Moon Medicine: March 2026
Tonight, as winter's grip begins to loosen, the third full moon of 2026 rises into skies that carry the first whispers of spring. The March full moon reaches its peak illumination on Tuesday, March 3rd, marking a threshold moment when the frozen earth begins its slow awakening. Among Cherokee peoples, this moon is known as ᎤᎾᎲᏱ or Anvyi — the Windy Moon, a name that speaks to the blustery March winds that sweep across the land and signal the ceremonial start of the agricultural year (Mooney, 1900). This is not merely a seasonal marker but "First New Moon" of the new seasons, the traditional beginning of the planting cycle when new town council fires were made and the earth prepared to receive seeds once more (Telliquah Cherokee Heritage Center, 2023).
At Good Medicine Collective, we recognize each moon as a teacher, a guide through the great wheel of the year. While January's Wind Moon taught us about endurance and February's Bony Moon reminded us to honor scarcity, March's Windy Moon calls us to awakening — to the stirring of life beneath the surface, to the courage required for new beginnings, and to the sacred responsibility of preparing for growth.
Fact Check: "Worm Moon" and Indigenous Moon Names
This full moon is traditionally known as the Worm Moon because it refers to the earthworms that appear as the soil warms in spring.
This is Accurate but Incomplete.
The name "Worm Moon" has become widespread in popular culture, and while it accurately describes an ecological phenomenon — the emergence of earthworms as the ground thaws — it represents only one cultural perspective. Alternatively, Captain Jonathan Carver wrote in the 1760s that this Moon name refers to a different sort of "worm"—larvae—which emerge from the bark of trees and other winter hideouts. Either way, the emphasis is on emergence, on life returning to visibility after winter's dormancy.
As Melissa K. Nelson (Anishinaabe) and Daniel Shilling write in their comprehensive study Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability, Indigenous moon naming systems are "sophisticated phenological calendars" that encode thousands of years of observation into culturally specific frameworks (Nelson & Shilling, 2018, p. 4). These names are not quaint folklore but represent what Lara A. Jacobs (Muscogee Creek Nation) identifies as the core Indigenous values of "relationships, reciprocity, and responsibility" — the understanding that observation of nature is inseparable from relationship with place (Jacobs, 2024, p. 3).
Indigenous moon names for March vary significantly across Nations, each reflecting specific ecosystems and cultural priorities:
- In Cherokee tradition, this moon is ᎤᎾᎲᏱ or Anvyi, the "Windy Moon" — recognized as the "First New Moon" of the new seasons and the traditional start of the planting cycle. This is when new town council fires are made and personal items and tools for planting are repaired or newly made (Telliquah Cherokee Heritage Center, 2023; Mooney, 1900).
- The Anishinaabe call this Onaabani-giizis (Snow Crust Moon) or Ziissbaakdoke-giizis (Sugar Moon), recognizing both the crusting of late winter snow and the running of maple sap (Center for Native American Studies, 2023).
- The Cree call this the Eagle Moon, while others named it Crow Comes Back Moon (Northern Ojibwe) and Goose Moon (Algonquin, Cree), marking the return of migratory birds.
- The Dakota, Lakota, and Assiniboine called it Sore Eyes Moon, acknowledging the snow blindness that could occur from the sun's intense reflection off late-season snow.
As Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer emphasizes in her work on Traditional Ecological Knowledge, these naming systems represent far more than calendars — they are "place-based libraries of knowledge about seasonal patterns, plant and animal behavior, and sustainable resource use" (Gordon et al., 2022, p. 3). When we learn these names, we are not simply acquiring vocabulary; we are being invited into relationship with the deep observations that sustained communities for millennia.
Fact Check: March's Moon and Lunar Eclipses
This full moon occurs alongside a total lunar eclipse.
Fact. The March 3, 2026 Worm Moon occurs at 6:38 a.m. EST and coincides with a total lunar eclipse, creating a dramatic celestial event. During a total lunar eclipse, Earth's shadow obscures the Moon, often giving it a reddish hue that has led to the term "Blood Moon". This eclipse will be visible across much of North America, weather permitting.
In Cherokee cosmology, eclipses held particular significance as moments when the ordinary order of things is temporarily disrupted — times requiring attention, ceremony, and sometimes fasting (personal communications, Cherokee Nation Cultural Resource Center). While we do not share specific ceremonial practices in public forums, we acknowledge that eclipses are threshold moments, times when the veil between worlds grows thin.
