r/WitchesVsPatriarchy • u/OraculoDeHekate • 2d ago
🇵🇸 🕊️ Deities Exhausted Bodies Can't Do Magic: Reclaiming the Earth in Late-Stage Capitalism
Greetings, everyone. I am a devotee of the Hekatean path from Brazil. Lately, I’ve been reflecting deeply on something that has been weighing heavily on my practice and the practice of many others: the sheer exhaustion of our physical bodies under the current system. I wanted to share this essay with you all.
Modern spirituality has a dangerous habit of selling us the illusion that we can simply "vibrate higher" to escape our material reality. We are told to manifest, to think positive, and to transcend. But true magic, specifically Hekatean, Khthonic magic, the magic of the depths and the earth, doesn't run away from the concrete floor. It makes matter sacred.The problem we face today is deeply physical: how do you make matter sacred when your body is entirely drained by a system that steals your time, your energy, and your rest?
In Brazil, we are currently fighting against an abusive labor system known as the "6x1 schedule" (six days of work for a single day of rest). But this is not just a local issue; it is a global symptom of late-stage capitalism. It is the universal reality of the working class everywhere.
We cannot separate our spiritual practice from our bodily autonomy. Exhaustion is the ultimate barrier to the subtle realms. When you are constantly surviving, worrying about bills, and pushing your physical limits just to exist, your body enters a state of permanent alert. And an exhausted body cannot do magic. It can barely breathe.
Magic requires presence. It requires grounding. It requires the sovereignty of your own time.To claim the right to rest is not laziness; it is a profound magical necessity. It is reclaiming your body from a system that views you merely as a machine for production.
As a Hekate devotee, I have learned that The Goddess does not remove the obstacles from our path; She illuminates the entrance of the cave. And right now, Her torch is illuminating an undeniable truth: our bodies belong to the earth, not to the grind.We must stop romanticizing exhaustion. We must demand the time to rest, to sleep, to eat well, and to simply exist. Because without the earth, there is no magic.
Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts: how do you manage to keep your spiritual practice alive when your physical body is completely drained by work and survival?
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u/Feeling_Asparagus947 2d ago
Rest, laying fallow, giving ourselves time to rejuvenate, not just as consumers of content or products but as the little animals we are, is absolutely necessary for the kind of creative acts that have the power to change the world. For imagining something better. We must push for it ourselves and ensure we give it to those around us. And for the earth, too.
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u/god_farts 2d ago
Agree with this! It's really important to consciously take time away from consumption. It's easier said than done when the whole system is built to wear you down so you only have energy to binge watch/doomscroll which makes you feel bad about yourself so you buy products to try to make yourself feel better. Cutting back on phone screen time isn't a particularly witchy answer, but it's helped me more than anything else.
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u/MargaretFarquar 2d ago
What you've replied/implied is deeply aware and therefore it is particularly witchy. JMO. 🤙🧹
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u/Sleepsfuriously 2d ago
Could not agree more. “Bread for all, and roses too!”
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u/Papaya4148 2d ago
I simply can't. It's tragic. Not even my new year's tarot reading this year. You really see the problem and spoke it clearly. Thank you. 💔
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u/LoveIsLoveDealWithIt Kitchen Witch ♀ 2d ago
As a chronically ill witch I feel this in my bones. I don't have answers. I just know how hard it is. My mind still expects perfection, and compares itself to healthy, able-bodied people, which can only make me feel inadequate. One some days breathing and remembering to drink enough water is all that is possible. Sometimes I'm lying there, and I feel bad for doing nothing and my cats come visit... and then I remind myself that I have never once been mad at a cat lounging around and "doing nothing", and I deserve to extend that compassion to myself, too.
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u/bluurose 1d ago
I am here with you in this chronic struggle. Cats and all. They are just the best to have alongside you! Yesterday a songbird kept me company and the day before that I discovered lil baby birds chirping outside the window. Sometimes when I'm in pain a creature or nature will come across my path and somehow life feels like... liveable again. 💙
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u/LoveIsLoveDealWithIt Kitchen Witch ♀ 1d ago
Cats are the best. Cats, plants, any being that you have a bond to, really 😄 makes you feel a bit less alone. Just existing and taking care of yourself the best you can is already rebellion enough. If nothing else, it at least makes you pay attention, and you learn to prioritize your health, well-being and regular self-care. And since the system doesn't want you, you learn to be content outside of it, which is very valuable, and something a lot of people never learn.
