November: Between Message and Messenger

 
 

In this image, an iridescent moth stretches its wings and aims itself at the night sky, where a river of silver-lit clouds snakes between the moth and the moon. This is a spell of longing and it points to where language will always, always fail us. Only in poetry will language let us glimpse the world that lives beyond what language can ever contain. 

At this moment, near the end of this riddle of a year, where how we live within an ongoing pandemic makes even less sense than it did last year, we’re collectively longing for something different—but that difference can feel impossible to name. Finding our way to what we want and need, personally and collectively, often means taking an obscure and indirect route, full of questions and non-linear circling. Desire, inspiration, healing—these are inward flashes that illuminate a mysterious landscape and ask us to fumble our way toward something we can only discover as we create it, and which has no final name. 

This is a key part of this spell: by whatever names we conjure what we desire, it will always outpace our words. There is a hidden valley between the flashes of light on mountaintops that are the spark of inspiration and the actual shaping of it. Between those peaks, much can get lost and rearranged. Which is as it should be. So much happens in the in-between, in the internal movements toward and away that happen somatically before we begin to assign them meaning and narrative. This is a spell for peering into those valleys—that long stretch of space between nerves firing, between sensation and language, between inspiration and creation.

Working With This Spell

The in-between is a place of ambiguity, mystery, transition, confusion, connection, and possibility. Our experience of this state is so multiple—we could feel wonderful or terrible, confused or full of profound (though fleeting) understanding. There can be real frustration in this space, and this spell conjures the trust, presence, lightness, and patience that will help us inhabit this uncertain terrain. To dwell here, we allow all that is arising and all that is remaining hidden to exist in a kind of resonant harmony. 

Working with this spell means noticing where these potent landscapes of desire and inspiration exist in you and your life right now. It may be time to experience what is happening without jumping to explain it or name it right away. It may be time for poetry, for potent hints and clues. Whatever is happening, it isn’t over. And, without the satisfaction of completion, we get the permission to keep editing, keep changing, and keep chasing what it is that feels most important to express and make known to ourselves and our world. 

THIS MONTH

As always, you can follow our shenanigans at @abacuscorvus on Instagram. And you can find out what each of us is up to by following @corinadross and @jocelyncorvus

~ In It Together~
Jo & Corina


Jocelyn (Jo) Mosser & Corina Dross