A jar is a container, and a container holds things.
A return sends things away. So the first problem with a return to sender jar is that the object is built for the opposite job.
My name is Ren Kagetsuki. Most of the jars described to me were not returns. They were bindings, made by people who thought they were sending something back.
The difference is not a matter of opinion, and it is fixable.
A conduit, not a container
Two rules decide which one you have made, and both are about where the jar ends up.
A binding is kept. Buried in your own garden, frozen, hidden at the back of a cupboard. It works by holding, so it has to stay.
A return leaves. It is made, used for three nights, and then removed from the building entirely.
A jar that stays in your freezer is a rope between you and that person, tied by you, and it does not rot.
People keep them for years. They move house with them. I have been told about jars carried through two divorces and a country.
Whatever was in that jar has had a line to its owner the entire time.
That is the whole of the difference, and everything below follows from it.
What goes in, and in what order
A small glass jar with a lid, clean and dry. A jam jar is correct.
1. Line the inside wall with foil, shiny side facing outward. One strip, standing up around the inside. This is the mirror, and kitchen foil is as good as anything sold for the purpose.
2. Coarse salt to a third full. Plain, nothing added.
3. One slip of paper. On it, the same line you would say aloud, in your own handwriting.
This is not mine. It goes back the way it came.
4. Fold it away from you, three times, and put it in.
5. Salt over the top until the paper is covered. Lid on, not tight.
That is the whole jar. It is dry, it is plain, and there is nothing in it belonging to anybody but you.
It will look disappointing next to the ones photographed online, which are layered and coloured and sealed with wax.
Those are made to be looked at. This one is made to be thrown away on the third night, and it is built accordingly.
What must never go in
- Their name. A name in a jar is a person in a jar. That is a binding and it is the single commonest mistake.
- A photograph, hair, or anything of theirs. Same reason, more strongly.
- Sharp things. Nails, pins, glass. Those are in the recipes for a reason, and the reason is harm rather than return.
- Anything wet. Vinegar, urine, oil. All of them are for keeping a thing active and here you want it to leave.
None of those are forbidden in any general sense. They belong to workings that hold, punish or preserve, and this one does none of the three.
The three nights
Washed body, after sunset, same hour each night.
Hold the jar in both hands with one hand flat against wherever it sits heaviest on you. Say the line aloud three times, one breath each, low and flat.
Then put it down somewhere out of sight and do not handle it again until the next night.
Do not look at it during the day. Looking at it is checking, and checking is the beginning of keeping.
Where it goes, and how you know it is finished
On the third night, immediately after the words, it leaves the building.
Wrap it in paper first. Then the outside bin, a bin on the street, or running water if you live near any. Not your garden and not your car.
It is finished when it is out of the house. There is no sign to wait for and no confirmation to look for.
People find that unsatisfying. They want the jar to cloud, or crack, or feel different.
Wanting the object to perform for you is the same impulse as keeping it, and it is worth noticing rather than following.
The measurement comes afterwards. Write the date down, then one line a day about what happened, and mark the day the quiet starts and the day it ends: running a return and reading the result.
If you already made one with their name in it
This is why I wrote the page, and people arrive about it embarrassed.
There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Almost every set of instructions in circulation tells you to write the name down.
Take it out of the house. Do not open it, do not empty it, and do not burn it in anger. Wrapped in paper, out, and gone.
Then wash, three nights, and salt at the door for a fortnight.
Do not make a second jar to undo the first one. That is two ropes instead of one.
If something started in your own life after you made it, tell me what went in and roughly when. That is a short case and it comes off cleanly, because you know exactly what was built and by whom: the return done without a container at all.
