Choosing Ellie: A Spell for Finding Where Your Love Is Welcome
When I turned 35, I came home from work to a surprise gift from my then-husband: Ellie.
I had always wanted a dog. When I was five, my mother brought home a yellow lab puppy I named Cricket. He was sweet and energetic and entirely too much for the life we were living at the time. My mom was a single parent, and I was a willful little girl. After one too many days of leaving him home alone—culminating in a destroyed couch—my mother realized our lives were not really conducive to caring for a dog well. She gave him to a family friend, where he lived out the rest of his life loved and cared for.
But after that, I carried a dog-shaped ache in me. I used to joke about it with my then-husband. I bought Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs and read poems aloud to him about the beloved dogs that had populated her life. He was never quite as enthusiastic about the idea as I was, but I was adamant. At one point, I even said, “One day I’ll have a dog whether you want one or not.”
And then one day, he brought home Ellie. I remember feeling flooded with love and gratitude and joy. But beneath all of that was something more complex too: anger. The following week, I was supposed to leave for an annual pharmacist conference. The flights were booked, the hotel reserved, and I had been looking forward to spending time with a close friend. But suddenly there was this tiny, vulnerable creature in our home, and I could not imagine leaving her. So I canceled the trip.
I wish I could say I simply received Ellie as the gift she was. But what she represented inside our marriage felt far more complicated than that. Her arrival intensified something I had already been struggling to articulate: how little agency I felt I had in shaping our shared life.
I wanted a dog deeply. But I also wanted to choose with someone. I wanted conversations about timing, about training, about finances, about what kind of dog felt right for our lives. I wanted to discuss vet appointments and routines and responsibilities. I wanted to participate in building the life we were entering together. I didn’t know that I could ask for this, let alone how to go about it. And further, she came into our home three months after my miscarriage, and somewhere inside me, I felt attached to the gift an unspoken pressure to try again for a baby, the push toward domestic life, the disappearance of choice at any other way to live. I felt trapped—guilty that I had gotten what I wanted and was still unhappy, and trapped by the expectation to deliver a life that felt at odds with who I was.
When I left my marriage, I tried to leave Ellie behind too. I told myself it was for her benefit. He had the house, the fenced yard, the stable domestic life I thought she deserved. I imagined children in her future, continuity, familiarity. But the next day, my ex-husband called and said he couldn’t keep her. He said it hurt too much to have her there as a reminder of our life together. So I drove down to pick her up and brought her back to my parents’ house.
I wish I could say that from that point forward I became the perfect dog mother—that I joyfully reorganized my life around her, took her on long walks every day, made her an intentional and integrated part of my world rather than something I was constantly trying to accommodate.
But the truth is, I was trying to build a new life from the ground up. I was rebuilding where I lived, how I worked, who I loved, and who I understood myself to be. Starting over consumed an enormous amount of energy, and much of the time, I felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for another living being when I was barely holding myself together.
So I did the best I could. I lived with my parents so Ellie could have a grandmother who was present when I couldn’t be. I found a neighbor with a dog her age so she could play when I didn’t have the energy to. I woke up at five in the morning to feed her and let her outside. I stayed rooted when so much of me wanted to run—to Brazil, to Los Angeles, to anywhere else entirely.
And because I never felt my best was good enough, I carried enormous guilt. I worried constantly that I was failing her. That I couldn’t give her the life she deserved. I watched her bond deeply with my mother and quietly wondered if maybe she didn’t really need me at all. And to be honest, I wasn’t even sure the love I had to give was worth very much anymore anyway.
So when my mother told me my ex-husband had expressed interest in taking Ellie back, I felt relief wash over me. I imagined sleeping past six. Traveling freely. Moving out of my parents’ house. Reclaiming possibility and spontaneity and mobility in my life again. And I imagined Ellie getting more than she had gotten with me. I agreed to bring her to his house the following week.
But almost immediately, something inside me began to shift. The relief I felt was real, but it was also clarifying. It was like finally pausing a song that had been playing on repeat in my mind. Suddenly I could hear other melodies underneath it. At first, those possibilities did not include Ellie. I thought about moving to the seacoast, writing more, building my healing work without needing to factor in dog care. But then, almost without warning, the visions started including her too.
