A spiral, a magical realist labyrinth, a lyric essay, a mirror-maze, and a mandala, Mothsong celebrates art’s capacity to facilitate and map posttraumatic growth. It is a testimony of healing from child abuse that peers into the chrysalis. Through poetic prose, visual image, ekphrasis, and intuitive enquiry, the author carries the lamp of art into the magical realist labyrinth of the wounded soul to unveil the terrifying and the sacred. In the spaces between a heartbeat, the stories of Lolah—who represents the author from the age of sixteen to the present—and January—her younger self—are entwined with the silken threads of “You” and other voices to sing a song of transformation.

Mothsong creates a new myth for the moth as a symbol of the soul’s urge to heal, and in so doing, goes far beyond elevating the beauty within darkness.