At the hinge of the day, when it is neither today nor tomorrow, the things that cling to us grow visible. Midnight is honest that way.
Some weight will not rinse away with water or smoke; it must first be named and gathered into a single shape before it can be given to the fire. The gathering mark is a sigil drawn to draw — a small dark star that pulls every clinging thing out of you and holds it, so that one flame may take it all at once.
The Working
- At midnight, sit alone by a single candle and set a shallow dish of salt within reach.
- On a scrap of paper, draw a sigil made of every line you can spare, binding into it all that has clung to you — name each thing under your breath as you draw its stroke.
- Anoint the four corners of the paper with a trace of oil, sealing what you have gathered inside the mark.
- Press the sigil to your brow, then to your heart, and feel the weight leave your skin and enter the paper.
- Speak the incantation, and touch a corner of the paper to the candleflame.
- Let it burn down over the dish of salt, so that no ash escapes the salt’s keeping.
- Before dawn, carry the salt and ash to a crossroads or a running ditch and scatter it behind you without looking back.
The Incantation
Come to the mark, all that clings,
sorrow and shadow and whispered things.
Into the lines I bind you fast,
out of my body, out of my past.
Fire to take you, salt to keep,
ash to scatter, mine to sleep.
I am unburdened, I am my own.
What burned will not follow you home. Walk back by another road, and let the salt hold what the flame set loose.