MaryScarlett: Self-concept is a powerful thing. Even as babies in the womb, the vibe we get about our impending arrival begins to shape our sense of self. As we begin to move in the world, we are influenced by others - socialization, they call it. Even though many of the self-shaping messages we get, especially as women, tell us that we are not quite enough or downright unlovable, deep within us is a persistent whisper that counsels, "Don't listen to them. You know. You know who you are."

A battle for the soul ensues. The whisper is silenced by teenage hormones, depression, fury, and our parents and elders. Later, the whisper cannot be heard above the din of media, jealous co-workers, and sometimes our own lovers. The reflection we see in the mirror is not true to who we are, but a distortion. It is this false reflection that I have learned to let go.

Lunaea: Letting go of things externally has always been relatively easy for me. It's inner releasing that is so much harder, especially in human relations. If a relationship ends, it's one thing to stop contact with that person, to put away letters and mementos. It's quite another thing to put away the pain, to let grief move through me, not have it take up permanent residence. If only I were as attached to joy as I am to sorrow. If only happiness were a habit as strongly addicting as grief.

A lover and I parted. It was his decision, sudden and irrevocable. Many months later, I was still grieving. I felt - I knew - I had lost a soul mate. My friends had grown tired of it, and told me repeatedly to "let it go". And I would say, "I am" or "I'm trying." All of you reading have probably been on one side of this type of conversation more than once, maybe both sides. When MaryScarlett and I were deciding what to write about, it came at the one-year anniversary of that parting. It is time to let go.

MaryScarlett: My letting-go process began when I came to Goddess consciousness. It is nigh impossible to see yourself with the same eyes once you have gazed into the Face of the Mother. As I began to deepen in my spirituality and my magical practice, it was becoming clearer to me that I was walking two paths - the earthly path as wife, educator, mother, and the path of spirit. The two paths were parallel for a while, but came to a dramatic convergence when my partner up and left. I fell apart. Like flesh off bone, I disintegrated. I was lost. The one who had held the mirror was off to hold another. So who was I now?

Lunaea: And so my ritual of release takes place. MaryScarlett is with me, and we go to the ocean after dark. I carry his first gift to me, a bottle of wine, the last few drops superstitiously kept and not drunk, so the love would keep. This would now be sacrificed to Aphrodite. One last love letter written and placed in the bottle, which is then flung into the sea, as the full moon shone a ribbon of light across the water to where I stood on the chilled boards of the wharf. Tears fall, so many tears.

MaryScarlett: It was during this time of my soul's dark night, a night which lasted for almost three years, that I came face to face with a face I no longer recognized. Now, I have to tell you that at this time, I was perceived by many as a powerful, "together" teacher and priestess, but it was only through the eyes of the unattainable one that I could see myself. The realization was almost as humiliating as being left behind.

For months, perhaps a year, probably more, I grieved. I did not eat, I ate too much, I slept and slept and slept. I became like Inanna, who on her journey to the underworld was stripped of her identity, and hung on a peg like unto death. My underworld was inhabited by the ghost of my former self, my former life. And in my ritual death, I had to face the ghost in order to give it up - in order to be reborn.

Lunaea: But my ritual doesn't feel complete. Around my wrist is a silver bracelet, identical to one I gave him, worn for so long, now removed and clutched tightly as I let my tears fall into the dark water below me. I lean my arms on the damp wooden rail of the wharf, thinking of my beloved, thinking of what this connection has meant to me. And then, without even willing it, my fingers relax, and the bracelet falls into the sea. It just drops from my hands as they simply open, letting it fall, letting it go.

Is this how it happens, finally? To just let go, to just open your hands and let it go, let it fall? Let the grief fall, let the anger fall, let the regrets and the sorrow and the loneliness fall. Is it as simple as just not clutching it to me anymore? Not bind it around my wrist like cold silver? All the candle magic, tearing of papers, burning of souvenirs - does it really just come down to the quietest moment of opening and letting it gently go?

Yes ... and no. It is that simple, but it must be done again and again. Each time the grief comes back, I must gently open my heart and let it fall into those dark and moving depths of Aphrodite. Each time the overwhelming and exhausting sorrow seizes me, I must breathe deeply, steady myself, and let go. This isn't about denial of pain. Pain serves a purpose - it alerts us that there is something wrong, something that needs healing. But when the time of healing has lengthened to where it no longer serves, when the pain keeps you from moving forward, it is time to let go.

