The Fox & Thistle Liminal - Sturgeon Moon - July 24th, 2025

 

Welcome to the July 24th, 2025 issue of The Fox & Thistle Liminal, A Creative Almanac weaving together Art & Design — Inspired by Nature’s Muse. This issue celebrates the Sturgeon Moon, offering a guide to the season’s wonders and celestial events for all who seek inspiration under the same sky.

Look Out For - Seasonal Highlights in Late July and Early August

As summer reaches its peak, here’s what to watch for:

Produce: Tomatoes, sweet corn, zucchini, cucumbers, bell peppers, eggplant, green beans, summer squash, fresh thyme, oregano, & early apples!

Flowers: Sunflowers, black-eyed Susans, bee balm, poppy, milkweed, and morning glories.

Wildlife: Dragonflies, grasshoppers, bumblebees, hummingbirds, toads, frogs, raccoons, chipmunks, and painted turtles.

Weather: Thunderstorms bring brief, intense rain.

These sights and flavors capture the essence of late summer, inviting you to connect with the natural world.

Look Up For - Celestial Events in Late July and Early August

The night sky lights up with these events to explore:

Delta Aquariid Meteor Shower: Peaks July 28–29, casting quiet streaks in the early morning hours.

Midpoint Between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox: August 1 marks the halfway point, as fields begin to ripen.

Full Sturgeon Moon: Rises on August 9, named for the fish once plentiful in late summer.

Perseid Meteor Shower: Peaks August 12–13, one of the year’s most reliable meteor showers. Though the moon will still be bright during this year’s display, the Perseids’ brightest meteors will remain visible.

These moments connect us to the vast cycles above, perfect for stargazers everywhere.

Sturgeon Moon Cycle - Key Dates

Follow the lunar rhythm this month:

• New Moon: 7/24
• 1st Quarter: 8/01
• Full Moon: 8/09
• 3rd Quarter: 8/16
• Next: New Corn Moon: 8/23

These dates anchor the month’s ebb and flow, guiding your journey through the season.

Digitus Impudicus

There are numerous accounts suggesting that the middle finger gesture originated in ancient Rome. Soldiers and gladiators reportedly used it to insult adversaries and spectators alike.

More than a thousand years later in medieval France, the gesture evolved as a mark of contempt and mockery. French soldiers would sever the index and middle fingers of captured English longbowmen to prevent them from drawing their bows. In response, defiant English archers would raise their remaining fingers, proudly signaling their ability to still fight back. This rebellious act eventually took root as the iconic symbol we recognize today as the middle finger.

Now, from school yard scuffles to roadside brawls, the gesture stands as a symbol of defiance, rebellion, and offense. Subtle yet bold, our scrunches hide that irreverent spirit right in your hair. Whether you're attending an event you'd rather skip or spending time with someone you'd rather not see, it's the perfect quiet protest—no words needed.

Offhand Cards for Common Situations

To be a fool at the right time is an art.
Each day is better than the next.
It’s never too late to be the person you could have been.
May the bridges I burn light the way.
Count the stars without me.

Fox & Thistle Studio’s new line of correspondence cards walk a fine line—offering solace to the giver—and clarity, confrontation, or something in between to the recipient.
See the full collection at: www.foxandthistle.studio

Pantagruel’s Reverie

Ten cryptic designs based on 16th-century French woodcuts—revived as a t-shirt series of surreal warnings and ambiguous dilemmas.

See the full collection at: https://foxandthistle.studio/collections/pantagruel-reverie

Never Play to the Gallery
So much to do, so little done.
Thou hast abode insult to injury
Uncertainties Await!

Hothouse Flowers

Recent Highlights from our Vintage Shop

Audels Carpenters and Builders Guide - Set of Four - (1945)
Born in early 20th-century New York, this set was the workingman’s pocket professor—first published in 1923 and refined over decades of dust, drafts, and drawing boards. This edition carries the quiet confidence of the postwar United States.

Each volume is filled with hand-drawn diagrams, plainspoken instruction, and time-tested technique. A handsome archive of know-how for the maker, the mender, and the tinker.

