Purity in all its forms.

In class one day, my professor was talking about how to decompress after particularly difficult sessions with clients. She made the suggestion that every counselor ought to have a way to clear his or her space following such a session – her suggestion was using a scented candle to clear the space, and to take a few moments to center and ground.

I thought this was a brilliant suggestion, and considered using the Kemetic Orthodox natron/water blessing to help purify the room following a very heavy session. It occurs to me, however, that any of her suggestions could be a form of purification in and of themselves as well, depending on your definition of purity.

Ritual purity, in a Kemetic Orthodox context, is fairly specific. We have our water and natron blessing followed by bathing and for State rituals, a room purification performed by W’abu. But purification, in the sense of spiritual cleansing, can be done effectively in different ways. Lighting a particular candle could very well be one of them. Grounding and centering meditations could be another. Playing a song that adjusts our frame of mind could be yet another.

If we define “purity” as “a state of spiritual and physical cleanliness”, any of these things can contribute. I know that unless I am grounded and centered, I don’t feel pure. After needing some purification recently to shake off some dream ick, but not having the ability to bathe ritually, I decided I’d try a quick candle lighting and grounding exercise. It helped clear the dream ick almost completely. In other words – there’s more than one way to wash up, and sometimes using a combination of approaches can be more effective than just one.

Lesson learned: I commit myself to re-learning effective grounding and centering techniques, and to purifying every day, regardless of whether I am in shrine.