Performing a ritual to acknowledge the end of a relationship is an important part of the healing process. Whether it is a breakup of a love affair or the dissolution of the legal bonds of marriage, approaching this change with ritual will help and heal. I have also known those who performed this same rite with the ending of a friendship. This ceremony is intended to resolve issues, tie up loose ends, and help you to move on. It is very important psychologically, psychically, and emotionally to recognize that a divorce is a very big deal. This ritual is best done privately, although you may want the support of a carefully chosen friend. I have outlined some carefully considered questions for you to ask yourself when trying to figure out if a divorce ritual is what you want to do. As with all rituals, I strongly suggest that this one be given a lot of thought. With this divorce ritual, I recommend going to an even deeper level of introspection, as you will be bidding farewell to an important part of your life that doubtless brought you as much joy as it did sorrow. Many emotions are going to rise up, and you can, gently and with love, put these feelings to rest and assign them a place in your life: the past.
What better day of the month to release that which no longer serves me, that which harms me and holds me back, than the night before the new moon?
I feel like I've been carrying the weight of the grieving world on my shoulders for the last few weeks. Perhaps for the last few months. And I've come very close to my breaking point.
If I were not a post-menopausal crone I might put down my frayed, tired and emotional state to PMS. But maybe the entire world is feeling that way, not just me? All I can say is that I am ready to embrace Samhain, the plunging into nights as dark as pitch with pinhole bright spots in the sky and murky dank days. I associate Samhain as the reflective time, not so much 'down time' as spiral inside time. It is bear in the cave time, slumbering snake time, disappear down some interesting badger den or hare hole time. Less do and more be.
Ironic, since a lot of what I 'do' is encourage people to 'be'. I teach creative writing. I talk with groups and guide them around this corner of sacred land that I am blessed to occupy.
I stood balanced on a jagged spit of rock with the sea below me on both sides, water churning and swirling. I guessed it would be covered at high tide. I felt remote, at the tip of the world. The grit of ash was in my hands and releasing to the wind, the sea, the rock. Small pieces of bone fled through my fingers, back to our beginnings in the ocean and death. The waves sucked and smashed in and out, like the breath of the universe or life and death itself; in, out, in, out relentless and endless. When I looked down, my jeans were whitened in places, with ash. My hands were covered in it. I put the back of one hand to my mouth and licked. Salt and ash. Grit.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...