July: Share the Risk
With the word risk in the title, this month’s message may set off alarm bells, curling us into a defensive posture—but this is really a spell about sharing. Two birds are eating berries in a tree that has plenty. One is feeding the other as the sky darkens into storm or twilight. This is a spell about sharing nourishment in unsettled times. The berries are one form of nourishment; the relationship between the crows is another.
We are living through a massive global uprising for social justice. Threats are everywhere—in older forms (white supremacist and neoliberal extractive violence) and newer (Covid-19 and accelerating climate change). There is no choice we can make right now that doesn’t entail potentially serious risks. This is a spell about approaching these risks wisely and together. Risks are implicit in relationships: if I take a risk, it will impact the ones I love, and their loved ones, and theirs. It doesn’t take too many ripples outward to begin to sense our responsibility to the whole collective. Of course, if I don’t take a risk, I’m faced with a similar calculus.
Social hierarchies that privilege whiteness and wealth, ability, individuality, and masculinity—all that we learn about who and what is more valuable—create serious obstacles to sharing risks meaningfully. The birds in this painting can switch from higher branch to lower branch at any moment, but in our culture, social change doesn’t happen that quickly. For this change to occur, we need to first understand our positionality in this system, and then learn and practice a form of risk sharing that moves far beyond charity and hierarchy toward real mutual aid.
About this Spell
To work with this spell, begin by locating yourself within a network of relationships. Who do you depend on for your food? For emotional care? For education? Who depends on you for food, care, comfort or friendship? Who are you in proximity to? Try to imagine (and feel) an invisible web connecting you to every being you impact, and all those that impact you. Include not only humans but animals, plants, bacteria, fungi, viruses. If you want to expand in time, you can include the dead and future generations. At first, just practice feeling yourself as woven into this cloth; you contribute to its structural integrity while also benefiting from the way it holds you. Consider your actions, some decisions you’ve made in the past few months, big or small. Consider how those actions have rippled through this cloth, either strengthening or straining it. Have you benefited from its strength? Have you been afraid of falling through a threadbare, moth-eaten section? Sitting with these questions is just the beginning. If you find yourself overwhelmed by how many holes you feel in the web, reach out and connect with someone who has the capacity to connect with you and walk with you until you can feel the web’s strength again. Or, lay your body on the earth or ground, and focus on the feeling of your back-body being supported.
There are so many ways to plug in, and so many distractions and obstacles on the way. Focusing our attention and intention is a critical part of learning new behavior. Here are some words that may help us orient towards this needed change: Working with this spell, we dedicate ourselves to working within relationship. Within relationship, we find the nourishment, comfort, and courage we need to face the painful shadows of our cultural conditioning and confront the lies we’ve been fed about superiority, value, and worth. Within relationship, we allow the experiences and risks we share to change us and rewrite the narrative of our culture. Together, we commit to taking risks in ways that are responsible to our own wellbeing and the wellbeing of our entire web of life.
Meditation on Share the Risk
For this meditation, please find as comfortable a position as possible for your body to rest. Take your time settling in. Let your eyes look at what they land on, or let them close. Let your mind be free to wander wherever it wants to go. Let your breath be as easy as it can be and your muscles be as soft as they can be. Especially your brow, your jaw, your stomach, pelvic floor, and thighs. Heavy feet, heavy bones… Where is the tension hiding in your body? What does it feel like -- constriction, heat, a racing mind… Worry, tightness, restlessness, control? See if you can surround this tension with your inner gaze, gently facing it with a willingness to see what it really is. Does this feel risky? Practice staying with your physical sensations and your breath as the mind may try to compel your attention away into story or distraction. All you are doing is seeing what is there and noticing what that is like. You have every choice about how you want to respond to what you see and feel. The challenge within this meditation is to see if you can make that choice intentionally, considering the impact this tension has on you and all those connected to you.
About the painting:
Corina: I had a lot of fun with this composition, it reminded me of earlier images I’d drawn that translated well as black-and-white punk patches. But the deep foreboding sky and bright red berries really shift the mood and bring that sense of both joy and urgency that this spell needs.
Jocelyn: I love this composition and the promise of the bright red berries in a stark and stormy landscape. I love feeding people and being fed. Somehow, we managed to get both the feeling of plenty and a sense of foreboding in this image, which feels like a real success.
This month:
We’re working to consistently channel a percentage of our profits into reparations.
The 2021 calendar is complete and the preorders will be launched soon!
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