I want you to make a living relationship to hell.

I keep remembering back to (and I think I’ve written about this before) the teacher who told our class: “it’s up to you to invent your own language.” The guy who said this, whose class I was in, was Dennis Adams. He’s one of those old school post-structuralists who loved making dirty jokes and Vito Acconci. He’s of a tradition that is so used to deconstructing grand narratives and ideals that you’re left with the Beckett-esque and absurdist task of making new meanings from all this junk material.

The reason I mention this is because Mercury is about to shift into Virgo. And, wow, does August reek of Mercurial-ness. Later in the month, the Sun enters Virgo. Mars enters Gemini where it’ll stay to lean backward into its retrograde before its fall.

We talked about slowness last month and, just today as I am writing this, the recession in denial was made official. I think that so much of slowness is about not letting things slip by, about staying in things long enough to feel the impact and also to read between the lines.

K Allado-McDowell writes that “Artists use new language to explore the world and to create new worlds” and that “As the poet, once again, becomes an artist, she becomes the world’s creator. When we enact the new, we become creators of the future. This is the most powerful thing we can do with our lives.” They write that doing this requires three steps: discover the emerging languages, create a new art language, and then enact a new art language.

Jung’s definition of the unconscious is that which directs our lives and turns it into fate.

I want you to use your powers of analysis in August. I want you to do this not for deconstructivist readings, not for paranoid readings, and not to engineer cynicism but to find a way towards your unconscious. I want you to remember your dreams, every single one of them in great detail, and to try your best to understand your most inexplicable kinks. I want you to create a living relationship to hell.

Browse your unconscious like a hacker bad boy who is intent on collecting discarded and unused informative material. Spin it like a skateboarder who cares more about a single moment than infrastructure. Make it sing like a farm worker who does the backbreaking work of stirring fresh compost.

The point of this is not to critique the world and end there. The point of this, to upset the unconscious, is to upset destiny. We have to make some new futures here. We must make new destinies. We have to enact a new language. To do that, we must also spin new tales about how this thing we sometimes call the unliving.

Leo

Nutrition is destiny. And you know of all of the ways that you have been both starved and well fed. Take note of the well fed-ness first. Where in your body do you feel full? Where in the world are you most satiated and what flavors make the heart burst for you? What flavors are for your moments of nostalgia and what scents fulfill you in your time of uncertainty?

Then, you can appreciate what starvation both remembered, present, and imminent have to tell you. You’re understanding what it’s like to be hungry, to be wanting, and knowing emergency before you find a way to do anything about it. In this starvation is great information.

Virgo

There’s peace in mind in being your own character. Making a new language isn’t about linguistics or the written word or really like music. Making a new language is about living. As a creature, you are truly fascinated by living. You know all about the issues and plumbings of it. You study it as a technologist studies tubing.

August is about looking for freedom—freedom from the tyranny of remaining yourself, freedom from pursuit of all things happiness related, and freedom from the nihilistic lack of morality that we call the market. You do this by knowing your own character, by knowing your own morality, and by defining yourself through your actions and not your words.

Libra

Oh, baby, sweetie, honey—you don’t want to work in August. It’s just too hot and there’s just too much going on. There are too many sweet things that catch your fancy. You like to recline and indulge in the fascination with your own mind or a beautiful creature. You don’t want to work, to discipline the attention towards one area of focus. You want to dream.

This is a great time to be asking what you’re working for which I imagine you have been flummoxed with for a great year now. Are you working to provide material security for your parents? For that trip you’ve been dreaming of since you were a teen? Are you working so that you have nutritious food to eat? Ask these questions not only of your frustration but also of your most secret curiosities.

Scorpio

And then, look at you go—off into the world with this big, old generous heart of yours. You’re the type who gives everything away, aren’t you? A friend asks for a twenty and you go and move their couch for them because that’s really what they need. A coworker asks for a cover and you find them a new lead. You’ve gotten so good at hiding that generous heart of yours for reasons you will tell almost no one.

And then, what happens when you name that generosity? Will the same people stay when they realize that your giving heart is no accident of character but something that you also recognize within you? Who objects to you recognizing your magnificence specifically and out loud? Who trusts you enough to let you know yourself as well as they know you?

