I was telling a co-worker about my Imbolc bonfire. He jokingly calls it one of my Wiccan ways, and although Imbolc is an old Pagan holiday that celebrates the light coming back it’s also another way to weave our lives into more alignment with Nature’s cycles. It falls on February 2, Groundhog’s Day, just past the darkest point of the year when we can feel the switch begin to happen, the light begins coming back and winter begins to turn into spring. Lighting a bonfire is symbolic of welcoming and participating in the return of the light. This shift in seasons is the perfect time to release what we’ve been holding and hoarding all through the winter months of being bundled up and hunkered down inside. We offer to the fire all the things we are tired of carrying around both internally and externally. It’s a kind of spring cleaning for the soul and boy do we need it. Like dusty attics, we don’t even know what we’ve stored away.

Any ritual around fire is all about transformation. It’s a powerful way to symbolically let go of what weighs us down or what we’ve outgrown. And this year it felt like there was a lot to let go of. We can burn all manner of things like photos, letters, clothing, or gifts given to us, things that hurt us more than help us. But this year I wanted to burn away old ways of thinking that stood in the way of who I am becoming. Thoughts are powerful and they can hold us back from accepting who we are or living the life we really want. In fact I felt like there was so much piled up I did three sheets, one for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. I wrote down everything that had been lurking in my past, stopping forward progress. All the old tapes I was tired of listening to, or roles I was tired of playing, and all the reasons I tell myself no. There were past transgressions that still loomed, holding me back form taking the next step. For the present I wrote down all the attitudes and behaviors currently stymieing me, and the dark corners that keep me caught. The future can create fear and anxiety and I wanted write down my fears about what I felt wouldn’t work out or reasons why I couldn’t have what I so want and need. The future asks for cultivation of greater awareness for what trips us up. It’s good to be on the look out and alert to our weaknesses so when they pop up they aren’t such a surprise that they overwhelm us or tank all our hard work.

I burned it all.

It’s a gift to come to a place in our lives where we can let go of the things that no longer help or nourish us. Having a symbolic ritual to burn all that’s holding us hostage can be just the thing we need to rally our will and finally let it go. Letting what’s haunted or hurt us burn up in the flames can jump-start hope and help move us in the right direction. Does it mean it’s all over, that we’re done wrestling with these issues, maybe yes, maybe no. But it’s a start, and we have to begin somewhere. Some of the things may be so old it’s naturally time for them to go, and they will easily slip away. Others will come up again, but perhaps not as strong as they were before. We whittle away at what hounds us until one day we realize they are no longer there pestering us. It’s all about endlessly releasing what has been in order to welcome what might be.

It’s an offering.

And we don’t have to wait for a holiday to burn away what no longer sustains us, we can make that offering at anytime. What have you been holding onto for too long?

Tonight is perfect, it’s a full moon in Scorpio. Got a match?

kb