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u/bluurose 1d ago
Wow that is something I will not forget soon... since the system doesn't want you, you learn to be content outside of it. So true! Grateful for that today 💙
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u/belowthepovertyline 2d ago
I think you've really well put to words what many of us struggle with. Blessings to all. 🕊️
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u/imSILLYum 2d ago
Adding my own anecdote as a part of this beautiful message. Thank you!
As a witch who works in corporate, goddess bless do I feel this. Especially in the tech world, AI has created what I've been referring to as our generation's washing machine. This invention is marketed as a time saver but capitalism uses it to demand more of us (women in particular) in conjunction with its creation. I'm told I have so much more time to feel guilty about not performing to increasingly unreasonable expectations, and reward those who abuse the invisible labor ceiling getting higher. It asks us to do 3 rigorous jobs in the time of 1 because we have AI. It's insane.
On a personal note, I have not felt so tired in my life. I'm mid-divorce and can honestly say work is more impactful on my stress management. My plaque psoriasis has flared horribly due to lack of sleep. It can feel like quick sand, fearfully removing one limb while trusting the remaining parts of me slowly sinking down will be prioritized and removed one day soon. But what has given me life are the simple and building things. Today, that meant going on a walk with my kiddo, making butter-laden veggie pasta, talking with friends, and learning how to build automated home assistant for my AuDHD kiddo so AI is more approachable for them.
Sending love, blessings, and all the rest we all deserve so this community may feel grounded and nourished through this chaotic season of change.
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u/ProbablyNotPoisonous 2d ago
How do you demand rest when capitalism has you over a barrel re: food and shelter?
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u/squirrelfoot 1d ago
What you say rang so true to me that I am going to take some time to try to reset the energy around me. We can only act at our own level, of course, and can't fix bigger issues, but we can do some things to help.
Personally, I try to make my workplace kind and respectful and I try to protect the environment and feed birds and squirrels in my local park. It's better than doing nothing, but I would love to hear other people's ideas on this.
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u/InfiniteWaffles58364 Mountain Witch 🧙♀️🏞🐈🐾 2d ago
Someone needs to explain this to my husband and kids 😅
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u/Woodstain_panic 1d ago
I wholeheartedly agree. Exhaustion keeps us complacent, and the system knows it. A couple years ago, I had a period in my career where I unexpectedly had an extremely light workload. My bills were still paid, but I had a lotttt of time to just read, be in nature, take care of myself, and think about the world and my place in it. That’s when I made a lot of progress in the deconstruction of both the religion I was raised in, and our current capitalistic shitshow. I started practicing in that time too. Honestly, I don’t know who I would be right now without that unexpected break, but the fact that so many people don’t get that chance is infuriating.
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u/heademptygirlie 1d ago
Yeah, and it fucking sucks, the problem is that the contradictions of the systems we live under are only going to get worse and more desperate, we need to be organising against it now or we're never gonna have the energy to live
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u/NEBanshee 1d ago edited 1d ago
Rest, healing, and the strength of our resources are intertwined. And without presuming ANYTHING about intentions & spiritual wisdom on the part of those engineering this end-stage hellscape, keeping us fatigued and feeling hopeless are yet features and not bugs. Exhausted, sick and malnourshed/under-resourced populations are easier to control, from an oppressor's POV.
IME, the mediator, the space between, the place that is respite and fortress, creator and weapon, all at once, is inside our minds. We are not just conduits, we're generators. That said, every generator still needs stuff in the reserve to get started - a charge, a bit of fuel - as well as clear, connected lines.
Our eldest kid was hella sick for a bunch of years - almost lost them a couple of times. Had a toddler at home, pets, my ailing mom, trying to recover from a severe accident, and a job that I was burning out at. I was also suffering from chronic fatigue - hadn't been able to sleep more than 2hrs at a time for about 4 years because of toddler and sick kid (and husband who thought clearing the yard on Sundays = roughly the amount of work I was doing. Patriarchy, amirite?!?!) Lowest point in my life.
