Hexing Hustle Culture: Why Witches Don't Dream of Labor

Millicent
May 27
3 min read

Rest is resistance. Slowness is spellwork. And your worth isn’t measured in productivity.

Once upon a time, witches were healers, storytellers, midwives, and weather-watchers. They lived with the land, not against it. They followed cycles, not clocks. They rested when the moon waned, worked when the energy was right, and saw dreams—not deadlines—as sacred.

Then came factories.Then came clocks.Then came capitalism.

And suddenly, rest was laziness. Stillness was dangerous. Dreaming was indulgent.But we remember.

We’re witches. And witches don’t dream of labor.

What Is Hustle Culture, Really?

Hustle culture tells us:

If you’re not exhausted, you’re not doing enough.
If you rest, you’re falling behind.
If you stop producing, you stop mattering.

It demands constant output and calls it ambition. It glorifies burnout and calls it passion. It strips the soul from the body and calls it success.

But witches know better. We know that unpaid labor once built empires—and burned those who refused it. We know that working yourself to the bone is a curse, not a virtue.

And we’ve learned to cast it off.

Why Witches Don’t Buy In

Witches understand the power of:

Cycles over schedules
Dreams over deadlines
Being over producing

We live by seasons. We track the moon. We honor the ebb as much as the flow.

Because we remember the wisdom of our ancestors—many of whom were worked to death, exploited, enslaved, or burned for daring to live outside of sanctioned productivity.

This isn’t laziness. It’s lineage.

Rest as Ritual. Slowness as Spell.

Every time you:

Take a nap with intention
Brew a tea and sip it slowly
Light a candle and breathe instead of checking your to-do list

…you are casting a spell against empire.

You’re saying: My body is not a machine. My worth is not measured in output. My time is sacred.

And yes, it feels radical—because it is. Capitalism cannot thrive when we start dreaming instead of grinding.

The Magical History of Stillness

Stillness was never passive. It was sacred.

Folk healers rested between seasons to receive visions.
Oracles entered trance states that looked like “doing nothing.”
Ancestors slept in shifts, rising at midnight for first sleep dreams and moonlit prayers.
Before industrial clocks, people worked when the sun said so—and stopped when the dark returned.

We didn’t always live like this.We weren’t meant to.

Hexing Hustle: A Simple Spell

Ingredients:

A black candle (banishing)
A small mirror
A written list of hustle culture lies you’ve internalized
Your voice

Instructions:

Light the candle.
Read each lie aloud: “I must earn rest.” “I have to always be useful.”
After each, say: “I break this curse.”
Burn the list (safely) or bury it.
Look into the mirror and say: “I am already enough. I honor my rhythms. I return to myself.”

Your Dream Is Sacred, Not a Side Hustle

Not every idea needs to become a product.Not every gift needs to become a service.Not every talent needs to be monetized.

You can just exist. And that’s enough.

Witches don’t dream of labor. We dream of liberation.

Want to go deeper?

My upcoming book, Hexing Hustle Culture: The Witch’s Guide to Sacred Rest and Defiance, is a magical anti-capitalist manifesto meets workbook. It’s packed with rest rituals, folklore, ancestral wisdom, and slow magic for weary souls who want out of the grind and back into their bodies.