Mani Wheel - Tibetan Prayer Wheel (mid-20th c.)
Carved in brass, the Tibetan prayer wheel is both object and offering. Rooted in Himalayan Buddhist tradition, each spin is said to release the power of the mantra written a thousand times within—Om Mani Padme Hum—loosely translates as “the jewel is in the lotus,” a call to awaken the union of compassion and wisdom within oneself.

A relic of movement, made for meditation—inviting stillness, repetition, and reverence.

Lesto Single-Lever Corkscrew (circa 1940)
With a single sweep of the arm, the cork lifts clean from the bottle—no wrestling or ceremony, just the satisfying precision of brilliant engineering paired with a French appreciation for fine wine. The Lesto corkscrew turns labor into a gesture, as smooth as the first sip of a fine vintage.

This ingenious design was first patented in Paris in 1890 by Jacques Pérille, a prolific inventor celebrated for elevating everyday tools through mechanical grace. Though this later model bears the simplified name Lesto, it clearly carries forward the spirit—and the genius—of Le Presto.

K&E Hudson Oak Drafting Table (1930s–50s)
Built to last generations and still going strong, this vintage oak drafting table from the Keuffel & Esser "Hudson" line is a classic specimen of mid-20th-century American design. With its adjustable tilting top and solid oak base, it reflects the practical elegance of a time when tools were made for serious, sustained use. The clean joinery and weathered appearance offer a tactile sense of history, intention, and charm.

K&E—once a standard-bearer in American engineering and architectural circles—produced these tables for professionals who needed both reliability and grace in their workspace. The Hudson line stood out for its balance of form and function: substantial without excess, refined without pretense. Whether put to work or left to quietly anchor a room, this table brings a calm gravity with it, as if it remembers what it was made to support.

The Tinker’s Wrap

We’ve turned some of the vintage merchandise flowing through Fox & Thistle Studio into an illustrated bandana design called The Tinker’s Wrap.

It’s a hand-drawn collage featuring mid-century chairs, apothecary cabinets, antique phones, eclectic masks, wine bars, statuettes, glassware, lighting, and more!

We’re currently getting set up to ship Vintage Goods nationally in the U.S., with larger furniture items available for pickup or delivery around Hampton Roads, Virginia.
We also make occasional trips statewide and up to D.C.
Contact us at: contact@foxandthistle.studio

The Doomsday Hintercast

Recent research indicates that the Southern Ocean’s overturning circulation is weakening due to rapid Antarctic ice melt and the resulting influx of freshwater into surface waters. This freshwater reduces the density of surface water, inhibiting the formation of dense, cold Antarctic Bottom Water—the process that drives the deep, southward limb of the global overturning circulation. As this sinking slows, the overall strength of the circulation is declining, disrupting the ocean’s ability to absorb heat and carbon from the atmosphere and transport them into the deep ocean. Observations from oceanographic instruments show these changes are already underway and could lead to significant disruptions in global climate patterns if warming continues. 

Separately, studies published in Nature Communications and other journals have found that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)—which includes the Gulf Stream—is likely at its weakest in more than a millennium, largely due to warming waters and increased freshwater from melting ice. Some models suggest the AMOC may be approaching a tipping point under continued emissions.

These two systems, though located in opposite hemispheres, are part of the same global thermohaline network. Changes in one can influence the other over time through interconnected oceanic and atmospheric feedbacks. Together, they signal that the deep circulatory systems anchoring Earth’s climate are destabilizing. The consequences are already emerging: accelerated sea-level rise along the U.S. East Coast, shifts in marine ecosystems, altered weather patterns, and disruptions to rainfall systems such as the Sahel in Africa and monsoon regions across Africa and Asia. These changes are measured, recorded, and underway.

[Nature Climate Change, 2023] [Nature, 2021] [Nature Communications, 2021] [CSIRO, 2024] [NOAA Climate.gov, 2024] [IPCC AR6 Report, 2021]

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THE LIMINAL - Sturgeon Moon Cycle - July 24, 2025

 

*Note: This article updates earlier reports that claimed satellite images verified a reversal of the Southern Ocean's circulation. Those reports misrepresented a scientific study from the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) in Barcelona, which documented salinity changes around Antarctica rather than a reversal.