Quarantine Chronicle: Burning Desire

I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, like most of you during this nearly global shutdown, lockdown, quarantine, self-isolation, whatever the hell you want to call it! 

Today I had the bright idea that I would practice a spiritual cleansing, including some meditation, sage burning and releasing my intentions into the universe (that is what the spiritually enlightened, stone carrying, woke people call it, right?). 

Those of you who know me personally, are aware that I am a mainstream gal. I am a casual Catholic and I don’t prescribe to a strict diet that involves preaching to people about the benefits of whole foods and the good the vegan diet does for society (by the way, the extreme vegan diets that many people are on are actually creating an imbalance and are in fact, impacting the planet adversely and if we go back to gave men, some of them were vegetarians and some of them were very much carnivores but these thoughts are for a different blog). The point is that you won’t see me on the cover of Hemp and Barley magazine anytime soon (it is now that I point out this magazine does not exist and I made it up for illustrative purposes). 

So your girl decides she is gonna go all Zen and get to burning her sage and release her intentions into the universe to increase her enlightenment, lose weight, get her husband, win the lottery and all these other spiritual rewards I deserve for enduring this journey called life (if you are an almond milk sipping spiritualist who has perfected these types of ceremonies and has no sense of humour, it is here that I point out that I am again joking about my intentions for the more shallow minded of my readers to give a little chuckle). 

I took to my bedroom and meditated before writing down all of the things I wanted to release and all of the things I wanted to attract. I found a ritual online and followed it precisely. I laid on the bed with my skylight window open, Erykah Badu playing in the background (I didn’t think Rihanna’s Bitch Better Have My Money would appropriate during this very enlightening process). I lit some incense and had some lovely sage burning. 

Somewhere along the way I went off script. The sage wasn’t burning the papers with my intentions written on them SO I decided to take my stove lighter (you know the big long ones that stop you from lighting your thumbs on fire when you light the stovetop? I know what you are thinking right now, “this crazy bitch”) and lit the pieces of paper on fire. What I didn’t plan for was that the paper would go up in flames faster than Kylie hopped into bed with Tyga after Kim and Kanye’s wedding. 

This paper was ON FIRE. And I was trying to blow it out. with.my.mouth. I have the lungs of a 82 year old woman with COPD so the paper continued to burn. at. rapid. pace. Like Usain Bolt had nothing on the paper in my hand. So what did I do? I threw it out the window on to my roof which seemed to excite the flames even more! 

This was when I realised that I didn’t have any water in my bedroom. And now I am starting to cough because the damn smoke is blowing back into my room. I run downstairs and grab one of the 1.5 litre bottles of water that make up part of my COVID stockpile (It is here that I state it’s not a stockpile but a supply of water I keep to last me a week for those of you ready to lecture me about Sally who can’t get her milk from Tesco because of people like me!) and run upstairs to douse the papers flying outside my window on fire. 

As you’ve guessed, I was successful in outing the fire because I am writing this from the comfort of my still smokey bedroom. 

So my little dalliance with spirituality has left me with these impressions:

1. Bitch, you are out of shape, running up those stairs nearly took you out. Must start exercising 
2. I don’t think Catholic Jesus wants me to do this kind of thing anymore because I think He accelerated the burning of that paper. Maybe I will just watch mass online. 
3. If I try this again, maybe I need to be supervised by someone who actually knows what the fuck they are doing because if I burn down the house, my landlord and Mummy will be very cross (not least of all because she would have to move and she hates change). 
4. I hope that the speed at which my intentions burned mean they reach all corners of the universe faster and that my husband knocks on my door tomorrow (he will have to be quarantined for 2 weeks before he can come in but I will give him something he can feel – quoting En Vogue here). 
5. How am I gonna get the half burnt intentions off my roof?

Goodnight guys, 

One shambolic sage burning fool 

x

Post Script – I have nothing against vegans, hemp, people who burn sage, people who burn their intentions. I don’t want anyone turning up at my house with red paint because I will fight you all!