Grief

Grief is the price of having loved, and it doesn't keep a schedule.

It arrives in the supermarket, in a song, in the moment you reach for the phone to tell someone who is gone.

Nothing in a grimoire fixes grief, and anything that claims to is selling something. What practice can do is give it somewhere to go — a candle, a page, a moon phase to attach the ache to — so it moves through you instead of setting up residence.

Love continuing in a changed form, honoured rather than hurried.

Spiritual language used to skip the feeling — 'they're in a better place' said too quickly, to yourself most of all.

• Light one candle and say the name out loud.

• Write the unsent letter. All of it.

• Let the Waning Moon hold what you can't carry yet.

• What have I not let myself feel about this?

• What do I want to remember rather than release?

• What would I say if I had one more ordinary hour?

Apache Tears and Rose Quartz; Cypress and Rosemary; the Last Quarter Release Ritual; Five of Cups.