An Ode to Reclaiming Ritual 🜂

Tonight I was reminded that spells work.
Rituals are not just pretty reels for Instagram.
They’re embodied alchemical upheaval, the densest sludge from your deepest, shame-filled corners.

You write on both candles.
Left: what you’re anchoring in — welcoming, receiving, nurturing.
Right: what’s being released, let go, surrendered. What the curse is being lifted from.

You use two markers. The first sharpie dies. You have a paranoid moment, wondering if the word you wrote as the ink ran out was a message.
You fill it in with the new one, just in case.

It feels so good in front of the fire. Roaring. Warm. Holding you.
The cats are flanked either side — probably because it’s warm, but you say it’s because they’re magic and helping too.
Both are probably true.

There is love there with you three. A motley crew. A wayward little family.
Nervous systems in sync like mycelium.
Love.
It feels safe here. The safest you’ve ever felt.

It’s time to let it go.

You had a vivid dream last night on the full moon.
Another one before that, during a Scorpio moon — waking to a baby scorpion on your bedside table. You squish it half-asleep, then spend the day freaking out about murdering a sign from the universe.

As though it’s in on the joke, a bigger, already dead scorpion shows up next to the candlestick.
Good one, guys.

The dreams were clear instructions — through elemental storytelling and ChatGPT brain dumps first thing in the morning.
Rambling incoherence until the threads connect and you know what you have to do.

They send you a witch on TikTok.
She reminds you of the spell you already know.
The cord-cutting one. With the candles.

You go to IGA for some cheap, toxic tapered candles and tell yourself you’ll crack a window.
(It’s less than five degrees. Be so for real.)

You intend to set up an elaborate scene. To romanticise the situation.
Maybe it’ll help enhance the power, you think — laughing at yourself.
You know full well some of the most powerful release magic can happen on the toilet.

You’re starving. Dirty from stapling bird netting to a chicken coop in the mud all afternoon.
You’re running the bath.
Dinner’s on.
The big light is blaring overhead.
The fire’s not even in a good place yet.

And bam — it’s time.

Marker in hand.
Names. Beliefs. Statements.
Etched into wax in a manic, channeled flow.

This bitch knows what she’s doing. Slay, you think.

You succeed in packing the most diabolical punch to integrate — but also the biggest rewards, if you can stomach it.

The wicks burn brightly on both.
The string between them breaks slowly.
You watch as the candle on the right morphs into four flames.

One for each person, you think.

You realise you’re fully in a ritual moment. The magic is palpable.

Your stomach hurts — not from the Whittaker’s. From the movement of energy and emotion.

It’s working.

You’re shocked to have it confirmed, again, that you are, in fact, a witch.

You keep shovelling mouthfuls of the weird dinner you threw together from whatever was left in the fridge.
You blow out the left candle when the string drops.

But the right one rages on.
She’s having trouble letting go.

You later blow it out around 3am on the way to pee.
That wasn’t the plan.
Neither is a house fire.

It’s down to two flames.
You and one other.

You ask who it is.
Their face appears, immediately.

You feel into where you’re connected in unhealthy ways — ways that limit you both.

You breathe into your diaphragm and flood it with light.
It releases, as the candle burns into one.

Affirmations pour out of your mouth. Powerfully. Naturally.

You finish running the bath and get in.
It’s way too hot, so you fling your legs over the bath shelf and sink in.

For some reason (you’re addicted) your phone is in your hand.
You get a message.

BAM.
A perfectly designed trigger.
A diabolically accurate purge mirror.

You’ve come to expect it.
You clear something.
You integrate.
You feel whole again.

Then the universe offers you a last look at the thing you just released. A goodbye kiss from the part of you that fractured.

You must feel it.

Fucking gross.
Yucky.
You forgot about this part.

You forgot that magic works.
Because intention and ritual are powerful when felt.

You know you have to sit in the density of it.
Let it move through and out.
To clear and make space for more of you to come home.

Then — the power goes out.

A perfectly distressing distraction from the internal conversation that has your heart in near arrest.
Digesting shame, panic, jealousy, all sorts.

The generator needs repair at 8:30pm.
And you must be the one to do it.

Torch battery is cooked. Doesn’t matter. You march on.
Flicking it on and off with precision to see the buttons.

Nothing.

You start to access some frustration.
And — surprisingly — enjoy it.

The anger has started to replace the guilt.
The sadness.
The chaos.

You have a job to do.
And you can’t.

So, you go back inside to honour the grief.

And with your last 14% of phone battery, you write this.
An ode to feeling every bit of the purge you asked for —
when you decide to do magic
under a Sagittarius full moon.