Our houses are full of shit: some heavy and some light. Objects, important and incidental, fill our drawers and night stands, each one holding a memory. Some memories are small (a rogue ketchup packet from an evening of no-regrets), some are large (Aunt Kay’s cuckoo clock that hasn’t cood in years), and some are overdue to leave us (the never-used engagement ring lurking in your sports bras or the letterman’s jacket that belonged to another you).

The Winter Solstice is the “midnight of the year;” the darkest day in our yearly romp around the sun. It’s the emptiness before the next cycle of spring growth. The moment when the sap on the trees has run dry. It is also the final month in the modern calendar, a natural time to look back at the past year in our life, country, and planet and ask: Where have we been? And what is it time to release? At the end of 2021, another pandemic year in America, there may be many answers to that question.

When we live our lives in harmony with the seasons, the Winter Solstice is an invitation to empty our hearts and empty our drawers. It’s a time to plunge into the fear of letting go, and by virtue of plunging, to conquer it. To do something that scares you in the shadow of the darkest day, to emerge tomorrow lighter than before. 

This month’s magick is about unbinding ourselves from an object. Specifically, the loaded ones we’ve been meaning to release, but keep holding onto for some reason. This spell has stakes; it requires you to use an object to which you are currently attached, but wish to let go of. Whether you do this spell in community or alone, it will guide and assist you in selecting, destroying, and releasing an energy from which you are ready to move on. At the end of the ritual, you will be as empty as the year, ready to rest in the fallow dark until spring’s rebirth.

 
 
 

INGREDIENTS

For this ritual, you will need…

  • An object that has value and meaning for you, that you are overdue to release. Are there objects in your home that you avoid? Objects that represent someone you used to be, but are no longer? Objects you associate with an identity (fiance, daughter, American) that you wish to release? If you are scared, but excited by the idea of destroying a specific object, that’s a good one to pick. If you feel regret at the idea of destroying the object, that is not the one for this spell. 

  • A piece of paper + pen

  • A bucket of water

  • Salt

  • A hammer/tool of destruction

  • A location where you will leave the object at the end. This can be as simple as the dumpster outside your apartment, or a plot of earth with burial space, or the ocean. Wherever you perform your spell, just think ahead to what final resting spot feels best for your object. 

 

THE RITUAL

 
 

PREPARATION

Gather your materials in a safe, quiet space near the final resting spot of your object. Turn off your phone, computer, and alert any roommates or partners who might interrupt you. 

If you’d like to light a candle or “cast a circle” to prepare your magick space, do so now. If you need inspiration on circle casting, you can find some here or here.

 
 

STEP 1: PREPARE YOURSELF

Take your piece of paper. Rip it in half. Put one half aside for now. 

On the remaining paper write down the story of the object. How did it come to you? What does it mean? How do you feel about it now? Be specific and honest.

Now turn the paper over and let yourself see and write about what’s absurd about the object. How is it - and its story - ridiculous? Lovingly tease it. Make fart noises at it. Let yourself see beyond the curtain of its hold over you. Let you and the object be fools together.

When you are done, read what you’ve written aloud, either to a friend, another nearby witch, or just to yourself. If you are talking to yourself, you should still say these words out aloud, confidently, audibly. Speak from the diaphragm. Project.

 
 

STEP 2: PREPARE YOUR OBJECT

Take the piece of paper you wrote on and bind it to your object with string, tape, or whatever works. 

Hold the object in your hands and repeat this incantation:

Our time as one has reached its end.

To your next home, I now thee send!

The break is hard, but worse to stay,

So free me from your ener-gée.

May we both find a higher call.

Release me from you once and all!

 
 

STEP 3: DESTROY YOUR OBJECT

Take your object and pour salt on it. Say: 

Salty tears as we take our leave.

I grieve for you, and I am grieved.

Take your object and dunk it in the bucket of water. Say: 

With this water comes amends.

I cleanse you, and I am cleansed.

Take your object and smash it with the hammer. Say: 

All ill will now be deceased.

I release you, I am released. 

If you do not feel done releasing the object, continue to burn, flush, mame, and taunt it until it no longer holds sway over you.

 
 

STEP 4: SAY GOOD-BYE TO THE OBJECT

Put the object on the earth. Let it rest. Stand near it, but do not touch it. 

Repeat out loud:

Surrender you unto the earth.

And let this death serve as a birth.

As you break down, so I rebuild,

Neither of us unfulfilled. 

With my now-split chimera,

I face next year’s America,

Empty, ready, open-hearted,

Released from that which I have parted.

Now take your object to its final resting place, which you should be nearby. Throw the object into its forever home as you shout:

SEE YOU NEVER!!!

Now turn away. And don’t look back.**

** If you try to do this and discover the object still holds power over you, that saying good-bye forever feels impossible, bury it under the moon. Return in a month. Look at the object again. And see how you feel.

 
 

STEP 5: READY FOR REBIRTH

Take the blank half of paper your ripped off in Step #1. Hold it in your hands. 

Close your eyes and imagine the blank space of the paper. 

What do you envision may now grow in the space you have cleared?

In releasing something that no longer serves you, how can you now serve others?

Who do you wish to evolve into in the year ahead in America?

Open your eyes. Place the blank piece of paper on a shrine or near a window. Let it lie fallow until the first stirrings of spring, as a symbol of all that will now grow in the space you cultivated. 

On February 1st – the celebration of Imbolc, the first thaw – take out the paper. Look at what new desires, identities, and visions have grown in the fertile, empty soil. Write them down. Let your heart tell you what it now wants.

 
 

Spell by Scout Durwood and Lauren Ludwig