August 2021: Horoscopes for Moderns

“Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern…the whole world is a work of art…we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.” –Virginia Woolf

ONE SUMMER I MOVED TO EUROPE and traveled around with my boyfriend. Though mainly we parked out in Paris and Amsterdam.

What I loved most about our seasonal stay was that everyone in Europe stops doing everything in the month of August.

Sure, the places that catered to tourists were still begrudgingly open, but anyone who was anyone had hung out their ‘gone fishing’ sign and were, well, gone.

I’m not sure where this tradition of making August a void comes from—if you know please share in the comments—but the custom made a lasting impression on the part of my nature that loves dawdling.

And so every August since I slip into what’s the equivalent of a Buddhist bardo. One of those in-between time and space zones. And from there I make the effort to barely function. Meaning I stop working and idle my engine.

In August I get lost up in what Virginia Woolf described when she wrote:

“Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern…the whole world is a work of art…there is no Shakespeare…no Beethove…