The pairing of the Windy Moon with an eclipse amplifies this moon's teaching about transformation and new beginnings. As Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg) writes in As We Have Always Done, transformative moments in Indigenous life are not about dramatic ruptures but about "paying attention to the details of the present moment" and allowing those details to guide us forward (Simpson, 2017, p. 45). An eclipse asks us to pause, to witness, to remember that even the most reliable patterns sometimes shift.
OUR MEDICINE: ART AND INTENTION UNDER THE WINDY MOON
This moon's teaching is about awakening, preparation, and the sacred work of beginning again. The Windy Moon asks: What seeds — literal or metaphorical — will you plant this season? What needs repair before you can move forward? What relationships require tending as you prepare for growth? Here is how we can honor this moon's energy:
The Practice of Preparation and Repair
Traditionally, the Windy Moon was a time when "families prepare for the coming of the new seasons, starting in Windy Moon Anvyi or March. Personal items and tools for planting are repaired, and new ones made" (Tahlequah Cherokee Heritage Center, 2023). This practice reflects what Kimmerer calls "the honorable harvest" — the understanding that preparation and care for our tools and relationships is sacred work (Kimmerer, 2013, p. 183).
Under this moon, take inventory of what needs mending before you can move into a season of growth. This might be literal — sharpen your garden tools, clean your workspace, repair broken household items — or metaphorical: mend a strained relationship, address a pattern that no longer serves you, clear space in your calendar for what matters. As Nelson and Shilling note, Traditional Ecological Knowledge "includes holistic and broad disciplinary approaches to sustainability, including language, art, and ceremony, as critical ways to maintain healthy human-environment relations" (Nelson & Shilling, 2018, p. 1). Preparation is ceremony. Repair is sacred.
Seed Blessing and Intention Setting
If you are a gardener, this is the traditional time to bless your seeds. Hold them in your hands. Speak to them about what you hope will grow. Thank them for the nourishment they will provide. If you do not garden, this practice can be adapted: Write your intentions for the coming growing season on slips of paper. Plant them in a pot of soil with a bulb or seed. As the plant grows, so too will your intentions take root.
This practice aligns with what Jacobs identifies as the Indigenous value of reciprocity — "the understanding that all beings have gifts to share and responsibilities to uphold within the web of relationships" (Jacobs, 2024, p. 8). When we bless our seeds, we enter into reciprocal relationship with them, acknowledging that growth is a partnership.
Wind Observance: Listening to What Moves
The Windy Moon teaches us to pay attention to what moves, what stirs, what cannot remain static. Go outside during the windiest part of the day. Stand in the wind. Let it blow through your hair, against your skin. Notice what the wind carries — the scent of thawing earth, the sound of awakening birds, the feeling of change itself.
Then ask yourself: What is stirring in my own life? What needs to move that has been stagnant? What is trying to emerge?
As Dr. Heather Sauyaq Jean Gordon (Iñupiaq) and her co-authors write in their work on integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge into land management, "For millennia, guided by the belief that all life is sacred, Indigenous Peoples have been practicing a relationship-based approach for sustainable land stewardship, with the inclusion of culture, connection, ceremony, spirituality, and Elder generational knowledge" (Gordon et al., 2022, p. 2). Wind observation is not passive — it is active relationship-building with the forces that shape our world.
Tonight, We Encourage You To:
- Learn the original moon name for the land you are on, if possible from a direct knowledge keeper or trusted source from that nation. March's moon carries many names, each one encoding specific ecological knowledge and seasonal wisdom.
- Witness the eclipse, if visible in your area. Eclipses are rare and powerful events. If weather and geography permit, go outside and witness this moment when Earth's shadow crosses the Moon's face. Let it remind you that even celestial patterns sometimes shift, and transformation is built into the fabric of existence.
- Prepare something. Whether you are readying a garden bed, organizing seeds, cleaning your workspace, or simply setting intentions for the coming season, let preparation be your practice. As Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) writes, Indigenous environmental practices teach us that "the wisdom of caring for place is inseparable from the wisdom of caring for community" (Gilio-Whitaker, 2019, p. 98). Preparation is care made visible.
- Honor the wind. March is notoriously blustery. Instead of resisting it, work with it. Hang prayer flags or ribbons that will dance in the wind. Fly a kite. Let the wind carry your intentions skyward. Open windows and let fresh air clear stagnant energy from your home.
