In life we go through many experiences and meet many people over time who change us in ways if we allow it. Change is a constant. Throughout our lives there are deaths and rebirths even if we do not name them as such. And with the comings and goings of the days, seasons, years and life changes we have ceremonies and rituals that mark the biggest life events such as graduations, marriages, baptisms and funerals. We often do not practice ceremonies and rituals for those seemingly less grand occasions which could allow for the laying to rest of an idea, a relationship, a time of our life as we pass through so many stages of our earthly evolutions.
Some of us who have been raised in older, more tribal communities may be acquainted with ceremonial rituals. I came upon it later in life and most recently in the past four years have had many changes disguised as losses, upheavals and passion plays. In growing through and from them, I had a mentor who showed me new ways to pass through and beyond what needed to be let go of...to shed the old snakeskin and go deeper than I ever had into the transformative process of emotional and spiritual growth. At the very edge of the old year (2018), I performed a sacred ceremony in fire to bless and release a part of me and my greatest teacher to date.
I share it with you as a template or example of how I put it in words, read what I wrote to that teacher and gave myself and him the honor and love that we both deserved. After this writing, speaking and burning I drew SoulCollage cards I’d made and asked them to speak to me, speak from me as the chapter was at last celebrated and then closed. This is so personal and soul defining for me and I share it with you in love, humility and honor.
Here it begins with what i am choosing to call the Compassionate Magical Incantation. How it begins is how it ends:
To My Greatest Love
“I Love you, I’m sorry, Please forgive me and Thank You.”
I realize that there is love everywhere
God is all
Surrounds us
What you think of me is none of my business and I am here to say to you that I accept that this was all perfect.
Only the present is real - Now.
In it I affirm my love for myself with every breath and I love you in every breath and send you love. I release myself from the feelings of pain, loss, emptiness, fear, anger and resentment toward you and myself.
I choose love in this moment. I choose to know that love is ever present and everything else is an illusion that causes pain and suffering. I release myself from who I was in my past that is no more. I release who you were and who we were separately and together. I bring this karmic pain to an end now with no expectations that you must do or be anything other than who you are in every moment.
I choose love.
I choose peace.
I choose joy
I choose God
I release the ideas that you be or you do now and ever anything that you are not called to, but is my ego wanting, lacking and deluded. There is only Love between us, Love for me, Love for you.
I embrace love. I embrace loving me. I embrace loving you. I release all past harms, misperceptions, expectations, judgements and staying stuck as a victim in this illusion that there is anything, anything other than True Love - here, now and between us - Love. I choose to be love. I choose to see love in everything and everyone - in you, in me - for the greatest good of all. I trust God, Love and Myself. “I love you...I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.
I forgive me.
I forgive you.
These are the SoulCollage cards and their words of wisdom in the order they were chosen.
Rebirth of the Wolf Teacher
The Resurrected Goddess of Redemption
The Karmic Lover and Transformer
The Living Fire Goddess of my Soul
The Empress
I am the Empress
The one with the true heart
I am the Protectress
The “you shall not pass”
Queen Sun Fuck
Who holds my precious heart
I am wise and regal,
Poised to rule and
Stand in my truth
I am the fiery beauty
Who is not afraid
To bare my heart and
Trust in the new
I am the lioness,
The Priestess and the Sage
I will carry you on and forward
I am amazed
Re-birth of the Wolf Teacher
I am the one who is reborn
I am always watchful and all seeing.
I am the one who buries
What must be laid to rest
And resurrects the Phoenix
Of endless love
I am the one who is courageous
And wild natured
Rainbows hidden in white light
Falling snow and starlight
I am she and he
And all one
The Wounded Fire Goddess
I am the one who bears your pain
And waits in the shadows to be reborn.
I am the Pele of your heart
And eternal fire who tends the hearth
Of all my children and watches
Over them for all time
I am the one who has the
deepest compassion, the empath
Who senses your wounds and
Takes them within for healing.
I am the one who holds
The world in my hands and
Also the small child who cries
For my love.
I am love
I am your dearest
Inside friend.
Your Eternal Lover
I am your precious heart
Who writes to you in my dreams
I am the one who sees your pain
And asks you to forgive
I am the one who writes
The poetry and blows kisses
To you in my pillow
I am the one who shouts to
You to love me while
I push you away.
I am the one who remains but
You can’t see me
I am the one who sees another way
And who will hold the truth
For all time. I am the one
Who no matter appearances,
Love you forever because
I love me
All ways
The Resurrected Goddess of Redemption
After the burn…
And finally it is she
The transformed
The Kundalini rising
To the highest high
The eternal flame
My Pele within
Death giving way
To Rebirth
No longer am I
Blindsided
She comes and takes back
What is hers
And I rise
I age
I become
Eternal
Immortal
All Love
The Karmic Lover and Transformer
I am the one who has laid
Us to rest amidst the burning earth
Aching to be reborn
I am the one who reveals
Those lifetimes to you and
Turns away to start anew.
I am the passionate fiery
Temptress who could not
Say no to the old painful story.
I am the one who died and
Preferred death to grieving
The loss of you. I am the one
Who stands at the final
Graveside and mourns
The repetitive wheel of
karma...I am the one
Who at last sets it
All on fire
And transcends all
times...I am love
Eternal…
The Living Fire Goddess of My Soul
Here I am now
Raven in hand
Fire and water
And molten earth
At my feet
I am magical
And other-worldly
Wise and ageless
Loving the fire
And birthing new land
Waterfalls of passion, bliss
And joy - embracing
Timelessness and change
Witchy fire water sprite
Grateful to be alive
Knowing, living and
Being
Eternal
Love