What if she came with me? What if she became part of my healing work? She has healed me in countless ways. Maybe other people could feel that too. Why couldn’t she come live near the beach with me? She loves the ocean. Portsmouth has a dog park.
And around the same time, I began to let myself fully notice something else too: how much she loves me. Every morning, she walks into my room, flips dramatically onto her back, and asks for belly rubs. Every time I come home, she runs toward me with wild joy, carrying a shoe in her mouth because her excitement has to go somewhere.
And maybe I am not a perfect dog mom. But I do wake up early to take her on off-leash runs in the woods. I do share my pizza crusts with her. I do give her Reiki, which she genuinely seems to enjoy.
So I told my ex-husband I couldn’t give her away. I offered shared custody. I told him he could see her anytime he wanted. I know changing my mind caused pain, and I am sorry for that. I’m far from having things figured out, and hopefully I will learn and do better next time. But I am not sorry for choosing my girl on purpose at last.
And after I made the decision, the magick came in. That morning on our run, my grandmother—a woman who loved many golden retrievers throughout her life—appeared to us in the form of a great blue heron, standing watchful and serene beside the water. Later that day, I called a friend who used to watch Ellie at doggy daycare when she was a puppy. I asked whether she might want to watch her a few days a week now. She immediately said yes. She wasn’t working at the moment, and her dog Gino—one of Ellie’s oldest friends—had been lonely. It also happened to be his birthday.
There is something profoundly beautiful about choosing a life on purpose. About deciding that love is not a trap simply because it asks something of you. And it’s also beautiful to recognize we do have something of value to offer, even when it didn’t feel that way initially, even when the context of our life wasn’t a fit for the unique gifts we have to share.
Our love is always welcome somewhere. I think part of healing is discovering where.
Now, I choose Ellie. I choose to let my life with her feel like a gift instead of a cage. I choose to see that the love I have to give is welcome, at least to her. And that’s enough for now.
A Spell for Finding Where Your Love Is Welcome
Intention
To release the belief that imperfect love is worthless.
To recognize where your care is genuinely received.
To soften the fear that you must become perfect before you are allowed to nurture, stay, or belong.
To let yourself experience love not as performance, but as relationship.
Materials
A bowl of water
Something given to you freely by another living being
(a note, a flower, a toy left at your feet, a photograph, a pebble, a pet collar, etc.)A candle
A blanket or soft place to sit
Optional: an animal companion
Ritual
1. Light the candle gently.
Sit somewhere comfortable and place the object before you. Let yourself arrive fully in the space.
2. Reflect on the ways you have measured your worthiness to love.
Consider the standards you have used against yourself:
productivity,
consistency,
emotional perfection,
how much you could carry,
whether you believed you gave “enough.”
Notice what happens in your body as you remember these measurements.
3. Place your hand in the bowl of water and say:
Love does not become meaningless
because it arrives imperfectly.
Care does not become false
because it coexists with exhaustion.
My tenderness does not lose its value
simply because I am human.
4. Bring to mind a person, animal, place, or community that has genuinely received your love.
Not perfectly.
Not endlessly.
But truly.
Notice what evidence exists that your presence mattered there.
Maybe someone relaxed around you.
Maybe a creature waited for you at the door.
Maybe someone trusted you with their vulnerability.
Maybe something living softened in your care.
Let yourself receive that evidence fully.
5. If an animal companion is present, place your hands gently on them.
Allow yourself to feel the simplicity of mutual affection without evaluating whether you are “doing enough.”
If you are alone, place one hand over your own heart and the other over the object before you.
6. Say:
I release the fantasy
that love must be flawless to be real.
I release the fear
that my care has nowhere to land.
I allow myself to recognize
where my love is already welcome.
7. Wrap yourself in the blanket or place both hands over your heart.
Sit quietly for a few breaths.
Let yourself feel what remains when self-condemnation loosens its grip.
Closing
Not every place can receive your love well.
But somewhere, your presence is a relief.
Somewhere, your affection is felt.
Somewhere, your care changes the atmosphere simply because you are there.
You do not have to become perfect before your love becomes meaningful.
And so it is.
Download this spell to add to your grimoire here:
If you are learning to trust where your love is welcome, Reiki can offer a gentle place to soften, reconnect, and remember that your care does not need to be perfect to be meaningful. My sessions blend energy healing, presence, and compassionate reflection to help you return to yourself with greater tenderness and trust.