A Candle For Remembrance: A Juneteenth Working

I have been building to this for a long time…. my whole life I am sure. And so I am starting to write poems, workings, and other spiritual acts that I am using to incorporate culture and my history into my ACTIVE spiritual practice.

Here is the first I am posting, motivated by my 30-day challenge of real Black history and the upcoming Shades of Ritual book that is in the works. (This will be published in that book).

This can be done as a poem and simple lighting of a candle… or can become a part of a larger ritual or working. It can be used as an idea of something you can create in your own words. This is my work that I am sharing, and if it can guide an idea or a use for someone else, then I am blessed to have the ability to share it.

May your Juneteenth be filled with remembrance, gratitude, hope and honor.

–Crystal Blanton

A Candle for Remembrance; A Juneteenth Working

Standing in the present, on the ground of history and with one foot in the future, I hold the significance of today in my heart and my mind.

To step into a future with willful intent, I must acknowledge the size of the step before me, and shine a light so that I can see it.

My past is as important as my future, for my ancestors are as relevant to my story as my children.

And so I light this candle in remembrance of the souls that died in physical, spiritual, social and mental pain….

I light this candle in remembrance of the children who watched the horror of slavery become their future.

I light this candle for the women who were taken again and again.

I light this candle for the men that were broken time after time.

I light this candle for the generations that have carried this pain in their psyche, a part of their unconscious schema.

I light the candle for those who fought and died before tasting freedom.

I light this candle for those who STILL fight.

I light this candle for all that experience the horror of history manifest throughout time, and through generations.

I light this candle for my White brothers and sisters today that carry the guilt of a pain they did not cause.

I light this candle for my Black brothers and sisters that know not who they are and are fighting through a whitewashed world to find the root of their souls.

I light this candle for JUSTICE.

I light this candle for the revolutionary then and now.

I light this candle for them.

I light this candle for you.

I light this candle for our children.

I light this candle for me.

I light this candle for healing.