Ritual

On Thursday night three friends and I gathered to make releasing bundles (like the one below by Pixie Campbell) and drop the figurative backpack full of bricks that were old grudges, outdated agreements, and hurts that we still carried even though the people who caused them were long gone. 

We had a very casual gathering to make the bundles.  We went down to the beach to build the fire while we stated the things we were wanting to leave behind.  We threw our bundles of herbs and pieces of  paper containing our "bricks" into the fire, and watched them burn.

Then we invited into our lives what we DO want in the coming year.  We spoke of peace, joy, ease, strength, compassion and so many other things.  We laughed and we were serious... and most of all... we were casual.  It was a co-creation that took all of us... just perfectly as we were.

It wasn't as cathartic as I'd hoped... it didn't "fix" all of the issues I had hoped thought were simply a problem because I held on to old anger.  In fact, releasing the anger left me with sadness.  My asthma has been worse the last few days... and lungs are a common place to hold sadness.  It's a little much for me right now to examine my anger... only to find the sadness underneath.  I didn't want more work... I wanted more ease.  But I guess that's why this is called a path... there's really no destination, now, is there?