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04 Apr, 2026

He put a lit cigarette out on my ancestor altar…..my fucking ancestor altar.

Everything that followed that moment changed my life forever.

He was manic. Bipolar, drunk, + high. He had chased me around my house at 3am, shouting, breaking things, yelling into our kids’ rooms to cause a scene. He broke into my bedroom. He beat me up. And at some point during all of that, he put a lit cigarette out on my ancestors’ altar.

Big mistake.

The next day I tried to kick him out. He wasn’t on the lease because this was the home I had moved myself + our kids into after leaving him + filing an order of protection. He wouldn’t leave. So I started throwing his shit out.

He started recording me. In true narcissist form.

I threw something at him. At his phone. He called the police.

They took me to jail. On Mother’s Day. ME. The one who had been beaten the night before.

I came home a day or two later to find him packing. I stayed + recorded him to make sure he wouldn’t steal my things—he had done that before. A loved one advised me to leave. I was out on bail. He could say anything + I’d go right back. So I left for my own protection.

When I came back, he had taken everything. My store’s inventory. My clothing + shoes. My fucking crockpot. My laptops. My graduation caps, stoles, + cords. Dildos. I guess he needed them more than I did. 🤷🏽‍♀️

He abandoned his children—no call, no text, no money—for the next ten months. And he left me with a family violence charge on my record that would keep me from being hired in my field for years.

I had four kids, no income, and a record.

But, I had my practice.

The spiritual bath came first.

I don’t remember everything that went into that water. It was a traumatic time and some of my memories have blurred. I know there were herbs. Florida water. Oils. Crystals. Salts. Things chosen by correspondence, by what I was trying to do, which was rid myself of energy that didn’t belong in my body anymore.

I used my Llewellyn’s book of correspondences. I chose the right day. I read psalms over myself. I dumped the water over my head over + over.

It felt powerful. It felt like clearing out things that had been living in me long before that night. My body seemed to feel 10x lighter. Cleaner. Looser.

I cleansed the house too. Sage + palo santo until the smoke was thick. Crystals in every corner. Salt + cayenne pepper at every entry. Music. Chanting. Petitions to my ancestors for protection. I was walking through rooms where things had happened + I was rewiring the energy. I was reclaiming my space.

Then I cord cut from him.

And then I got very, very sick.

Both ends. For daaaaaaaaaaays.

I missed my doula training that week. I couldn’t get out of bed. I was in disbelief at first about how fast it had come on + how intense it was. My body was doing something for real. Something was moving through me + out of me that needed to go.

I was concerned. For real. But I also couldn’t argue with what was happening. This was no coincidence. My system was purging what had been ailing me. Even in the middle of it, even sick + exhausted + hollowed out from the inside—I felt grateful. The working had.. worked. This was the evidence.

I did become a doula eventually, a few years later. The universe keeps its word even when the timing is TERRIBLE.

On the other side was the feeling of being let off a leash.

I didn’t want him. I didn’t hate him. I didn’t even think about him. That alone was a miracle. This man had consumed so much of my mental + emotional real estate for so long that his absence from my thoughts felt like a whole new world I didn’t know was there.

I felt like I was becoming my own person again.

Money came from somewhere I still can’t fully explain to people. It kept us afloat. Not comfortable—their father was gone and not contributing anything—but afloat. The ancestors heard me. My spirit team held us.

The legal system had taken me to jail for defending myself. The craft gave me back something the courts never could.

Not justice, completely. Something more ancient.

Just me, my tools, my ancestors, + the knowledge that some things can be cleared whether people believe you or not.

If you do this work, pay attention to what your body does afterward. The purge isn’t always this literal. But the body will tell you when something has shifted. Don’t be afraid of that. Be grateful for it.

What have you been carrying that your body has been trying to let go of?

—June 🦋

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