BlissQuest: Setting Fire to the Old You

The moon is so hard to capture on film, but she
was too amazing to resist, so please bear with the bit of blur.

Listening to: Something with candles.

Today's Bliss Formula: Frog is home today, painting in the room next to this one as I write. Today's high is predicted to be 92 and so my main goal is to barely move so as not to overheat and thereby over-grouch. I am a cooler weather animal, to be sure.

The full moon is traditionally seen as a time to let go, clean out, get rid of, finish up, so it's a perfect time to burn away whatever is standing in the way of your best self and allow the phoenix that is your ArtistWarrior to rise from the ashes.

This full moon is the Blessing Moon. Its correspondences include:

Herbs: honeysuckle, agrimony, lemon balm, hyssop;

Colors: silver, blue-gray;

Flowers: lotus, water lily, jasmine;

Scents: orris, frankincense;

Stones: pearl, moonstone, white agate;

Deities: Athene, Juno, Hel, Cerridwen, Venus.

(All taken from Moon Magick by D.J. Conway.)

This month in Japan, they celebrate O-Bon or Festival of Lanterns. This festival honors the dead. They decorate altars and shrines and light lanterns in the gardens to illuminate the pathways so that the dead can join their families for the festival.

A few years ago, I made a huge change in my life that was at once symbolic and actual, at once about dying and living: I changed my last name.

To do this in Pennsylvania, you file papers, announce it to the world, and end up standing before a judge in Orphan's Court, which I found to be funny, ironic, and sad all at the same time.

On the first anniversary of this momentous and life-affirming and self-affirming act, I decided I needed to create a ritual of my own to mark the occasion. The year anniversary seemed perfect, since they say it takes a year for grief and mourning to move to the levels that allow for any growth.

So I would be marking the year it had taken to get used to this new self while mourning the old.

I decided a fire ceremony was in order. And the anniversary fell on the three day full moon period.

I did this by myself. I think that is rather important.

I spent all day preparing. I went to a local herb store and got a smudge stick to cleanse myself and the area before I burned some papers and notes. I purchased candles for a bath to be taken after. And I got herbs to make a homemade bath scent.

I got my fire roaring in our outdoor chiminea and sat and meditated for a while on what I was doing and why. I used the smudge stick and threw the rest of it into the flames. One by one, I placed the items I was burning into the fire and waited until it was completely gone before moving onto the next.

These are just ideas. It doesn't have to be complicated. Light a candle in a pot and burn a paper if you don't want or need to go to more trouble.

On that paper, you could write or draw:

--what is standing in your way;

--a memory that you are unhealthily attached to;

--the name of someone who was a negative influence in your life;

--an old goal that now is out of sync with who you are discovering yourself to be;

--a list of the traits that you have over-identified with which are not true, like "lazy" or "fat" or "stupid" or "underachiever;"

--hurdles that seem too high, like "no money" or "not enough time" or "too few ideas."

Once you are finished with your ceremony, leave the fire or candle (in a safe way) to burn through the night. Perhaps the next day you could do something with the ashes or the leftover wax.

The most important step is to reaffirm what you have let go of, remember every day that you are allowing for the new you. Watch for falling back into old habits. You could light a candle every night for 40 days (a traditional length of time for many traditions' retreats) and go over in your mind what you have burned away.

Also, imagine the ArtistWarrior rising up out of the old. Imagine what that ArtistWarrior looks like, acts like. Get into the details. Write it all down.

And then do it.