The year 2020 sure has come in with a roar. Eleven days past my annual New Year’s ritual (in which I burned a letter I had penned to 2019 together with a stack of ceremony transcripts), and I suddenly find myself in need of another way to say things rite.

 

And that’s the thing about sustenance rites of release and renewal. Despite the encouraging words in this lovely Full Moon ritual (which hints at a kind of Poof! and all will be well! quick fix), healing rituals are not a once and for all time thing that we can easily and spiritually bypass. We need to keep reenacting and recalibrating our souls towards healing day by day and again and again.

 

So yes, I thought I had released my latest hurts and disappointments for an indefinite length of while but alas, these festering regrets and longings of my soul have come back to me less than two weeks later with a vengeance…or maybe not so much that as a lingering murmur. And thus, this eternal wound return reminds me that this is the sacred healing bundle I am meant to carry and tend to in this lifetime.

 

What I know to be true about my unhealed wound and this particular form of hurt is that it connects to a core wound I’ve yet to fully glean wisdom from – which is why I recognize that I need to feel it to heal it. Going through the motions of a ritual without doing the heart work or in this case, the wound work, makes it little more than an empty gesture.

 

In this woundedness example, as with many other past relationship transgressions, I mistakenly did that thing I do where I sit with my acute disappointment about the Other and how they kicked my love and generosity to the curb. My inner critic went on a storytelling binge and began to fill in the root cause and effects of my encounter as some not-enough-ness or too-much-ness on my part. In other words, the unkind voice in my head made up an altogether false story and I bought the whole thing on credit. The way I pay for it in installments is in allowing this harmful narrative to play on auto-loop each time I face a similar form of rejection.

 

I love what theologian Richard Rohr has to say in his book Immortal Diamond: The Search for our True Self, about how a transfiguration (which is the essence of a burning ritual in a nutshell), is not “woundedness denied, forgotten, or even totally healed. It is woundedness transformed. You still carry your scars forever, as both message and trophy. They still ‘hurt’ in a way, which keeps you mindful and humble, but they no longer allow you to hurt other people. Pain transformed is no longer pain transmitted.”

 

And so my Wolf Moon-ish ritual borrows a tiny bit from the bay leaf burning ritual noted above. I will see my howling at the moon in lament temptation and raise it a notch by taking my litany of wounds (scribed on several tiny scrolls tied with string), and pairing them with dried cedar, berry, and plant bits from my holiday door wreath (symbol of my open and welcoming nature), sprigs from my lavender plant (medicine plant used to treat wounds), a few sprinkles of rosemary from my cupboard (proven remedy for wound healing), and a handful of vibrant flower petals (a reminder to keep blooming where planted on this earth), to then burn in a burning bowl.

Bits from my holiday wreath, ready for burning.

And because this core wound feels so thorny, I’ve selected a handful of holly leaves from my wreath to help remind me that sharp outer edges are not the thing itself.

 

Should you wish to enact a similar ritual, you’ll want some kind of burning bowl – I like using a cast iron pan for small burnings and a cast iron Dutch oven or large roasting pan for larger ones. Once the ashes have cooled, simply sweep them up using a small implement – I have a tiny ceremonial broom and dustpan but feel free to substitute with a cooking or small paint brush and a tiny jewelry box.

Burning the Full Moon Offerings; a Vial of the Remaining Ashes & Nature Bits, & the Ashes in the Pan 

You can then scatter the ashes at the base of a favorite tree or if you wish to take the ritual one elemental step further, you can sprinkle and float them into a bowl of essential oil-infused water adorned with floating candles, and take a reflective moment to light the candles, engage in some breathwork and some variation of a guided loving-kindness or self & other forgiveness meditation process before extinguishing the candles. You might then choose to pour that ash water mixture into a small vessel, stir it around, and pour it out somewhere sacred (such as at the base of a tree outside) or somewhere more profane (like down your kitchen sink or toilet).

 

Or you may wish to be brave and do what I do, which is to sweep the ashes or pour the ash/oil/water elixir into a small glass vial, label it “Wound” and set it next to a small box tied with a bow labeled “Gift” that has a tiny slip of paper inside upon which you’ve named your essential Gift to the World. Dare to place these in a prominent spot on your altar or somewhere in plain view. Because from our wounds our gifts, dear people.

The point of this multi-layered ritual is to take time to notice the stages of the ritual:

. . . from the initial intention to: truth-tell and utter the hurt aloud;
. . . to the choice to: purge the harm it causes you or the price you pay for hanging onto it;
. . . to a mindful moment of: forgiveness;
. . . to that extra intentional step that’s all about: asserting that you will keep doing what you can to continually sweep or empty it from your psyche;
. . . to a final renewing gesture that looks and acts like: self-kindness – be that a walk, a hot soak, or writing yourself a love note that affirms your loving nature.

  

I won’t promise you a rose garden of instantaneous or forever healing from this Wounds+Gifts ritual but I can promise you that the more you conspire with and borrow from nature to enact small creative rituals and the more you dare to examine your hurt from all angles, the better you’ll get at being gentle and patient with your human woundedness. You’ll begin to carry this precious teaching like sacred cargo so that in time, you’ll start to view these wounds as I do: as the holy of holy grails you are meant to live the question and carry the precious “burden” of in this lifetime.

 

---

let it go } by E. E. Cummings

let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear

so comes love