Ritual of Burning

I hate to sound too new age, but sometimes we are just energetically entangled with someone or something and they are not giving us any energy back.  I’ve seen people who are energetically entwined with someone who is dead (e.g. - the person who is still furious and reacting against a parent who has passed).

I often read for people who are energetically entangled with a relationship that did not work.  The other person has moved on, may even be living with someone else, but the person in front of me just can’t seem to let them go.

So I suggest the Ritual of Burning.

Go and buy some expensive, beautiful paper – plain lined paper is not good enough.  Buy lots of it, 50 sheets at least, so you don’t have to have any anxiety that you might run out.  Then one day, when the apartment is quiet, turn off your phone, shut down the computer, take a sheet of that beautiful paper and start to write.  Write everything, good or bad that you have thought about that person – how much loved them, how much you hate them, your sorrow, your bad wishes, everything, without restraint.  Write until you’ve feel you’ve said it all, until your hand starts to cramp.  It’s okay to cry while you write. 

After you feel you’ve written enough - and this is really important,  you don’t want to keep that paper alive in your house -  you then put that paper in a fire proof dish and you set fire to it,  and watch it burn,  watch the words curl up and turn to ash,  watch the energy go up into the air.

You can do this as many times as you like – every night for weeks if need be (no one ever does that, but you have permission, if you want.) There is something about having that torrent of feeling/energy leaving you, going on to the containment of the page, and then being burnt, turning to smoke and ash, that just lets some of that energy go.

There will come a time when you just don’t feel like doing it anymore, where the need is not so intense… and that means you are not so energetically entwined with that person anymore.  Now you have space for someone new to enter your life…

Seven of Swords

These are the difficult cards in the tarot – not difficult to read, their meaning is clear, but difficult to bear. Here, someone is sneaking in and stealing swords. However, two swords remain, you are not defenseless and possibly you didn’t really need all 7 of those swords, so perhaps with hindsight, you can see that it wasn’t all bad. But in the moment, you feel the searing heat of loss but worse than loss, the sense that that things were purposefully/maliciously taken from you. You will feel betrayed or deceived.

Of course, you may be the one stealing the swords. You may think it’s just office politics, or how things are done, but you may need to look at your own actions – are you betraying someone? Are you acting in bad faith/taking things that you shouldn’t? Sneaking off? Shirking responsibility?

The Inner Child cards read this quite differently… there you are, trapped into being the good one, staying indoors, doing your work, looking longingly at the world outside. Lots of people relate to that image really strongly.

5 of cups

There is sorrow here, and loss. The figure is weeping over 3 spilt cups. Just behind him/her are 2 cups, still standing. When we face loss or regrets, it’s sometimes hard to remember that we still have things. 2 of cups is the card of equal love, a beautiful card. But the person can’t see that, they can only see what has gone wrong.

I love the milk version, because the phrase ‘don’t cry over spilt milk’ always used to come to mind when I saw this card. Of course, it’s human to cry over disappointments, but don’t wallow. Feel the feelings and then move on; don’t keep focusing on them to the extent that you cannot see anything else.

I also like the little girl on the chair.  When we have these feelings, we feel small and childlike and sometimes we can’t make the best decisions or see things clearly from that perspective. When this card shows up it’s a warning to give up on your disappointments and turn and focus on what you do have. It’s time to grow up…