A few weeks ago, I wrote about something that had changed in me after this past year. After losing things I thought were supposed to stay, I found myself looking at human life differently. Not as some lower realm to survive until Soul gets to go home. Not as something to rise above. I found myself bowing to it. The whole ridiculous, heartbreaking, beautiful mess.
And then you wrote back – so many of you!
You told me about your losses, your marriages, deaths, illnesses, beginnings, endings, all the ways life did not go according to plan and somehow became life anyway. Some messages made me laugh. Some made me cry. A few I had to read and then just sit there for a while because there was no quick answer that wouldn’t feel cheap.
I’m still answering them.
And then, almost immediately, Life decided to test whether I actually meant what I had written.
Someone in a Facebook group I belong to posted an apology. I didn’t know what he was apologizing for, so of course I went backward through the thread.
A whistleblower had died. His widow was grieving. And people had gone after her.
Really gone after her.
Hatred, accusations, death threats. That horrible group thing where one person says something vicious and suddenly it seems to give everyone else permission to become a little uglier.
I sat there shocked, staring at the screen thinking: “Here you go, Alana. Would you pass the test?”
Because I had just written this love letter to humanity. Brave Souls. Sacred incarnation. Reverence for being here.
And here was humanity.
What got under my skin was not that psychopaths exist. We know that. It was that these seemed to be ordinary people.
People who probably love their children. Feed their dogs. Pay bills. Laugh with friends. Get hurt. Feel lonely. Think of themselves as decent.
Normal people!
That was harder.
Because if I’m going to bow to humanity, I don’t get to quietly remove everything ugly from the definition first.
So now I have this question staring me in a face: what do I do with evil?
I don’t have the answer. And I don’t want to rush into one just because I know how to make things sound spiritual.
I don’t want to say, “Their Soul chose that experience,” and wrap someone else’s meanness in metaphysics. Something in me has become deeply allergic to that.
At the same time, I still meant what I wrote before. And so now it got complicated.
Can I recognize someone’s humanity without excusing what they do? Can I love humanity and still oppose a human being fiercely? Can compassion have teeth? Can I bow to Soul and say NO to behavior? What happens to ordinary people when a group gives them permission to hate? What happens when being right becomes more important than another person’s humanity?
I’m still chewing on all of this.
And tonight feels like a strange, perfect night to sit with it because the Moon itself is moving into Earth’s shadow.
Not metaphorically, literally – almost the whole Moon.
And I keep thinking maybe this eclipse is not asking me to manifest harder, visualize brighter, or hand the Universe another shopping list.
Maybe this one is about the shadow – mine too.
The resentments I still carry. Old conversations still running in my head. Guilt. Fear. Regret.
The exhausting belief that if I had just been smarter, stronger, more aware, more loving, I could somehow have prevented every painful thing that happened to me and the people I love.
All that old garbage we drag around and then decorate with spiritual language.
I came across an eclipse ritual that I liked once I stripped away the promises that one night will fix your finances, health, subconscious, karma, and probably your plumbing.
The bones of it were simple.
Water. Fire. Paper. Release.
So tonight I am going to take a piece of paper and write by hand what I am done carrying.
Not beautifully. Not correctly. Just the truth.
Old beliefs about money. Someone I am still arguing with who hasn’t been in the room for years. A debt I’ve turned into a character flaw. The impossible responsibility for someone else’s life. Anger I keep pretending I’ve already healed. Whatever comes out.
Not “Universe, please remove this.”
More like “I’m done carrying this fargin garbage around”
Then I will burn the page over a bowl of water and let it go into the water.
Not because fire erases history – it doesn’t. What happened happened.
But sometimes the body needs an act. The mind can understand something for ten years while the stomach is still clenched around it.
Afterward I’ll take the water outside and pour it onto the ground. Probably say something simple: “Thank you. I release what is finished.”
Then I’ll take a clean glass of drinking water in both hands.
The original ritual had a whole thing about programming water and rewriting the body at a cellular level.
I’m not doing that.
I’m going to speak to myself. Maybe this: “I no longer need suffering to prove that I am worthy. I don’t need fear to keep me safe. I am allowed to receive. I am allowed to have enough. My body is allowed to rest. I can love people without carrying their lives. I can make a decision without knowing the future.”
Then I’ll drink the water. Slowly. Maybe I’ll picture the life I want – not every detail, just the feeling.
Rested. Healthy body. Enough money. A peaceful home. Two German Shepherd playing in the yard. Work that feels alive. People I love being allowed to have their own path, and me being allowed to have mine.
That’s enough, no celestial hostage negotiation.
And I have to tell you the funny part because the last eclipse already gave me a lesson in all this.
The night before the solar eclipse of August 12, I stayed up until 1:30 watching a movie and scrolling social media. This is ridiculously late for me.
Sometime in the night I woke up thinking about my former husband, but there were no thoughts of loss in my head.
I just started praying for him. I wished him happiness, success, and a beautiful life.
Then other people came into my mind. People who had hurt me. And lying there half asleep, I started saying quietly: “I forgive you.” Over and over.
No drums, rattles, or candles. No dramatic shamanic moment. Just a tired woman in bed letting people go.
The next afternoon I entered a somatic meditation I had been looking forward to.
Solar eclipse. Deep body work. Transformation. Very serious spiritual business, you know.
Twenty minutes in, I fell asleep. Completely.
When I woke up, my first thought was whether my subconscious had continued doing the meditation without me, which honestly tells you everything about me – even unconscious Alana apparently needs to be productive.
Then I laughed at myself heartily because I had just written that entire letter about reverence for incarnation.
My Soul may have shown up ready for initiation, but my incarnation was exhausted, she needed a nap.
The body won.
So tonight, maybe I will understand evil. Probably not.
Maybe I will release fifty years of programming in one bowl of water. Also probably not.
Maybe I will just sit under a strange darkened Moon, burn a piece of paper, tell the truth about what I am tired of carrying, drink some water, and go to bed a little lighter.
That would be enough.
And what about you?
Is there something you are tired of carrying?
Not something you should forgive. Not something sufficiently spiritual or important to qualify for an eclipse. Just something that has been taking up space in you for far too long.
Maybe a person you’re still arguing with in your head. An old version of yourself you’re still punishing. A fear that once protected you but has become exhausting. A responsibility that was never really yours. A belief about money, love, your body, your age, your future. Something that happened and cannot be unhappened.
You don’t have to heal it tonight, you don’t even have to understand it. Maybe just write it down. Tell the truth about it.
And if you’re ready, let the fire have the paper and the water have the ashes.
Then stand under that strange Moon for a moment with nothing to fix.
Perhaps we’ll all wake up tomorrow exactly the same people we were tonight.
But maybe carrying one thing less.
I’d take that.