A String Is Not Just a String

Initially I did not want to get too personal in this blog, but just have it be a general sort of observational and helpful thing. Oh, well. Let's face it - we do this work as people facing larger and smaller troubles and trying to bigger and better things. So. It's personal.

There was a breakup. There was a move out. There was all that that usually entails. And I thought I was fine - and pretty much am. My favorite Vitki asked me, though, if I had done a severance ritual. Whoops. No. So I thought I'd better get on that, and did. It was a simple ritual, as most of mine are, and went like this:

Red yarn. One knot for every year we'd been together, plus one more. A scissor. A lighter.

Counting, touching each knot, "You had one year of mine, you had two years of mine, etc on through to the second-to last knot". CUT THAT STRING. Hold that last knot. "But you do not have X years. This year, and all that follow, are mine."

Put the good knot in a nice place (for me, it was near Frigga's area on the altar, in the dish of blank runes that I give her from every set). Burn the useless knots. (By the way - try not to use acrylic yarn. Ask me how I know and I will tell you: It stinks. Open a window.)

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That sounds - and is - simple. But you're not done. As I found out. The rest of the day was pretty good, though I felt weirdly talkative about the person involved. Also lighter, which was nice. I went to the museum. I went home, I had little apatite. I did a nice ritual for Thor. I went to sleep.

The Next Morning, oof. I woke up with a headache worse than the one I'd had when I had Covid. I was dry-heaving. I was collapsed. I tried half an oyster cracker and had to spit it out. Nothing was going in without a fight I'd lose, so I didn't try. I lay on the bed, it was not comfortable. I lay on the couch, it was not comfortable. I lay on the cool floor, it was not comfortable. (It's a hardwood floor, but this seemed especially hard now.)

What could it be? Did a mummy want vengeance? The exhibit I'd seen had contained no actual mummies (robbed from their tombs before rediscovery). A lack-of-mummy curse? I took my temperature, which was normal, and thought. It felt like a hangover. A hangover. I don't drink, so this was unfair. But what is a hangover but a form of detoxing? Ahh...

Toxic elements (of a spiritual sort, not like lead or magnesium) from that relationship were working their way out. Painfully. Heavingly. On the day-to-day level of just getting through things, I had underestimated just what was going on. This is common. My work is not done. But it's also going to happen at a better-timed time.

Lessons learned: Like a booster shot (which you should get), do severance rituals when you won't miss work from the side effects. It's probably not a one-and-done scenario - which I knew at some level, but I didn't realize I'd really have to Watch That First Step. Ask for help. From your gods, from your spirits, and from your friends and teachers.