April: Hover Here Briefly
Steady yourself, hold your breath, and take aim. Imagine you are about to shoot an arrow in a perfect line, and watch it fly directly at its target. A picture of perfect control, perfect prediction... Well that, dear ones, is not what this month’s spell is about. Here, the arrows are leafy twigs hovering in an uncanny landscape with soft moths doubling as arrowheads. For this month’s spell, imagine you are trying to aim these arrows—bracing against emptiness, unsure where the moths will flutter to. Moths in this year’s calendar are messengers, and these are bringing us a moment of pause. Hover here briefly, before taking soft aim, before imagining you can predict or control anything at this time.
Working With this Spell
Here in this strange springtime, with new growth popping up from the warming ground, we find more opportunities to thaw and move out of the holding patterns of the Covid winter. We may be tempted to rush, to run, to “fling the emptiness out of our arms” as Rilke says, and aim ourselves at where we think we’re supposed to be. To work with this spell, we remember to pace ourselves. We remember that music is made beautiful as much by notes as by the rests between them.
This is not about waiting forever or returning to old patterns we’ve been stuck in. This spell is about hovering, briefly, right here—in this present moment. In the uncanny landscape. We are not yet sure of the future. It might not look how we imagine—both optimism and pessimism can distort the picture of what is and what can be. And yet, in this present moment, the future is becoming more imaginable than it has been for many months. Something is lifting. And hovering. Let this spell be like the inhale you take before opening your mouth to sing.
Meditation
For this meditation, you can be anywhere. You get to try and fit this practice into any moment you have throughout the day. Perhaps you’ll want to find a comfortable place and sit with it for the first time, but it’s up to you! If you’d like to, you can find a place to rest your body. If not, you can bring this meditation into whatever space you’re in. To begin, let your eyes be open, and let them naturally find something to focus on. Then, keeping your gaze steadily fixed on a focal point, bring your awareness to your periphery -- the entire landscape of vision that surrounds your focal point. Let this peripheral vision be soft but also expansive, as though you could eventually see the whole world behind and above and below your field of vision. If you notice any strain in your eyes or the muscles in your body, shake it off, return to normal perception, and then try again, softly and briefly. You can try this over and over again, each time letting there be less and less effort. As you get more used to this experience, see if you can notice the spaciousness and openness in your perception bringing a similar spaciousness and openness to your inner body. Can the widening of your gaze help you relax your facial muscles and jaw. Can you let any tension simply drop the moment you widen your gaze. Perhaps you can also let the muscles around your stomach and diaphragm melt and soften with your gaze. Your energy pooling down around your pelvic floor with everything above and below it as relaxed as can. Cool things can happen when you spend long moments in this gaze, but this is also a practice that can be quite brief and deeply integrating. Feel free to practice it all the time, letting your neurons develop new connections that make it easier and easier to relax and integrate your energy with a subtle shift of your focus.
This month:
To hear us talk about time and laugh about this spell, listen to the accompanying podcast for this blog here.
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