Bubble, Bubble, toil and trouble....

I feel like I'm getting too serious again. Kind of uptight.  Not like, skirt and pantyhose with a matching cardigan uptight but, more like 'is that all you do is sit around and brood over everything' uptight.  I am kind of uptight but, I do some really dumb shit and once in awhile it's worth sharing.

A few days after my meeting with the psychotic psychic, I started reading this book, The Psychic Housewives' Handbook and one of the first exercises in this book is to take your worries, your hurts and to list them out on scraps of paper and put them in a bowl.

Okay - I have to give you some background here.  Before I started this exercise, I had happened across this article on phases of the moon.  And I knew that the moon was about to change phases - at about 8:00 that night actually, the night I was doing this exercise.  If I didn't do this exercise before 8 PM - I would be giving my worries and my hurts to the moon as wishes, rather than relief.  I wanted to get rid of this junk, not bring it back onto myself. I had to get this done and now!  Make sense? 

I don't normally follow phases of the moon - I just happened to catch this tidbit. Or did I???

So, I have all these business cards leftover from my soap making and I thought, oh those would be PERFECT to write all of these 'uglies' on!  So I did.  Me, a blue Sharpie and a stack of cards, went to work.  Thirty-three cards I wrote out.  33!  Things from money, to Jacob's teeth, to finding the right Christmas gifts  - I wrote them all down.

It was raining that day - so it was a perfect time to write it but, not so perfect for the next step.

I had to burn these cards.  I had to watch my worries go up in smoke but, it's raining.  What could I burn them in?  Aha!  I had an old Dutch oven thing in the basement from my grandma's farm.  Grandpa even put a new handle on it so it could hang over the fire.  (You know? my Grandma was Hungarian - they're rumored to be gypsies)  Perfect! 

I get back upstairs from finding and de-cobwebing this pot and I remember it's raining outside.  I can't do this out back, there's no cover, I'll get soaked and they won't burn.  I can't burn them in the garage - to much gasoline in there.  The front porch?  Perfect!

I do have to add - I believe I was thinking this stuff in my head but, I was more likely talking out loud, to myself.

I head out to the front porch with my pot, which just so happens to look like a small cauldron, thanks Gram, my cards, and the grill lighter to burn these babies only it's so windy that my torch keeps getting blown out and these damn cards are so thick, I can't keep them burning.  I grab a candle.  A red one - blood red actually, to light instead of the grill torch.  I was also quite cold so I had on my big, black long winter coat with a hood up and I'm standing over this mini cauldron burning papers with a blood red candle on my front porch.  Are you seeing this?  Remember, my lips are moving because I'm talking to myself...

After an eternity trying to turn these cards into ash, I finally succeed.  I worked at this for like an hour.  The next step was to add water to the ashes and well, what better than rainwater?  And I left the cauldron on the stoop to collect some rainwater in the ash.  I blew out my candle and went back in.

About 20 minutes or so later, I come back to complete what my neighbors must be thinking is the oddest damn ritual they have ever witnessed.  I take my little cauldron and go walking out into the yard dumping the ashwater into the grass sending all of my troubles back into the universe washing myself clean of them.  Still talking out loud.

I rinsed out the pot and heading back in for the night feeling a little lighter, a little refreshed.  I even had a bit of a bounce in my step.  I gave all my worries to God - to the Universe.  I got back in, took my coat off, shut the door, sat down and picked up the book again before I realized what I had done, what my neighbors and anyone driving by for that matter, had witnessed.  At one point, I do remember seeing a sheriff and even waving to a few people I knew.  I called Jeremy at work and reported the witch sighting in our front yard walking around, talking to herself, dumping dirty water from a cauldron into the neighbor's grass and tried not to die from embarrassment.  Aw...hell, what's a little spell or two going to hurt?