On the way home today, I was thinking about a friend who is going through a rough divorce and how I would like to help that person clear away some of the spiritual mess associated with such an emotionally trying event. As the person in question is not much given to ritual and spiritual concerns, the method would probably have to involve the channeling of the blech (technical term) into an object which was then later sequestered or destroyed in a safe way.
This got me thinking about the disposal of such “negative energy” and its impact on the spiritual environment and landscape. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that people thought it was fine to dump raw sewage in any river that was handy. Nature simply cleaned it up for them, provided they waited long enough and didn’t overtax the system.
Those of us who are concerned with spiritual health often utilize Nature and natural processes as part of our cleansing techniques. From the Misogi ritual in Shinto to early Christian river Baptism, we see Nature-related purification rituals in countless forms of religion and spirituality. Even “dry” methods, such as salt, fire, exorcism, or transfer to ritual objects intend that the miasma be carried away for Nature or some specific Holy Power to purify in some fashion.
What is the healthy carrying capacity of Nature in terms of Spiritual Hazardous Waste?
We know, for instance, how much raw sewage can be rendered “clean” by one acre of swamp and how quickly. We have complex tables and charts for designing septic systems. We know how quickly various chemical toxins are sequestered or broken down by Natural processes.
We have no such guidelines as regards the kinds of spiritual contamination that so many of us are releasing into the environment.
Perhaps we are nowhere near Nature’s carrying capacity, if so, good for us. If we are lucky, the Kami, Landvaettir, or Manitous in an area actively increase that capacity and working with them helps to keep Nature healthier. Maybe most people are carrying the bulk of their Spiritual Hazard with them and so a lot of potential pollution is sequestered with the physical body…
I don’t know. Really this is just a question for me.
Oh, I created the symbol at the top of the page awhile back when contemplating a sequestration of a big chunk of my own spiritual garbage. I wanted some kind of marker for the container to warn people NOT TO OPEN IT! Feel free to adapt it- it’s under a Creative Commons “Share-Alike, Non-Commercial” license.
Thankfully, I never had to use sequestration and I’ve recently had help in washing a bunch of that crap away. However, the question of how much human spiritual sewage we can safely discharge into the environment is an important one.
It would be good for us to get advice from those who hear their Holy Powers more clearly than I. As we work to bring spirituality back into our physical and social environments, we need to be careful not to overload the very systems and forces we are depending on for help.
