmer’s Almanac, which name the people or region each one belongs to.

• Rose Moon. European settlers, for the roses in bloom.
• Honey Moon. A European name for the honey colored light of this low Moon and the time honey was taken from the hives. The Old Farmer’s Almanac says the word “honeymoon” may be tied to it, since June was the traditional month for weddings, though the link is not proven.
• Mead Moon. From the same tradition, for mead brewing and the mowing of meadows for hay.
• Hot Moon. Used in some regions when the full moon falls late in June and the afternoons have turned hot.
• Blooming Moon. Anishinaabe, for the flowering season. The Ojibwe also used Flowering Moon and Garden Moon.
• Green Corn Moon. Cherokee, and Hoer Moon from the Western Abenaki: both say it is time to tend the young crops.
• Berries Ripen Moon. Haida, for the wider berry season. The Creek called it the Blackberry Moon and the Shawnee the Raspberry Moon.
• Birth Moon. Tlingit, for the season when young animals are born. The Cree had Egg Laying Moon and Hatching Moon.

Every one of them is about the same thing: what is ripening, blooming or being born right now. Keep that in mind for the spiritual reading further down.

What Is the Cause of a Strawberry Moon?

A full moon happens when the Moon sits directly opposite the Sun, with Earth in the middle, so the whole face turned toward us is lit. That lineup repeats about every 29 and a half days, and the full moon that lands in June gets the name Strawberry Moon. There is nothing unusual about the Moon itself. It is a normal full moon with a seasonal name.

What is unusual is where it sits. Because the June Sun is near its highest point, the Moon opposite it is near its lowest, so the Strawberry Moon hugs the horizon and picks up that warm color on the way up. The name comes from the harvest, the look comes from the geometry.

If you want the whole cycle, new to full and back, our guide to the spiritual meaning of each moon phase walks through it.

Strawberry Moon Dates 2026 to 2031

Here is every Strawberry Moon from 2026 to 2031, with the exact instant converted to Eastern time and the sign the Moon is in. The sign depends on the solstice: before it the Sun is in Gemini and the Moon is full in Sagittarius, after it the Sun has moved into Cancer and the Moon is full in Capricorn. The 2026 row is there for reference, since that one has passed.

Year	Full moon (Eastern)	Moon sign
2026	Mon June 29, 7:56 PM	Capricorn, 8 days after the solstice
2027	Fri June 18, 8:44 PM	Sagittarius, 2.5 days before
2028	Wed June 7, 2:09 AM	Sagittarius, 13.5 days before
2029	Mon June 25, 11:22 PM	Capricorn, 5 days after
2030	Sat June 15, 2:41 PM	Sagittarius, 5.5 days before
2031	Thu June 5, 7:58 AM	Sagittarius, 16 days before

Notice 2027 is the closest to the solstice of the six. The nearer a full moon falls to the June solstice, the lower it rides, so 2027’s is about as low as a Strawberry Moon gets.

Strawberry Moon Spiritual Meaning

The Strawberry Moon is the first harvest. Everything about June, from the strawberries to the honey to the roses, says the same thing: what was planted in spring is ripe now, and ripeness doesn’t wait. Pick it or lose it.

Spiritually this full moon asks for honesty about what has actually grown. Not what you meant to grow in January, not what you posted about, what is really there, sweet and ready. Three questions to sit with:

• What is ripe? Name one thing in your life that is ready right now: a skill, a relationship, a project, a version of yourself. Full moons make things visible. Look.
• What am I pretending is still growing? Some things never set fruit this year. Under a full moon that is information, not failure. Let the ground rest.
• Who do I share the sweetness with? Strawberries don’t keep. Neither does a good season you never celebrate. Say thank you out loud, to someone, this week.

The Full Moon in Sagittarius: What It Means

Every full moon is a conversation between two opposite signs. In June 2027 the Sun is at 27° Gemini and the Moon is at 27° Sagittarius.

Gemini is the facts: the details, the messages, the five open tabs. Sagittarius is the meaning: the big picture, the belief, the point of all of it. Under this full moon your details and your direction have to meet in the same room. Expect a moment where you stop collecting information and finally decide what it adds up to. A Sagittarius Moon needs honesty and room to move, so if something has felt too small for you lately, this is the full moon that says so. Our guide to the Sagittarius Moon explains what this Moon needs in more depth.

The timing adds a twist. Mercury stationed retrograde at 6° Cancer on June 10 and stays retrograde until July 4, so the Strawberry Moon lands right in the middle of it. Mercury retrograde in Cancer pulls old feelings, old homes and old family conversations back up for review, and this full moon asks what they mean, not just what happened. Here is the detail we love: Mercury turns direct on July 4 at 27° Gemini, within a tenth of a degree of where the Sun sits at this full moon. Whatever gets said or seen on June 18 comes back for its final edit on July 4. Don’t sign anything on the full moon that you’d rather sign with the full story.

What the Sagittarius Full Moon Means for Your Sign

Read this from where 27° Sagittarius falls in your chart. By Sun sign, it lands here:

• ♈︎AriesTravel, study and belief peak. The trip or course you keep “thinking about” wants a date.
• ♉︎TaurusShared money and deep trust come to a head. Have the conversation about who owes what, in every sense.
• ♊︎GeminiThe Sun is in your sign and the Moon lights up your relationships. Someone shows you exactly where you stand.
• ♋︎CancerRoutines, work and health habits reach a verdict. Keep what helps, and drop the rule you only follow out of guilt.
• ♌︎LeoRomance, creativity and play ripen. Something you made or someone you like gets a real response.
• ♍︎VirgoHome and family take the spotlight. A living situation or a family truth becomes clear.
• ♎︎LibraConversations, siblings and short trips light up. The message you’ve been drafting is ready to send, after one more read.
• ♏︎ScorpioMoney and what you’re worth come into focus. Ask for the number you actually want.
• ♐︎SagittariusThis is your full moon. Your body, your name, your direction: something about who you are peaks and becomes visible to everyone.
• ♑︎CapricornRest, endings and the private stuff. Let something finish quietly before the solstice. Nobody needs to watch.
• ♒︎AquariusFriends, groups and the future. A circle you belong to shifts, and your place in it gets clearer.
• ♓︎PiscesCareer and reputation hit a peak. Work you did in spring gets seen by the people who matter.

For a more personal read, find the house where 27° Sagittarius falls in your own chart. Our free birth chart calculator gives you your rising sign in seconds; count Sagittarius from that sign to find the house, and that house is where this harvest lands for you.

3 Strawberry Moon Rituals

1. The gratitude harvest. Sit down with paper on the full moon evening and list everything that has ripened since the spring equinox: finished things, deepened things, surprises. Be specific and be generous with yourself. Then circle the three you most want to keep tending through summer.
2. The sweetness ritual. Share strawberries, honey or both with someone, in person if you can. While you eat, say the thanks out loud: one thing they did this year that made a difference. Sagittarius Moons like honesty and Gemini Suns like it spoken, so don’t just think it.
3. The release under the low Moon. Go outside at moonrise and watch it clear the horizon. As it climbs and turns from gold to white, name the one thing that did not grow this year and let it go with the color. Write it down, tear it up, done. Mercury is retrograde, so release the feeling, not the person, and leave the dramatic text unsent.

Want more? Our guide to full moon rituals has five simple ways to release and recharge under any full moon.

Strawberry Moon FAQ