On The Blessedness Of Goodbyes

So it’s time for a palate-cleanser, dear ones. I have been far too maudlin, far too morose, far too caught up in the past, and far too frightened about a future that I cannot control. I have let my heart grow overfull to bursting, and now it’s time to wring that little fucker out like a used washcloth.

So, on this first New Moon after Midsummer, I am moved to speak of those sad moments at the ends of things. Those liberating moments when we have finally suffered enough to let go of what is hurting us. Those resigned moments when maintenance and repair has failed.

I am moved to speak on goodbyes.

It’s fallen out of fashion, but when I was young we used to actually do New Moon rituals. No, really. I mean, New Moons were always less popular than Full Moons, but we still did New Moon rituals somewhat regularly. This was when I was just a kid, mind you, and most of the people I was doing magick with at the time were also pretty young and inexperienced, so our understanding of lunar currents was pretty simplistic. But we all knew one thing for sure: New Moons were for both beginnings and endings. This was deep wisdom to my teenage brain, that the ending of one cycle and the beginning of another were actually one and the same, a single phenomenon united in the blessed Moon, so it seemed important to mark that moment.

And frankly, it is still deep wisdom to my middle-aged brain. If anything, it seems deeper to me now, after 31 years of experience pursuing magick, mysticism, and living the spiritual life. Now I am steeped in the distinction between kairos (καιρός)—meaningful time, sacred time, or the “right” time—and chronos (χρόνος)—linear, duration-based time—and that distinction seems to make all the difference in how I actually live out my life. I believe very much that the cycles of natural time and the cycles of divine time are linked. I believe that as the Earth, Sun, Moon, and planets dance their beautiful dance, the spiritual forces with which those celestial spheres are linked are also dancing. So I try to dance with them.

For me, what it means to be pagan is that I believe in a naturalized theology. I believe that the clearest, surest way to know the will of the Divine is to look to nature. And since all of nature moves according to certain patterns, I believe that to make moves in our lives that are contrary to those patterns is to create a sort of cosmic and spiritual friction. Under the right circumstances, of course, friction can be quite useful, even delightfully pleasurable. But when we try to move in our personal lives in ways that are actively out of sync with the movements of the natural world, that sort of friction often leads to unnecessary suffering.

Magickally speaking, this issue can often be dealt with by changing our statement of intent and ritual structure to the opposite logical and magickal polarities. If we absolutely must do a prosperity spell during the waning Moon, for example, we can banish poverty rather than attracting wealth and the spell will most likely result in the same (or very similar) effects. But on a more personal level, when we are concerned about actually living our lives according to natural cycles, this sort of approach doesn’t always make sense. This is because many parts of our lives don’t fit neatly into those sorts of dualistic and logical categories.

As I have observed before, life is messy.

For example, let’s say that it is my will to do a spell to make new friends, but it’s the waning Moon. I can’t just “banish loneliness” and get my intended result. Sometimes I can feel quite lonely even while surrounded by friends and family or in the middle of a crowded party…how then do I relate “banishing loneliness”—which is an experience, not a state of being—to my real goal of “making new friends”? Feeling lonely and making new friends aren’t really opposites, and the more that I think about it, the more it seems clear to me that “making new friends” just doesn’t have a logical opposite to banish. That means that I can’t really do that sort of spell during the waning Moon…the spell must be attractive, and that demands the New Moon or waxing Moon so that the spell’s activity, the attractive force, can increase as the Moon waxes.

This also means that when it comes to our personal lives, we usually have to pick the right time (there’s kairos again) to do something if we want to line our lives up with the larger natural cycles. In the case of the prosperity spell I mentioned above, I can do a spell like that pretty much any time I want. It will probably be more effective if done on the Full or New Moon because those are moments of peak lunar energy, but I can do it anywhere in that cycle, wax or wane, New or Full, just so long as I carefully align my statement of intent and my ritual with the part of the lunar cycle I am currently in. But if I want to do a love spell, I can’t just banish “being single” or “being lonely”, because the absence of those things are not the same thing thing as actually falling in reciprocated romantic love. Love doesn’t have an opposite. I can’t banish hate, or loneliness, or anything else in an attempt to find love. That’s just not how love works. I have to actually attract love, which means the right time to do that love spell is going to be on the New Moon or during the waxing Moon.

And if I want to end a relationship, like really and truly end a relationship for all time, there is no form of attraction spell I can do because, just like love, saying goodbye to someone for the last time doesn’t have an opposite. I can’t attract loneliness or being alone, because I can still feel lonely—or even truly alone—in that relationship. I have never felt more alone in my life than while I was with my ex-wife. I also can’t just banish the person themselves, because when we want to truly end a relationship, it’s usually not just an end to the interactions with that person that we actually want. We want an emotional resolution, an actual goodbye, not just the absence of that person. We want to cause a change of state not just in the relationship but also in ourselves. Otherwise we just end up lost in memories and wondering what could have been. We want closure. And true closure, just like true love, doesn’t really have an opposite. You can’t attract anything to say goodbye. This means that if we care about aligning our lives with the larger patterns of nature, saying goodbye for the last time has a right time. And it also seems like that right time is the waning Moon (for a gradual disentangling like a divorce) or the New Moon (for when it’s time to say goodbye all at once).

So far, this homily has been heavy on magickal theory, and this is fine, because most of my readers practice some sort of magick and I like to talk shop as much as anyone. But now I want to switch gears and talk to your hearts from my heart, dear ones. I want to ask you a question:

Is there someone or something in your life that is no longer helping you flourish? Someone or something that has hurt you for the last time? Is this the moment when you have finally had enough? Is it finally the right time to say goodbye?

I know it can be scary. If you can, secure your safety first. If you are attempting to recover from an addiction, please make sure that you consult a medical professional who can advise you on how to quit using safely.

I also know that truly saying goodbye can be one of the hardest things any of us ever has to do. That’s why so many of us put it off as long as possible. But I also know that you can do it.

Sometimes the most important and revolutionary act of love that we can undertake is loving ourselves enough to believe that we deserve better.

So, if necessary, let us look to our lives and our world with mournful but resigned eyes. Let us look to our hearts and listen to what they have to tell us. Let us resolve to love ourselves just as well as we love each other and, if it is really and truly the time…

Let us say goodbye.

Blessed New Moon, dear ones. The world is scary and I know it, so please feel free to message me if you are in need of prayer, divination, offerings made in your name, or just someone to talk to. I am here to serve.

In love,

Soror Alice