My August Bardo
See you in September kids
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 Beethoven…no God; we are the words; we are the music;
we are the thing itself.”
But 2021 was the first time I’ve had a project like my WOODRUFF Substack hovering over my head. A commitment that’s based on subscriptions and regularly generated content for my subscribers. How would I manage when August reared its head?
Imagine my joy when I discovered that under the hood of Substack there exists an option—a little button actually—for writers to press when they wish to ‘pause’ and stop the world for a spell.
Meaning, Substack allows me to freeze any sort of billing or recurring billing that’s associated with my subscribers’ access to my exclusive content.
And that’s what I’ll be doing in August. Hitting that ‘pause’ button.
That means for my monthly paid subscribers there billing won’t resume until the start of September.
For readers that purchased a year-long subscription your access to WOODRUFF will be extended an extra month.
I’ll be back in September for more exclusive astrology reports and seasonal Tarot draws and other wild offerings that I’ve planned for the fall.
Thank you all, and enjoy your own version of a European August.
Love,
