August Outlook: Time to Live it Up in the Dog Days
The worst part of the year is behind us. We might be a little bit battered — but what comes next?
The clearest message I can give about our entry into August: we’re in a completely new phase now. This does not mean immediate triumph, but it does mean that the miserable and oppressive state of affairs which we’ve pretty much all gotten used to over the last couple of months is over. Not fading, not transitioning, but ended.
Whew. We made it.
Whatever, specifically, does lay in store, it doesn’t look anything like the place where we just were.
Perhaps a little bruised and battered, almost certainly at least out of breath, we can now pick ourselves up a little bit, maybe brush off some of the dust, and really look around and see where we’re at. Probably the first thing we’ll notice is that we seem a little smaller than we were before, likely in more ways than one.
This has been a very purgative time, like we’ve just been blasted with a blowtorch and probably a bunch of impurities got blasted away but we still, like, just got blasted by a blowtorch. It’s cool, though — we’re coming out of it with some assets, too. We’re more balanced and the situation now appears to be quite fertile, good for our medium-term creation and growth prospects. Really, that IS cool.
As promised, the wheel has moved on from that last awful phase, but what’s this next one all about? Well, one aspect of it is that feeling of being a little bit decreased. This, too, is just another phase. There’s nothing good or bad about it. We haven’t lost limbs or anything that can’t be regained. But if we are feeling a little bit short or like we’re hurting, there’s no need to put on airs or try to hide it. No shame right now, guys. We’re all picking up the pieces. This is like a post-disaster scenario. We gotta get together and put all this back together before things are actually back to “normal” or “post-normal” or whatever we want to call it. Taking the time to go through this process is what will build up the strength we need for the next thing — and until we get it, we don’t need to worry so much about perfect form and decorum. This is one of those times when it really is just our attitude that matters; we can be assured that no matter what, we can offer our heart to something. This matters.
A lot of this is about correction and evening-out. There’s an image presented of a lake at the bottom of the mountain. The lake represents unrestrained revelry, perhaps overly hedonistic in nature, the kind of thing that is fun but can lead to corruption and other serious problems. The mountain, on the other hand, is solidness, but solidness that is in part stubbornness, and the kind of stubbornness that can turn into anger. Either of these elements, left on their own, is going to be a pretty bad time. But when the lake is checked by evaporation, and that evaporated moisture rises up to cool off the mountain, you can have a kind of balance that creates a totally new level of potential.
We’re heading for liberation, friends, heading towards a day in which we can all dance together in the sunlight. We’ve got the power of rich, nurturing reflection. We can look at the existing conflicts — some perhaps even lingering from the last couple of months — and we can solve them in part by rising above them. And since we know that those around us are going through the same thing, that we’re all doing a lot of the same things in parallel, if we ever find ourselves having completed the tasks before us, we can offer support to others. If the situation ends up being reversed, we can accept help from those around us, so long as we continue to do all that we can.
And yet we are not quite out of the woods. This week’s new moon seems to come with additional divine blessings, but it’s also pretty certain we can expect some kind of big disturbance right when we least expect it, when we’re relaxed. I hate that more than practically anything in the world. But we’ll get through it.
The fact is, our position is pretty strong, both in our personal lives and relationships, and as we meet the world professionally and socially. It’s just that we’ve got a bunch of work to do as part of picking up those pieces. There’s strain from areas in which we’ve failed to make decisions or finish important tasks. We have to set about doing those things now — the promise being that this is indeed a favorable time to apply labor to a longstanding problem to produce results.
Almost might make the bad surprise worth it. I mean, almost.
Going forward, there’s two interesting recommendations to make. In addition to the importance of putting our heads down to get shit done, there’s a pretty direct promise of chaos — some unpleasant — and tricky adventure — some pleasant — and that’s the backdrop in which we will find ourselves acting. That’s where we’ll be living. Here’s what to do:
First, the old classic piece of “river advice.” What does the flowing water do? It just goes on. It fills the holes before it, without bothering to have an opinion of these empty spaces and certainly not fear of them, just filling the next one and the next one and the next one. Just flowing on through. This is always some of the most important advice in the universe. But we’re reminded of it very directly and specifically right now, so let’s pay attention.
This is not just the beginning of a new phase, but a new aeon in our lives and perhaps even our history. We’re fresh, inexperienced — young in an eternal sense regardless of what our legal age might be. We need to be aware of this at all times, and we need to let this knowledge make us humble and cautious. We don’t need to be fearful, but we do need to avoid being idiots. We’ll do best, in fact, if we are able to seek out a teacher and to then follow that teacher’s advice, skipping no steps. Like a stream.
Secondly, we are called to take that chaos and whatever dash of angst is rattling around in there and turn it toward passion and sensuality and the love of life and nature. What a great thing to do, after all, in the month of August. It’s time to soak it up, to really live, to really feel, to really act. That’s a privilege, isn’t it?
I gotta admit, from a really simple, material, selfish level, I was hoping to be able to report something a lot more exciting and glowing and glorious than what the forecast actually turned out to be. After all, we deserve it, don’t we?
Well, yes, we do. But we’ve got more work to do before we can really say we’ve earned the fullness of what’s coming to us, and we do want that, right?
Yes, we do. So let’s go forward, secure in that knowledge.
That and, perhaps more than anything else, the knowledge that whatever the hell we just went through in this last season, it’s gone. Wicked gone.
Stay safe out there, live it up in the dog days.