This ceremony can be done alone or with a support person. If you are a dog person, you can bring your dog. It should be done in a place where it is safe to have a fire without being interrupted, and a place that feels special to you. It should be done fairly late at night so that when you finish the ceremony, you can go directly to bed without seeing or talking to anyone to let the effect of the ceremony take root. If finances permit, you might want to rent a cabin and spend the night alone after the ceremony. But it can just be an evening ceremony.

Ahead of time prepare as follows:

Put down in writing what you are wanting to let go of and move on from. This can be one piece of paper with a simple sentence written in large magic marker, or it can be twenty typed pages outlining your thoughts and feeling in detail. It could also be journal pages spanning a period of time where you wrote about this particular issue.

Gather together materials for making a fire; kindling, small branches and a couple small logs. Base the volume of your materials on how long you want to sit by the fire for your ceremony; some people might just want a half hour and others may want several hours. If you are not experienced at making fires, feel free to bring rolled up newspaper and lighter fluid-- you don’t want it to be stressful getting the fire started.

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