Burning Man: Life In Cities

During this Mercury in Virgo retrograde (Aug. 20-Sept. 12), the Black Rock Arts Festival, Burning Man, the yearly “desert art-piece on the playas,” begins, distilling all facets of community creation, living and sharing.
And so, through the retro, almost at summer’s end (Aug. 30-Sept. 6), the celebration develops, proceeds, burns, cleans up and then disappears without a trace. The theme this year is The Metropolis, the Life of Cities. People worldwide are returning to the cities. Tent cities are now in major metropolitan cities everywhere, filled with both the migrating masses and those who have lost their homes.
Burning Man is the shadow and template of a new society beginning to emerge. We are nearing apocalyptic times. Or perhaps we’re already in them. Burning Man, its creation, society and sense of community, can be seen as apocalyptic. For each year, out on the desert sands, “magnetic hubs of pulsing urban social interaction” rise up, form a city where its inhabitants create a community — “organic, spontaneous, heterogeneous and untidy, diverse, unpredictable and unique.”

ARIES: Careful with love and all encounters with intimates, loved ones, those close to you, partners, etc. You (or they) may feel estranged, separate, unloved and uncared for and yearn for contact and for the magnetic charms you usually lavish on what you love. We are to “be of love a little more careful than of anything.” (e.e. cummings).
TAURUS: Each day may feel more and more difficult. There could be tiredness, exhaustion, a need to tend to health and well-being. Perhaps choices you’ve made in the past five years need re-assessing. What are the consequences of these choices and should you make new ones (after the retro)?
GEMINI: Do you feel your creative process at a standstill? Do you recognize what your creative process is? What you actually have, when aligned with the Soul, is a “prophetic imagination,” both like and unlike that of Pisces. During this retrograde that rules you, ponder upon a critique on the present social situations worldwide.
CANCER: Since you nourish new ideas that must come into form and matter through impressing humanity’s minds and hearts, perhaps you can begin to help humanity envision a new and vibrant way of life, not the old materialism as we have known it, but the new materialism that responds to world/humanity’s need.
LEO: I’m wondering if there’s a lamentation for things that occurred in the family long ago. Perhaps there’s a lament for one or more family deaths. It would be good to express yourself more in depth about any and all things on your mind. It will help you trust yourself more. The more you talk, the more that’s hidden within you emerges. This is healing for you.
VIRGO: It would be good to hang mirrors everywhere and look into them, pondering upon who you are. It’s good to assess and re-assess everything about yourself including what you value. Create an “I Value” book. Set it alongside your “Retrograde” book and your “Esoteric quotes” book. Back to values. Write down everything you value. Begin with yourself.
LIBRA: When you think of your life as a child, what do you remember? What areas in your life that, successful now, can be traced back to what you were taught as a child? What beliefs do you carry into your life based upon resistance? How do you see your parents, in what light, and are you able to understand the Fourth Commandment?
SCORPIO: Do you feel, in any way, complicit with the materialistic (read destructive) forces accepted within our dominant culture? Do you explore or encounter new ways of being that undermine the materiality of the dominant culture? Why am I asking you these questions? Because you understand the underbelly of everything. And because, through you, everything reorients toward the light.
SAGITTARIUS: I am suggesting a book and author to you. He is brilliant. His work is brilliant. You are brilliant. So I thought to put the three together, a triangle, a symbol of synthesis. The author is Michael Eric Dyson. The book is “Can You Hear Me Now?” He wrote more books. This author understands God, hip-hop and popular culture, both black and white.
CAPRICORN: You’re on the brink, edge, precipice, border, boundary, periphery, perimeter of moving into the center of everyone’s world. You’ve tried to open many doors and felt often they were closed. Now as they open, you peek inside, realizing the choice to walk through or return home. There you rest, remember, retreat, reassess and review who you are. Revelations then happen.
AQUARIUS: You want to travel, but you don’t. Something holds you back. You decide to travel and things fall apart. You seek relationships but experience conflict and chaos instead. I want to remind you that conflict is Ray 4. From and through conflict a new harmony arises. Know also that for what you want in life, you must consider all the ways of cooperation.
PISCES: Something within relationship returns to an original place (or person). As this occurs, as you’re called here and there, by necessity or by desire (of others), you remember to stand still, quietly and in truth, within your own needs. Not just wants, but needs. It seems you’ve stopped praying, bordering on having no hope. Something lovely your ways comes. Embrace it. And drive away.