MaryScarlett: When I finally started to let go of false self-concept, I came to realize its many parts and layers, how many voices there were, and how my own voice was a part of the cacophony that kept me from being my truth - old lovers and their judgment, my father whose alcoholism I thought I could control if I was only good enough, my mother who did not know how to love me or herself, a teacher who told me I would never be as smart as my older sister. Slowly, I began letting go of feeling unlovable, undesirable, unconnected. I began to emerge as someone who could set a boundary, who really began to believe that she was sacred, who began to answer the inner voice who called her special. I lost friends and broke from members of my family. I began breaking free.

Lunaea: Most of the rituals for breaking free seem to focus on banishing, burning, flinging pain far away - as I flung the wine bottle - or burying it as in a grave. I had done all those things and none of them felt like the right flavor of ritual work done. What held in my mind's eye and made sense to my aching heart is the image of my hands opening, and Mother Earth's gravity pulling my grief down into the arms of the sea. Gravity's sister, levity, seemed to strike a balance within me, and my heart felt lighter.

MaryScarlett: Once breaking away began, it was an avalanche, a frightening and violent gravity force, powerful and transformational. More letting go - of my fear of failure, my fear of success, my fear of really inhabiting my physical body, my life. But perhaps the hardest part of this process was letting go of the hurt, of seeing myself as victim... victim of love, victim of loss. I came to understand that my partner's leaving was a blessing, as if Her own voice spoke to him, "Be gone!" In order to find the face of my true self, this experience, like Inanna's in the underworld, was necessary, a fortunate fall. The vacuum that was created at the leaving literally sucked me out of my old self and the false constructs that were keeping me from realizing my true, magical self.

Lunaea: Magic is nature's forces brought to bear in a focused and intentional way. To do effective magic - and ritual is magic worked on our own psyches - we must harmonize with the forces of nature appropriate to the task. For example, burning a symbol of a situation transforms it from present matter to potential energy. Fire's natural way is to clear what no longer serves, to make way for new growth. It is active. Gravity, on the other hand, is deep quiet surrender. It is letting go.

MaryScarlett: How did I let go? I cried, I prayed, I meditated, I was medicated, I started to work out. I started to look, with love and compassion, at my face in the mirror. And I wrote ... about him, about it, about the feelings in my deepest heart, about the Goddess. Prayers. Poems. Rants. It was through the written word that I finally began to heal. The language in my head was transformed by the words on the page. Here came an accurate, tangible reflection of who I was becoming and who I would come to be.

When I moved recently, I came across a tin box, stuck high and away in my bathroom cabinet. It was covered by moist dust, almost stuck shut, forgotten. In it, I found two old rings, one mine. I wrote a poem about the rings and my sadness: "How I loved to look upon your banded hand, sensuous fingers that to me belonged, hands that held mine, our daughter, my future hands that caressed and finally withdrew. When I saw you last you wore a band thicker than white gold. My hand empty fought desire to reach for what is no longer there." In writing the poem, I found that, while I was sad, I had let go of the hurt. I had let go of the husband, and the woman who was the wife. I said a prayer, and in dedication, I placed the ring on the ring finger of my right hand. It is here now as I write this, a token of my journey.

Lunaea: A ritual for the journey of letting go, to be repeated as necessary: You will need a bowl of water and a dish of sea salt. Sit at your altar and light candles for purification. Cup your hands around the bowl of water and sit with your eyes closed for awhile, thinking of what it is you are releasing, letting the images move through you freely. When you are ready, take a handful of salt in both your hands, and hold them over the water. Speak aloud your intention to release, to let go. Offer prayers of thanks and offering. And when the moment is right, simply open your hands and let the salt fall into the water and dissolve. Dip your hands into the water, and anoint your face. Add your tears to the bowl. Breathe deeply. Do this simple, quiet ritual whenever you need to be cleansed and renewed. Be sure to dispose of the water respectfully. Wash and put away the bowl.

MaryScarlett: For the first time in my adult-woman life, I have goals and dreams, wishes that are mine alone. Selfish? No, self-loving. I was forced to break the mirror in my head that showed me false reflection, to silence the voices in my head who told me that I was nothing and who repeatedly asked me, "Just who do you think you are?" My wise sister Lunaea once advised me that when this question comes up, I am to ignore the attitude and simply answer. Now, finally, I can. My soul has won.

Lunaea: The Goddess wants you to win. She wants to lighten and enlighten you. She never wants you to stay long in a place of pain. Listen to your heart and you will hear Her urging you, as my friends urged me, to let it go. Feel the heaviness in your heart as a pulling of gravity's center, asking for grief's return and release. What was valuable in that loving is still a part of me, and always will be. And what I must give back can fall easily into the great renewing ocean of love, there to shine forever in the moonlit waters. May it be so with us all.