The river keeps what it is given and asks nothing in return, carrying it down toward some sea that never sends it back. At dusk, when the water goes dark, it is easiest to give it something to keep.
This jar gathers the bitterness of a season into one small vessel — a root for the sourness, salt for the sting, a written word for the wound — and hands the whole of it to the current. What flowing water takes it does not return; the burden goes downstream and out of your keeping for good.
The Working
- As the sun lowers, write the sorrow you would be rid of on a slip of paper.
- Fold it away from you three times and lay it in the empty jar.
- Cover it with a bitter root and three pinches of black salt.
- Bind the jar’s mouth shut with thread wound widdershins, knotting it thrice.
- Carry the sealed jar to running water while the last light fades.
- Speak the incantation, then give the jar to the current and turn away without watching it go.
The Incantation
Bitter root and blackened salt,
here I lay my season’s fault.
Written word and thread wound round,
in this glass be sorrow bound.
River, take it, hold it fast,
bear my grieving downstream and past.
What you keep I keep no more,
I turn away and shut the door.
The spell is sealed with the third knot and released the moment the jar leaves your hand for the water, whereupon you walk home without once looking back.