It’s a very blustery spring day. I’m sitting in my backyard.
I found a notebook from years ago. I wrote a lot in it during one of those workshops that promises to work through your issues. This notebook contains a history of my life, but only of all the issues, so it’s full of hurts, upsets, embarrassments, traumas, shame and guilt.
When I came across it the other day, I realised I no longer needed to keep it. I can see now how all that thinking about and analyzing, in a way just kept all the issues alive and kept me stuck in them.
But I couldn’t just recycle these pages containing so much pain. I decided the notebook needed a ceremonial burning. I’ve never ceremonially burnt anything before, but it feels appropriate. A ceremonial burning feels like it would cleanse and release everything, turning it into smoke. The smoke is indeed floating up into the clouds high above. Up there three birds are soaring and it feels like up there those issues can be free.
— Catherine