Letting Go I & II
Still Images from Personal Ritual
2019

Every spring I engage in a personal ritual of letting go.
 

​The ritual begins with caring for a large cast-iron cauldron that resides in my garden, a cherished gift from a lineage of wise-women friends. I dedicate an afternoon in the rusty, sooty work of re-seasoning this well-loved vessel; embracing the labor as part of the ritual process. I then gather what remains of the dried Christmas greens, unused herbs and ephemera that I've held on to throughout the darkness of winter--preparing to let go of what is no longer useful or beautiful to me. The act of burning these items not only clears my space but also generates the heat that cures the cast-iron's protective layer.

We live in a culture that commodifies emotional wellbeing. An online search for "let it go" will yield myriad t-shirts and throw pillows emblazoned with the phrase. A marketable catchphrase, while perhaps a useful reminder, is not the same thing as actually letting go. In this environment of commercialized wellness, we are bombarded with the idea of letting go with precious few instructions for how to engage in the practice of letting go.
 

This is why ritual matters.

Ritual gives us something to do. When we engage in ritual--meaning making through symbolic action--we find ourselves in a process-oriented practice that invites us into conversation with our intentions. Caring for the cauldron in my garden, the vessel which will hold transformative fire later in the ritual, invites me to reflect upon my own self care, reminding me that my body, mind and spirit are also a sacred vessels of transformation. Intentionally identifying and disposing of winter remnants reminds me to stay connected to an intentional ongoing practice of identifying what I'm ready to release in my own life.