TO RELEASE GRIEF
Braid your grief into a witch's ladder, surrendering to your grief, wholly entranced by the rhythm of the braid. Sit with your grief. Live with your grief. Let your grief cure until you are ready to release.
Find yourself in a beautiful spot, surrounded by a soft liveliness just outside the stillness. The sun has just dipped, twilight has begun. The candles are lit. The space is made sacred.
Cry out in a sweet voice your thanks for the recent rains, the clouds which promise more, the fall that sweetens the air with damp and decay, the plants allies who rejoice with us, the earth who grounds us, the very air which we breathe!
Offer Her a token of your heart. Small, delicate, ephemeral. A single dried orchid flower from a plant unexpectedly adopted.
Create fire within the cauldron, the belly which cradles us all. Breathe your own life breath into the fire, then burn your offering. Ask Her to take your grief, to take it from you and to lighten your heart. Give thanks for this favor. Burn your grief.
Bury the ashes in the Earth and thank her for taking them. Give her compost as thanks. Dig a small hole, so her wound heals quickly.
Give thanks and close out the ritual.
It is now night, and the crickets have just begun. So, this is fall in this place.
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I see an error in my ritual tonight. I didn't build in an offering element, the orchid is more of a catalyst. I see now that I am still endebted and I'm gonna have to do devotional acts of service. Grief is mostly gone, though.