How do you release yourself from a marriage once it’s over but the wreckage remains? I was recently privileged to hear the story of a woman – I’ll call her Linda – who designed three rituals of release over the course of several years of grief and healing.

On what would have been the 10th anniversary of her marriage, about six months after her husband had left her, Linda invited three friends to a nearby jewelry store where she melted down her wedding ring. 

Listening to Shaina Noll’s “How Could Anyone” (“…ever tell you/ you were anything less than beautiful…”), they lit a candle. Linda used a jewelry torch to transform her wedding ring back into its elemental state: a pebble of pure gold. She then shared her story with her friends. 

The ritual concluded as Linda slipped onto her finger the new ring she had designed, incorporating two small diamond chips from her engagement ring. Then they broke open a bottle of champagne.

Some months later, Linda and her ex-husband met in their therapist’s office to exchange words of release and forgiveness. They used the unity candle from their marriage to light two “new beginnings” candles, then extinguished the marriage candle together. Linda's vision was that this would “symbolize the taking of the positives, the good memories, and achievements from our marriage as enlightenment and strength as we now pursue different paths.” 

These rituals were no magic wand. They didn’t erase the pain, but they did provide a sense of agency and connection during a life trauma that can be accompanied by deep feelings of helplessness and isolation. They marked a moment in time, providing witness to what was true in that moment, summoning the strength and clarity of intention needed for the next phase of the healing journey.

Looking back nearly two years later, Linda says of the joint ritual in the therapist’s office, “I was perhaps kinder and gentler as I sought some kind of ongoing hopeful connection; in later reflections I realized I had deeper grief and anger to work through.”

As she continued to work through her grief and anger, she designed a final ritual, a homecoming into the circle of women friends that had been strained by the dynamics of the divorce. They gathered for a slumber party, putting to rest another step along Linda's path to embracing her beautiful wholeness.

"How could anyone ever tell you? 
You were anything less than beautiful... 
How could anyone ever tell you? 
You were less than whole... 

How could anyone fail to notice? 
That your loving is a miracle... 
How deeply you're connected to my soul..."
~ Shaina Noll’s “How Could Anyone” 

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My deep thanks to "Linda" for sharing her story of courage and creativity. Please let me know if you have a story to share.

As a kid, I was a bit of a brat. I protested mightily whenever my mother packed us up for a trip to our nearest relations for Easter or Thanksgiving dinner. It was a two-hour drive; I got carsick; I didn’t see the point. “Someday,” my mother predicted, “you’ll appreciate family traditions.”

She was right of course (and I’ve since given her the satisfaction of telling her so). I appreciate family traditions so much these days that I’m all about making more of both – more family, more traditions.

When I was 17 I took up the family imperative to emigrate. Like my mother’s parents who had moved from Italy to the US; like my father who had left the South as a teenager for New England and then left his marriage for Hawaii; I flew across the country for college in Oregon and never looked back. With my family of origin 3,000 miles away in either direction I had the good fortune to be adopted at the age of 22 by a pack of lesbians.

Friends since college, they’d migrated from Bowling Green, Ohio by way of Corvallis and now gathered several times a year for holidays. Thanksgiving in the Columbia River Gorge. Christmas Eve in town where the original gang poses on the couch for an annual portrait while they belt out the BGSU fight song. Fourth of July on the Nehalem River in the Oregon Coast Range.

Over the years this extended community has celebrated each other’s birthdays and anniversaries (35 years for the longest-standing couple), and mourned each other’s losses. And the family keeps expanding, with kids and new partners, new friends. 

I’ve come to inherit a tradition established by the host of our Fourth of July campout. Years ago she found the perfect Fairy Log in the wooded acres above the main camp. Covered in moss and surrounded by wildflowers, the log invites the imagination of the kids who trek to visit it. As they crest the hill, shafts of sunlight illuminating the log, they discover what mischief the fairies have been up to. A bottle cap from our kitchen, little bits of food, agates from the river below – it’s clear the fairies have been amongst us.

Being the keeper of the Fairy Log gives me an excuse for a quiet solo walk in the woods away from the boisterous camaraderie of the firepit and swimming hole. As I made my way to it this year, pockets full of secret fairy loot, I started out on the wrong trail. But I didn’t worry. I had faith that all paths would lead to the Fairy Log. Sure enough, after a few meanderings I saw those rays of sunlight like nature’s neon sign flashing on my destination. A little critter – a chipmunk or a squirrel – hopped off the log as I approached. Two orange butterflies danced around me. A snail inched its way across the trail. I almost expected Bambi and Thumper to show up.

And the next day the kids’ anticipation and the look on their faces as they came upon the log made me fall in love with tradition all over again.

A Fairy Song

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. 

~ William Shakespeare