The full moon is the height of light, the hour of clearest seeing, and what is plainly seen may at last be plainly set down. Gather your tools in a quiet room where the moon can reach the floor.
This working reaches toward the deliberate laying-down of a weight you have long refused to release — a duty outgrown, a loyalty turned to iron, a stone carried so long you mistook it for a part of yourself. To set it down is not to fail it, but to be free of it.
The Working
- Under the full moon, cast a circle with four candles at the quarters and a bowl of water at the centre.
- Choose a stone that fits the hollow of your hand, and hold it until it warms with your holding.
- Speak into the stone all that it has come to carry, until the telling is truly finished.
- Light a coil of incense and pass the stone three times through its smoke.
- Set a clear crystal beside the bowl to hold the clean intention while you work.
- Lower the stone into the water and take your hands away, breaking every point of contact at once.
- Snuff the candles one by one, and at morning carry the stone to a stream or a wild place and leave it where it lands.
The Incantation
Full and shining moon above,
witness what I lay to rest.
Long I carried, long I kept it,
pressed like iron to my chest.
Stone, I name you and release you;
you were mine, but are no more.
Water hold and moonlight witness —
I set down at last what I bore.
Leave the circle lighter than you entered it, and when you loose the stone into the wild, loose yourself as well.