May: Come Hither

The days are getting warmer in the Northern Hemisphere, and everything is drinking from the sun. As spring starts to lean so sweetly into summer, it becomes increasingly less comfortable to live under the layers of protection we built against the winter. Our senses are waking up. Some things start to feel easier and more exciting. But in concert with the flowering plants outside, an inner anxiety may also be starting to bloom. For even as our bodies enjoy the pleasure of melting—thawing can actually be quite unpleasant.

Welcome to the season of growth. What was hidden in the dark beneath us rises now and reaches for the sun. This heightened appetite for life is earth’s own desire made manifest. This month, we ask you to consider how you move in relationship to your desires—do you track what you crave with the skill and hunger of a hunter? Do you hold still and trust that your quarry will come? Do you wrestle with resistance or do you let yourself be carried where the current takes you? There is no one right way. In this time when heat is freely given, we can use the glow of our own desire to light up the many paths before us. As you face these possible futures, what can you learn about your readiness for growth?

About the Spell

Come Hither is a spell for the flirtation of springtime. We can sometimes feel hounded by desire, but it can also open up a space of playfulness inside us. Rabbits remind us that fear can save our lives, and that freezing is a wise survival strategy. But once the danger’s passed, a rabbit will return to all its rabbity desires—relaxing, grazing, and helping to ensure the creation of many more rabbits.

It is our desire to live that makes us freeze up. And it is our desire to live that brings the thaw. We always want what we do not have enough of, and then want something else when the balance shifts. A rabbit’s ears are just as good as soaking up the sun as they are at dispersing excess heat. Desire only makes sense in an embodied way by keeping us in rhythm with our own growing life. This month we encourage you to flirt with growth—recognize desire and learn to trust its rhythms. Move towards, and then away again, playfully considering precisely what it is that you would like to come hither….

Meditation on Come Hither

For this meditation, we are calling in kindness, softness, melting, and ease. To begin, bring your body somewhere comfortable—either somewhere soft, or somewhere that helps you soften on the inside. As you settle your mind on the sensations of your breath, let your focus be gentle, and see how effortless your breathing can become. With your attention gently resting on your gently moving breath, see how long you can spend in this state of nothing-doing.

Whenever you’d like to, notice if this process of softening feels easy and natural or if it is challenging and has already brought up resistance. If it feels easy, you can conjure up a desire that feels hard... perhaps it’s complicated or it seems unattainable. Whatever the hardness is, breathe some softening kindness into the space around it. No need to change it, unless you feel it wants to change. If the desire starts to burn, you could cool it off with your breath. If the hardness starts to hurt, you could wrap it up in softness and hold it in your arms. Or perhaps you simply witness the edges of it start to shift and the feelings around it start to come alive with possibility...

If softening itself is hard, see if you can surround yourself instead with a web of understanding and compassion—it must not yet feel safe enough to melt. There hasn’t yet been enough warmth for the thaw. Perhaps you can envision the sun and its light on your skin. Without an ounce of pressure or a degree of force, see if you can let the season’s warmth make contact with your perfect armor... That’s it.. No need to soften, no need to be anyway different than you are… Just an experiment to see if what it might be like to receive.

To close this meditation, come back to the colors of the world around you and the state of mind you use to navigate your complex life. If there was an experience that stood out to you during this practice, perhaps it will beckon you back in the coming weeks.

About the painting:

Corina: This particular rabbit, with the sun lighting up its ears like a paper lantern, is such a unique being. The color palette is so warm, I feel like I can smell mesquite just looking at it. I love that the image that came to us for flirtation and desire includes this sense of working with scarcity, working with the extremes we find in the desert, and yet insisting on moments of pleasure.  And I am always just so thrilled to see what my sister does with my line drawings.

Jocelyn: There are times in the painting process when I mix a color and put it on the page and then realize it is absolutely wrong—usually too dark or too saturated, which means it’s not something I can easily fix. I was pretty sure that was what was happening as I began painting the veins in this bunny's ears, but it felt so good to lay that bloody color down, I just went with it. It felt almost like the pleasure of being a little bad. And then it transformed into the pleasure of having done it just right! 

This month's offerings:

We've got a sale going on this image for the whole month of May! Buy a print of “Come Hither” and get 15% off, using the coupon code COMEHITHER.

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