🌕 Witch, Interrupted
How I lost trust in my practice — and what it means to rebuild it.
After a long silence, I returned to my altar with a dust cloth and a quiet heart.
This is a reflection on belief, breakdown,
and the slow, steady act of rebuilding something sacred —
not as it was, but as it needs to be now.
There was a time I didn’t touch my altar. Not because I didn’t believe, but because belief had burned too hot, too fast, and left me scorched. The lines between devotion and delusion blurred. My spirituality, like everything else, had to go quiet while I found my footing again.
But now — something is stirring.
My practice is gently calling to me.
And I am returning, slowly, with caution and care.
Before Everything Cracked Open
Before things unraveled, I had a rhythm. My spiritual practice was threaded through my daily life — not loud, but steady. My altar spans three shelves of a tall bookcase in my office, layered with meaning: clusters of rocks and objects from nature, white tea lights (burned-out ones gathering in a haphazardly stacked pile), a collection of various incense, a few well-loved plants, and a growing stack of books.
I pulled daily tarot cards. I kept a Book of Shadows. I checked my horoscope every morning, flipped open my Co–Star app, and followed the moon phases like a tide chart. I lit a candle. I lit incense. I breathed into the day. I did yoga. I meditated.
The MorrÃgan, my Celtic goddess of choice, was a big part of my practice — in a statue of the triple goddess, in the crows I saw and served as a mascot for The Sideshow, in the ink that now marks my thigh with Her symbolism. I finished the tattoo during the start of my manic episode in May 2023 — the devotion was real, even if my mind was unraveling.
That office used to be my sanctuary. I worked in there every day. I kept it neat. It held the weight of my rituals. And though it’s been mostly abandoned since, I’ve started creeping back in. Dusting. Rearranging. Making space again.
When Belief Blurred — The Spiritual Side of Psychosis
It didn’t happen all at once — when the line between spiritual insight and delusion vanished.
At first, everything felt charged with meaning. Tarot cards, horoscopes, omens in nature, titles of books, even lyrics from songs — all seemed to speak directly to me. My world became threaded with signs. Each moment felt touched by something divine, like the veil between realms had thinned. It was as if the whole world had cracked open just for me — every sign, every shimmer of synchronicity felt like it carried a message with my name on it.
But eventually, the clarity gave way to chaos. The messages became too loud. Too constant. Too heavy to hold. My practice, once a source of comfort and connection, began to overwhelm me. What had once been sacred started to feel unsafe. What had once been grounding began to unravel me.
I couldn’t tell the difference between intuition and urgency, between guidance and fear. The universe wasn’t whispering anymore — it was shouting, constantly. I wasn’t just interpreting signs. I was living inside them.
Looking back, I know now I was in a state of psychosis. And while that’s a hard truth to hold, it doesn’t mean all of it was meaningless. It means I needed help. It means I’d crossed a threshold my mind and spirit weren’t ready for. My practice had become too porous, too intense, too consuming.
That’s when I knew I needed to step back. To go quiet. To recover not just my mental health, but my relationship with the sacred. It’s hard to untangle what was real from what wasn’t — but maybe I don’t need to. Maybe it’s enough to know I survived it. And I’m coming back now, slower and wiser.
The Return — Cleaning the Altar
After so much silence, I didn’t know how to come back.
But one day, I started dusting.
I took everything off my altar and wiped down all the shelves. I dumped the incense holder of all the old ash. I threw away all the empty tea light candles. I reorganized and displayed all of my stones. I cleaned my statues. I rearranged my books. I watered my poor cactus.
Each object held a layer of dust... and memory. Some made me smile. Some made my stomach turn. But I kept going.
I didn't try to make it perfect. I just wanted to make space. To clear away the residue of a version of me I had outgrown, while still honoring the parts of her that tried.
There was something important in the simplicity of it. Not a ritual, not a spell, just the act of care. Of presence. I wasn't lighting candles yet. I wasn't calling on spirits. I was just cleaning. But it felt like prayer.
Slowly, the altar started to feel like mine again.
The New Rhythm
I’m rebuilding from the ground up — with boundaries, awareness, and care.
I don’t do as much as I used to. But I do what feels right. A candle lit here. A card pulled there.
The fire’s still there, but now I know how to tend it.
My altar isn’t just a place of belief anymore — it’s a place of balance.
Of remembering what I’ve come through.
Of starting again.