When a matter has gone to fog — too many voices, too many maybes — the old way is to burn the fog and speak the truth out loud into the clearing.
This incantation reaches toward plain clarity spoken aloud, for a muddled thing, once named truly in the open air, loses its power to confuse. The smoke carries the confusion up and out; the word left standing in the cleared room is the true one.
The Working
- At dusk, in a still room, light a bundle of sage or a stick of clean incense and let the smoke rise between your hands.
- Ring a bell once, sharp, to cut the silence and mark the working begun.
- Pass the smoke over your head, your throat, and your open hands, that thought, speech, and deed be cleared each in turn.
- Name the muddled matter aloud — all its tangles and voices — until you have emptied it into the smoke.
- Ring the bell a second time, and in the ringing let the confusion break.
- Speak the incantation into the rising smoke, plainly, as one telling a simple true thing.
- Ring the bell a third and last time, and open the window to let smoke and fog go out together.
The Incantation
Smoke, rise up and take the fog,
bell, ring out and break the noise.
What was muddled, I name it true,
what was tangled, I speak it plain.
Three times struck and three times cleared,
the fog goes out, the window wide,
and the matter stands, and I see it whole.
Speak nothing false into the smoke, and it will give you nothing false in return; when the room is clear, so is the mind.