When Mercury exalts, the bookworm in us comes out.

This is the last stretch of summer. Venus already fell in a hole and Mercury is playing catch up, coming with a flashlight. Summer bleeding into fall is about quiet moments. It’s about taking walks, noticing with relief that the bugs are leaving with the hot, and about going to the library. The sun starts to threaten to retreat, not doing so yet but sighing because it is out for too long and with too much to do.

I want you to spend some time by yourself in August. Take yourself to the places you want the most to go. Take notice of your needs and ask yourself what you want. Sink into yourself.

When Mercury exalts, the bookworm in us comes out. Bookworming is about flow and grounding rather than words and research. Bookworming is about reading not because you have something that you feel a pressing need to learn about but because you want to spend some time in stillness and with a page turner. Bookworming is not always about reading “good” books but about reading lengthy books, indulgent books, and a lot of books.

We also have a bit of an anomaly this month. There’s a second Aquarius full moon in August at the anaretic degree. This happens right before the Sun slips into Virgo and we start to process and metabolize the summer.

It may be the last stretch of summer but now is not the time for going out and cramming too many activities into the course of one day. This last month of summer is a weary and wary one.

This last month of summer is about independence. Independence is not a condition of not relying on anyone else but of finding interesting things without needing to have them brought to your attention by someone else. Independence is about nourishing boredom until it becomes depth. Boredom is not always easy to accept. Boredom sometimes reveals the anticipation of loneliness.

This August, learn the difference between boredom and loneliness. It is easy to conflate the two feelings but they are trying to tell us different things. They are doing different things for us. Both emotions are as important as you and the gap between them is like the gap between thirst and hunger.

Leo

Don’t do too much. Do as little as possible. The thing is, because you are prone to doing too much, you will most likely enjoy yourself just as much as anyone when you try to minimize your scheduled activities a bit. Think of minimizing as a way of protecting yourself.

Just like any Leo, August probably brings you back to that childhood moment of the last month of summer during which you are three parts divided between your birthday, seeing friends at school again, and trying to enjoy the sun before it’s time to bundle up again. It’s hard to focus around this time of the year. Take a deep breath, sit back, and choose just one thing to excite you per day.

Virgo

Oh god, you’re stimulated this time of the year! There’s just something about late summer evenings, isn’t there? It’s the blue light of the lethargic sun going down, or the cooling days but warm nights. You notice these things—they remind you of when you would count the cracks of the sidewalk and think of weird questions of all the unknowns of the world.

Write everything down in August. Journal every morning and every night. Make an appointment at the library and sit for a whole day. Collect newspaper clipping and find a spooky mystery novel that you just can’t put down. Buy new pens and a fresh spiral notebook. Make a note of unanswerable questions that come up during your commute in your phone.

Libra

Break a habit. Do you usually smoke a cigarette after a meal? Grab the nearest screen when you open your eyes? Go back to sleep when your body wakes? Do you have a habit of drinking soda right before bed? What about not brushing your teeth on the weekends?

A habit will take weeks to break. Breaking a habit takes considering yourself and it takes confronting yourself. It’s not such an easy thing even though it may seem like such a simple thing. Breaking a habit takes power and it reminds you that you have your own.

Scorpio

August is the time for big reveals and announcements. You’re the type to actually spend the time you need to get all the things on your summer to-do list done and you haven’t told a soul all of the things that you’ve been doing all this time. Now, it’s the right time to celebrate. You know in your gut that this is true.

Announcing things is always a little scary and a little uncertain but that’s why you love it. You love the reveal just as much as you love the anticipation and the presentation. So do it—receive all of your congratulations and smiles. Dress for the occasion.

Sagittarius

If you experience wanderlust and can afford it, take a trip by yourself. If this is hard to do, take different routes home and gaze at the horizon. Talk to someone who doesn’t share your nationality at some point in August. Get their perspective on what has been going on in the world.

Not everyone feels safe to travel right now but you still want your mind blown by something or someone. Blow it yourself. Conversations are journeys too and they’re free. You should always travel freely, with slowness, and without expense.

Capricorn

You’re the sort that likes to prepare for the end of summer early. Don’t start making a list of things that you want to do this fall and winter just yet. Just sit down and do as little as possible for a bit. You happen to have some relationships that need tending.

Have the hard conversations with friends about jealousy or resentment or loneliness that open up too much to be processed in one go. End conversations by planning another time to talk, to solidify the relationship. Do all this not because you have to but because you choose to. Transform fear into invitation by using your honesty.

Aquarius

Stop staying up so late every night because you’re looking up fan theories and internet essays about whatever you are least interested in and start staying up because you are ready to finish what has haunted you creatively for far too long. The Moon is trying to tell you something. It refreshes itself right where you least expect it for a reason.

The Moon is trying to tell you that projects don’t improve simply because you hang onto them. Everything you make becomes a source of embarrassment after a while but that doesn’t mean that you should shut up. Finish what you have been working on for way too long not because it’s perfected but because you are ready to move on.

Pisces

You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. Remember one thing that you used to allow a friend to expect from you that you no longer allow. Remember what it took to release that expectation from your body. It took a lot, didn’t it? It took a lot of time, and rage, and disappointment.

What you crave in August is relief. Relief has to do with leaving things behind. It has to do with being yourself rather than someone else’s version of you. Stop doing things because you want to be good or smarter or kinder. Stop doing things because you allow people to idealize you. Do things only when they feel authentic to what you know you and your community needs.

Aries

Protect your time by saying no to anyone who wants you to solve their boredom problem for them. You are not someone else’s entertainment. You’re too busy for that. Instead, scrub your pots and pans, take out the trash, and wash your floors. When you protect your time, you finally have enough time to do all of the things that you need to get done.

When you do anything, pretend that you have the time you need to do it instead of rushing. Actually give yourself enough time. Give yourself a day for laundry and another day for just cooking. Give yourself whole evenings to read about one thing instead of scrolling and busying yourself with too many topics of interest.

Taurus

This will be a good month for you. The reason is, you don’t deprive yourself just because you are alone. That fallen Venus rejoices in your fifth house just as you rejoice when you commit pleasure in complete secrecy.

Make a list of your favorite things that you like to do alone this month—drinking hot water, licking your lips after eating sweets, and afternoon naps. Sort your list into categories and pin it to your bedroom wall. Start each and every day by looking through the list and figuring out when you will have time to do at least one of the things on this list.

Gemini

Treat your bedroom as if you had just moved in. When you first move into a space, what do you do? You figure out where to put furniture so that it has the best flow and you sweep out all of the corners because that’s the best time to do it. You launder your sheets so that they smell and feel clean.

Clean your room. Clean out your entire room, including that drawer where you stick things that you don’t want to see and that desk corner where you stick things that might be useful but are probably not. Throw away old snacks and stale chips. Take all of the cups in your room to the kitchen. Sweep the floors.

Cancer

Activism is a ritual—it’s consistent, regular, and you show up not only when you feel that it is urgent but because you seek a different relationship to time. In August, pretend that you have the time to show up for all of the things that you want to show up for. You have time to ask about community problems and you have time to have conversations with all the sides of a friend group if anyone is having disagreements.

When you treat conflict as though you have all of the time you need to show up, it changes. It changes from this incomprehensible and insurmountable thing into a question. In August, find the questions present at the core of your conflicts.