It's called the pearl moon ~

February's sensory almanac.

February . 2025
It’s called the pearl moon ~

How it will send a ripple
maybe starts in the arms
maybe it is spinal
maybe heavy, a heavy ripple
scent of purple makes you feel
the weight of being held
against your will
will break the spell on you
will layer sheen against sheen
against what has gripped you.

𓍯

February: it’s called the pearl moon.

The name for February in Finnish is Helmikuu. Pearlmoon. Moon of pearl. The month of pearling. Further back there is helmes, meaning amber, and so however far back you want to go there is a precious gemstone waiting for you to bead it onto the necklace of your life.

I bring this up because this month you will be annoyed, irritated, frustrated, maybe you will feel helpless or loathing or bothered. Maybe you will even feel ennui. Maybe you already feel it.

Maybe you will even say to yourself (or someone else) mihi in odio est ‘it is hateful to me.’

And so the pearl.

Why the pearl?

And wherefrom the pearl?

It starts with the oyster—which, as the saying goes, is your world.

𓍯

Listless is the oyster at the bottom of the river. Calm and shelled and edible.

Oysters breathe (via gills) and circulate blood (through a three chambered heart) and water (through two kidneys). They open and close in rhythms according to the sun, the moon, the tides.

Sometimes, when they are open, an irritant finds its way into the shelled domain of the oyster.

And I am sure you know this story from here, no?

The irritant frustrates the oyster so much so that they cover it and cover it with layers of nacre and soon enough (years later), a pearl is formed. And the pearl is often colored and shaped in response to the irritant and it is considered precious, this once odious element now as shimmering as a moonbeam.

Do you see where I am going here? I would hate to spell it out for you more bluntly and run the risk of ruining it.

𓍯

Mostly what I want for you to know is this: the month ahead is when the nacre will really start to kick in.

You’ll be tasked with the unease of maybe one maybe many irritants invading your sanctum. And you won’t be able to smoke them out or banish them away but you will be able to transform them, marbling them with your own nacre-esque substance.

𓍯

Sometimes the antidote to frustration is not to fight it.

I don’t want to see you flailing.

And you cannot think yourself out this.

Sometimes the remedy is to transform it.

Often it is most instructive to heed the sound of “no” that your body makes.

To let your body’s no form as it may and to notice, really notice, what is being said no to and how it feels what form it takes in you.

To surrender to the frustration and let the body’s instincts take over.

To trap it like nacre or the cloy of sap as it runs from the gaping split in the bark of a tree.

And yes, there is something to be learned from this. There is something really precious, something terribly beautiful, that will come forth from it, too.

Discomfort is its instigator.

𓍯

And so the pearl.

Why the pearl?
(Keep one inner eye fixed on the pearl).

And wherefrom the pearl?
(From the amorphous belly of ennui).

It starts with the oyster—which, as the saying goes, is your world.

𓍯

So, February’s almanac. It will have a bit of nacre to it: boundaries, toil, luminescent formation, release,

And, then there’s also a pearl inside, which is a song that my most recent Rhythm/Devtion interviewee—Mónica Mesa—composed specifically for the month of February.

Anyway, onwards, onwards, inwards ~

xo

---

T A S T E

Thus we read, in a legend of county Donegal, that a fairy had tried to steal one Joe McDonough’s baby, and, telling the story to her neighbours: “I never affronted the gentry [fairies] to my knowledge,” sighed the poor mother; “but Joe helped Mr. Todd’s gardener to cut down the old Hawthorn-tree on the lawn Friday was eight days: an’ there’s them that says that’s a very bad thing to do. I fleeched him not to touch it, but the master he offered him six shillings if he’d help wi’ the job, for the other men refused.” “That’s the way of it,” whispered the crones over their pipes and poteen—“that’s just it. The gude man has had the ill luck to displease the ‘gentry,’ an’ there will be trouble in this house yet.”

— Richard Folkard

Hawthorn (Crataegus sp.)