Dear Witches & Friends:
There is a kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from a single moment.
It builds slowly.
From hospital chairs that become your second home. From long nights that blur into early mornings. From conversations that carry weight you didn’t choose, but somehow end up holding anyway.
When my dad became ill, I didn’t experience grief as something distant or abstract. I lived inside it. I spent days at the hospital with my mom, moving between spaces, trying to stay grounded while everything was shifting at once.
Even there, I found myself slipping into quiet ritual without thinking.
A hand on my chest before walking into a hospital room. A breath before speaking. A silent intention whispered under my breath:
“May I bring calm where there is fear. May I be steady where everything shakes.”
I didn’t call it witchcraft at the time.
It was just survival.
I was there for decisions. For conversations. For the practical details no one really prepares you for until you are already in them.
And in between all of that, I would go home for a few hours just to shower, try to sleep, and come back again.
Most of the time, I was the one holding the rhythm of it all together.
Not because I was chosen.
But because I was there.
Caregiving has a strange way of making invisibility feel normal.
On the outside, it can look like someone is “handling it.” But inside, it often feels like you are carrying multiple lives at once—your own, your parent’s, and the entire structure of what needs to keep functioning while everything is breaking.
I began to understand something about witchcraft that I had never fully lived before.
Real magic is not loud.
It is not control.
It is presence.
It is the ability to stay in a moment that hurts without turning away from it.
In hospital rooms, I would sometimes ground myself in small, silent practices:
“I am here. I am steady. I do not carry what is not mine.”
Not to escape what was happening.
But to stay inside it without disappearing.
What surprised me most was not just how intense the hospital period was, but how much continued after.
Because grief doesn’t end when someone passes.
It shifts into responsibility.
There were accounts to close, ownerships to transfer, systems to reorganize, and decisions that suddenly belonged to me in ways I never expected. Life doesn’t pause for grief. It demands you keep moving through it, even when you are still learning how to breathe again.
And long after the funeral, the work continued in quieter forms.
Helping maintain a home. Managing details. Supporting my mom as she adjusted to a life that no longer looked familiar. Learning things I never expected to learn—practical, everyday responsibilities that had once belonged to someone else.
It was not one overwhelming moment.
It was a long unfolding of care.
And often, I was doing it while emotionally alone in it.
In those moments, my practice changed again.
Not into spells that change outcomes.
But into protection spells for the self.
Silent boundaries spoken inwardly:
“I can care without disappearing.”
“My energy is not infinite.”
“I return what is not mine to hold.”
What I learned through all of this is that grief does not distribute itself evenly in families.
It reveals patterns that were already there long before loss ever arrived.
Who naturally steps forward.
Who struggles to stay present in intense situations.
Who carries emotional labour without naming it.
Who ends up holding what is left behind.
I don’t say this with anger anymore.
Anger came first. Exhaustion came second. But underneath those layers was something harder to name.
Clarity.
Clarity that love and responsibility are not always shared equally. Clarity that people cope in very different ways. Clarity that sometimes, the person who looks “strong” is simply the one who has no choice but to keep going.
As a witch, I used to think magic meant changing outcomes.
But caregiving taught me otherwise.
Now I understand magic as containment.
As witness.
As endurance.
As the quiet act of saying:
“I will not abandon myself while I love others.”
Because there is a danger in being the one who always stays.
People begin to expect it.
Even life begins to expect it.
And without noticing, you can disappear inside the role of being “the capable one.”
But I am learning that presence is not the same as self-erasure.
I can care deeply without carrying everything alone.
I can love my family without becoming the structure that holds everything together at the cost of myself.
And I can honour my father, and everything I held through that time, without turning my own life into something invisible.
That, I think, is its own kind of magic.
Not the kind that changes what happened.
But the kind that changes what I allow it to take from me.
And when it becomes too heavy, I return to something simple.
A grounding whisper:
“I belong to myself, even here. Even now.”
Because even in grief, I still belong to myself.
A Peace Spell of Doves
If you are reading this with a heavy heart, I offer you this small moment of quiet.
Not to fix anything.
Not to take anything away.
But simply to soften what you are carrying.
Close your eyes for a moment, if you can.
Imagine a quiet sky at dusk. Not empty—just still. Gentle. Wide enough to hold everything you are feeling without asking you to explain it.
In that sky, imagine two white doves circling slowly.
They are not in a hurry.
They are not leaving.
They are simply present.
Breathe in slowly.
And on the inhale, imagine yourself gathering everything you’ve been holding—grief, exhaustion, love, responsibility, memory.
Not pushing it away.
Just holding it gently in your hands.
Now exhale.
And imagine the doves lifting that weight just enough to remind you:
you do not have to carry it all alone.
Whisper, if it feels right:
“May what is heavy be held with gentleness.
May what is broken be met with peace.
May I release what is not mine to carry,
and keep only what belongs to love.”
Let the doves circle once more.
And then let them go.
Not as an ending.
But as a reminder that peace can exist alongside everything you are still feeling.
When you are ready, open your eyes.
Return slowly.
Carry only what feels like love.
Leave the rest in the sky.
With Kindness,
Journeywithspirit
