New moon water is a black mirror with no light to trouble it, and in such water the old cleansings run deepest. Here you do not merely wash. You drown what has followed you home.
This bath strips away the residue of ill-will, the cold hands and clinging eyes that fasten unseen to a person and will not let go. To rise from it is to be sealed anew, your edges redrawn in salt and your name returned wholly to yourself.
The Working
- On the new moon, fill a bowl with fresh water and let it stand a while beneath the empty sky.
- Steep protective herbs in the water until it darkens and its green scent rises.
- Dissolve a handful of salt into the bath, stirring against the turn of the sun.
- Set a dark protective stone at the bottom of the water to anchor the working down.
- Sink beneath the surface, or pour the water over you slowly, from crown to heel.
- As it runs off, feel each clinging thing loosen its grip and fall away into the dark.
- Speak the incantation, then let the water drain fully away before you dry.
The Incantation
Black water of the moonless night,
take from my skin what does not belong.
Salt to strip and stone to keep,
herb to make the thin place strong.
Down and off and out and gone,
every cold hand, every eye.
I rise up sealed and set apart,
my own again beneath the sky.
Let the last of the water sink into the dark and step away sealed; what was washed off cannot climb back to a threshold it no longer knows.