Sagittarius

My dream for you in August is that you will have a vision, with full splendor and detail, of exactly who you are going to be. You’re going to be paid a visit by the self that you already inhabit in the future. This self will tell you a great deal. It will tell you everything that you need to know about changing your destiny.

Your task is, in August, to listen carefully so that you can recognize this vision when you see it. You do not know when this great vision is coming and neither do you know the form in which your future self will visit you in. You have no idea whether it will happen when you sleep or when you brush your teeth. So, pay attention. Take things slow and get to listening. Keep your ears on the ground.

Capricorn

Climb a mountain sometime in August. If you live in a city, climb a skyscraper. Find a friend who works in a tall office building and see if they have access to the top floor. If you live in a flat area with no tall buildings then climb a hill. If you can’t do all of that physical moving, then climb onto the shoulders of your favorite intellectual giant. See the world as they offer it to you in some film or text or image.

Dissect the world as though you are up above looking down below. This will make your imagination run because you, after all, are part goat. Whatever you see in the world as you peer at it from above will emulate the mapping of your mind. And then, as Sylvia Wynter writes, never confuse the map for territory.

Aquarius

There’s a fantastic scene in Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs where we find out that the psychologist analyzes his own shit every morning. It’s a metaphor for navel gazing, for analyzing your own shit. August is about dealing with your own bullshit.

And I know that you can be sardonic about this stuff. You are an Aquarius rising, after all. You are quick to place blame on yourself while still, somehow, avoiding the responsibility of enjoying yourself as is. I want you to take on the task of dealing with your own bullshit as an act of self love. Play with it, get funny, and remember that you can still love the imcompetent and mad self.

Pisces

Go somewhere. Zip through the world on a telegraph line. Pay for your own shoes and then take off running. This is a necessary component of analysis—changing the furniture around. When you change the furniture around, you find yourself bumping into things and getting lost in the straight streets instead of the curvy ones. You find what you are prone towards.

Habit is just another word for what is a very deep memory. Have you ever thought that you were taking out the trash and then rerouted your steps towards heading out to the street? Have you ever gotten up in the morning and thought that you would be yelled at to clean the bathroom even though you live in your own space now? Find your habits by simply disturbing them.

Aries

Oh you will get so much shit done this month. You’re gonna sit down and just flow. Your hands will be busy and your body will feel just right—relaxed enough to move and tense enough to hold onto what you need to hold onto. August is a productive time for you. You can make all of the big and small plans that you need to drive yourself somewhere in August.

I want you to use your body like a record. Not a record like a note taking tool but a record that you put on the player and listen to. Listen to your own voice when you let it run. See where your steps take you when you walk down the street and see which stops on the train you feel the most alert. Scatter your attention and then bring it back to yourself, capturing all of the things that you are made of.

Taurus

There is great comfort in pulling apart the stuff of your pleasure with the knife of analysis. You get to do this in August. Ask yourself why you are so attracted and transformed by the things that you desire. Find out what childhood memory your very specific sweet tooth remembers for you. Find the source of that wooden scent you keep in your drawers for rainy days.

Oh, there is so much pleasure in pulling apart pleasure. You get to look at all of the pieces. You are your most kinkiest and devious self in August. You figure out what makes you tick. This is your oldest memory, your source of divinity. Pleasure is destiny in August. Treat it as such.

Gemini

August is a time for removal. This is self removal that I am talking about. Are there any situations that you simply need to remove yourself from? Are there any strings of information fluttering around your head that you don’t want to pay accountability towards any longer? This isn’t new loss. It’s old loss. It’s loss that has already happened that you’re outfitting yourself around even today.

You’re in a period of transition. You’re always going to be a bit more grumpy and sensitive when you’re in a period of transition. This grumpiness is vital information. Analyze it. Talk to yourself out loud. Make weird sounds. Analyze things that you remove from yourself and place them where you can look at them from a perspective that you have never occupied before.

Cancer

Look to your corners. There is so much packed there. I’m talking about the corners of your closets and of the bathroom cabinet under the sink where you tuck all of the stuff that you don’t know what to do with. There are old nail polishes there, stray socks that you intended to use for swifter mops, and emergency screws.

Your corners tell you a lot about where you are. This is the stuff that you can’t quite throw out but try to discard. Look at the street corners where the most wild grasses in your neighborhood gather and the corners of trees where the most daring of mushrooms sprout. Corners will tell you everything that you need to know about August.