Breccia by Ruth Allen

Breccia by Ruth Allen

Journal

What to do about August and the messy middle

A tarot spread for guidance and a creative task designed to amplify your wisdom that you might enjoy doing with me

Ruth Allen, PhD (MNCPS)'s avatar
Ruth Allen, PhD (MNCPS)
Aug 07, 2025
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This is a post for my paid community but I have included a paragraph or two to help you get a feel for whether you would like to join us (£4 month or £40 year - I don’t raise this or do offers). These days I mainly write for my paid supporters with less frequent free posts. I aim to be a kind, encouraging, trusted source. Think, bags of solace. I write weekly and cover writing and creative guidance, reflective personal essays on creativity and creative living, prose sketchbook pieces and other miscellaneous fragments from my life as a therapist alongside rock, including runic readings, travel dispatches and brief contemplations. There is a large back-catalogue. I am inordinately grateful for your eyes, your attentiveness, and your support. If you don’t want to subscribe, but would like to support my writing please consider reading or gifting one of my books: Grounded (2021) and Weathering (2024). For the latter, there is a free-for-everyone slow read here. You can also leave a kind review.

A recent post for the inspiration to keep writing: Three years on Substack

I never quite know what to do with myself in August. It’s a strange, forgettable month, neither short nor long; somehow just a stepping stone for me on the way to September – my favoured time of year. In August, I feel capable of doing very little but at the same time can’t allow myself to do nothing. A month I feel like I could do more with if I set my mind to it, but never do. What to do about August I ask myself every year.

Concurrently to this, I find myself in the messy middle of my book project. I have a vision for it but I don’t know if I am moving towards it or further away. I have ideas, but the lack of skill at times to execute them. There are days I set aside for writing that turn to pulp, hours of trying that feel like weeks. What to do about this book I ask myself every day.

Last week then with the rudderless days mounting up, in need of an intervention and without a flesh-and-bones sage to press a cool towel against my forehead, I turned to the tarot.

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