ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the case study of Jackie. Jackie is a friend who had experienced a painful marriage and divorce. She talked about needing to let go of the pain of the past, but also of a sense of celebration—of singleness, friendship, creativity, spirituality, connectedness with the environment. Jackie wanted to symbolize letting-go of the past, without going into details of the story. Shortly before the ritual Jackie had visited a solicitor with a friend to make a statutory declaration of her new name, and that legal document was on display in her front room. For Jackie, both were significant, but it was the ritual that she saw as the public commitment, which supported and sustained her in claiming her new identity. The legal act and the ritual combined to enable her finally to be released from a painful association with her ex-husband.