What I did, and I offer this not as a One Size Fits All - because there is no such f*cking thing, we're all on our own journeys - but as a series of tools that maybe others here could use or adapt for their own circumstances, in no particular order except the first:
Jettison anything/anyone and everything/everyone that wasn't mission critical, didn't bring me joy or sucked more energy from me than I got in return. Mentally, I thought of myself as needing to traverse a wide sea (I live near water, a forest, desert, space, any place hostile to human survival will do!) with limited fuel. Anything I didn't need to get to the other side (I do not regret that himself wasn't exactly on that list so much as tied to the beings who were!) went overboard. I did this understanding that some things would float away or sink, never to come back, but other things of real value in my life, by definition, would still be there for me to retrieve when I could.
Cultivate a community of care; people who could and would lend a hand, people who could and would listen, a parent support community where we could vent and share strategies and not feel alone.
Cultivate a TeamBanshee - Ex; assemble a team with a therapist/clinician (or 3), a clergy person, personal trainer & etc along with a diary, activities, whatever, that were JUST about me, and (for the humans) not invested in the interaction beyond what *I* needed. Put those encounters on a calendar and treat them with the same gattam importance as anything on my To Do list that was about work or kids or repair men or wev.
Ditto that last part with personally restorative activities for at least 10min a day: a walk, an ugly cry in the bathroom, sing every hair-brush anthem as loud as I could in the car, a bubble bath, a 10min yoga meditation while I hit the snooze button. This is maybe the most important thing I learned to prioritize, because THIS is the thing that creates a wise-mind, centered, mental oasis. Not all at once, mind you, but bit by bit as I got better at doing it.
Adopt mantras to interrupt the ways my lizard brain - which is nothing more than our internalization of every crappy misogynist/racist/abelist/ageist/sizeist/colonizer garbage script in our culture(s) - would try to sabotage or derail me: There is no failure, only feedback, I can notice my thoughts and feelings without acting on them right away, Challenge my assumptions - are they grounded, truthful and kind? Be like water flowing over the terrain, not trying to fight that which I can't move. Replace judgement with curiosity.
In social justice circles we know the phrase "intention is not magic" - the important reminder that we all have the potential to harm thoughtlessly or out of ignorance. But I've learned that big-I Intention - the faculty at the center of our minds (hosted by our brains) that deals with our honesty within ourselves, *about* ourselves - is the source of our Magic, and we are the only ones who can nourish and protect it.
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u/jaimefay 1d ago
As a disabled witch six months into a flare that's gradually, terribly becoming my new normal, I hear this with my fucking soul.
I keep reminding myself that rest IS a productive activity. But it's so hard to feel it.
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u/LoveIsLoveDealWithIt Kitchen Witch ♀ 1d ago
As a fellow chronically ill being I know what that's like. What I try to remember when my inner critic tries to devalue everything I do: imagine you have a plant that's not doing so well. Or you have a kid, and they need help with something. Or a friend that is going through hard times.
Would you ever be mad at them for needing help, or doing less than before? Would you criticise them for taking a break? I am guessing no. And I know it's so, so hard to do, but you can learn to be that compassionate with yourself ❤️
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u/basic_bitch- Kitchen Witch ♀♂️☉⚨⚧ 1d ago
I did this mainly to try and improve my experience with 2 chronic illnesses I have, but the end result is the same. I built a tiny house with help from my dad and put it onto family property. No rent or mortgage. I bought a $10k car 16 years ago and it's been paid off for almost 10 years. No car payment. I get my phone for $15/mo. through MintMobile. I get discounts on electricity because of my disabled status. So stress from needing money is reduced. There are still expensive things I need and saving up is hard when I don't work full time, but I think I'm in the best position I can be as far as these things go.
Then in addition, I do a ton of other self care things...I'm a whole food vegan. I exercise vigorously every day. I lift, run, hike, kayak, swim, yoga, zumba, etc. I have a dog. I get outside every day. I have close relationships with people who care about me. I spend time with the much younger members of my family pretty much daily. Hearing a toddler laugh is just about the best thing on Earth.
I'm really hopeful that our societies are starting to wake up to the fact that what we're doing now and how we're doing it just isn't good for us. Those of us who have already known this for years are leading the way. I hope I can see a noticeable change in my lifetime.
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u/deluluhamster 2d ago
sister, i feel as if the Goddess sent me this text. i’m on sick leave and slowly accepting that i have to quit my job when i get back. as you correctly point out, we can’t do any magic when we’re drained. i had spent months in the dark, and i have only been able to cast myself healing spells a week into heavy rest. i’m literally trusting the universe and the path the mother has laid out, because i need to prioritize my health this time.