WE SHARE THESE TEACHINGS FROM A PLACE OF ᎤᏚᎯᏲ (U-DU-HI-YO), A GOOD MIND
These are general cultural principles shared from published and oral sources. The deepest ceremonial knowledge of Cherokee moon cycles, particularly regarding eclipses, belongs to specific Cherokee ceremonial leaders and is not for public discussion.
If you are not Cherokee, we ask you to appreciate, not appropriate. Learn from the framework of seasonal preparation and relationship with natural cycles, but do not perform Cherokee-specific practices or ceremonies. As Simpson powerfully argues throughout her work, true solidarity with Indigenous communities means respecting boundaries around sacred knowledge and supporting Indigenous sovereignty, not extracting practices for personal use (Simpson, 2017).
We encourage everyone to: Step outside tonight if the eclipse is visible in your area. Witness this rare alignment. Feel the wind. Notice what is stirring to life. Let observation, respect, and intention-setting be your practice.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
The Windy Moon teaches us that beginnings require preparation, that growth demands we first tend to what needs repair, and that transformation often arrives on the wind — sudden, powerful, impossible to ignore. Our Cherokee ancestors understood that this moon marked not just a change in weather but a fundamental shift in the year's energy, from surviving winter to preparing for abundance.
At Good Medicine Collective, we honor this wisdom through every bead strung with intention, every story shared with care, every relationship built on mutual respect. Our work exists at this threshold between seasons — between what was and what will be, between survival and flourishing, between honoring tradition and creating new pathways forward.
As Gordon et al. write in their research on Indigenous land management, "Indigenous-led land management affirms Indigenous sovereignty" and demonstrates that "Indigenous Knowledge provides sound ecological principles for land management" (Gordon et al., 2022, p. 1). When we support Indigenous artists and cultural practitioners, we are not merely purchasing beautiful objects — we are participating in the continuation of knowledge systems that have sustained communities through countless seasons of change.
May this Windy Moon teach us to prepare with intention, to repair with care, to plant with hope, and to trust the cycles that have turned since time immemorial. Let us move through this season with ᏄᏓᎴᏒ (nu-da-le-sv), balance, carrying the medicine of new beginnings and the ancient knowledge that every seed contains not just a plant, but a promise.
We invite you to continue walking this path with us. Support the artists whose hands carry forward ancestral knowledge. Learn the seasonal wisdom that connects us to place. Build relationships grounded in reciprocity and respect.
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REFERENCES & FURTHER READING:
Benton-Banai, E. (1988). The Mishomis Book: The Voice of the Ojibway. University of Minnesota Press.
Buechel, E., & Manhart, P. J. (Eds.). (2002). Lakota Dictionary: Lakota-English / English-Lakota. University of Nebraska Press.
Center for Native American Studies. (2023). Moons of the Anishinaabeg. Northern Michigan University. https://nmu.edu/nativeamericanstudies/moons-anishinaabeg-0
Cook, W. H. (ed.). (1979). Cherokee Language Lessons. Cherokee Publications.
Gilio-Whitaker, D. (2019). As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock. Beacon Press.
Gordon, H. S. J., Ross, J. A., Bauer-Armstrong, C., Moreno, M., Byington, R., & Bowman, N. (2022). Integrating Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge of land into land management through Indigenous-academic partnerships. Land Use Policy, 125, 106478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106478
Jacobs, L. A. (Ed.). (2024). Indigenous Critical Reflections on Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Oregon State University Press.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions.
Legaufee, E. (2021). Patterns of Kinship: Beadwork, Narrative, and Métis Visual Sovereignty. Journal of Indigenous Arts & Sciences, 8(2).
Mooney, J. (1900). Myths of the Cherokee. Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
Mooney, J. (1891). The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology.
NASA. (2026). Phases of the Moon: 2026. NASA Science.
NASA Science. (2025). Supermoons. https://science.nasa.gov/moon/supermoons/
Nelson, M. K., & Shilling, D. (Eds.). (2018). Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability. Cambridge University Press.
Personal Communications & Teachings from Cherokee elders and language instructors at the Cherokee Nation Cultural Resource Center.
Simpson, L. B. (2017). As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance. University of Minnesota Press.
Telliquah Cherokee Heritage Center. (2023). Cherokee Moons. https://telliquah.com/Moons.htm
Vowel, C. (2016). Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada. Portage & Main Press.