Mixed Messages, Self-Compassion and Sage Advice (or, Buy the Damn Teacups)

On my 'memories' on my phone's photo app, a picture from two years ago popped up, and I winced. On that day, I had got dressed quickly - as I often do - and I felt so uncomfortable when we ended up visiting a busy shopping centre. I was wearing a coat I didn't like, an ill-fitting, baggy pair of men's jeans, and a jumper that was too short. However, the main reason for my wince was that I still own all three items, and in fact have worn them all this week. Seeing the words "two years ago" on my app made me feel as though I'd been doing some kind of penance.

I showed Dai, explained to him how I'd felt in the outfit, and he gave me a long look. "You need to have a word with yourself."

He was right. Except, I'm not sure exactly what words I should be having! The opposite of the words I had to have with myself when I sat down with my bank statements in 2019 and identified how serious my overshopping habit had become? The problem there was that I still spent more than I wanted to on clothes in 2021 (more than in 2020, though I imagine that's the same for everyone) and for 2022 I really wanted to reduce my spend further (realistically, it's still high, though considerably less than 2019 levels).

How could I be spending more on clothes and yet still wearing items I knew I was less than keen on? I took a good hard look at my wardrobe, and it didn't take long to discover the issue. I had been buying more of the things I always tend to buy - T-shirts, accessories, funky trousers - and plumping up some areas that had become really sparse after baby-bearing body changes - skirts, dresses - and therefore I'd completely neglected the less fun, historically difficult, or simply expensive categories - jeans, coats, jumpers (and bras). Of course, that meant that every winter I was falling back on the same old less-than-ideal things.

At least I could understand what had happened! It's often easier to find T-shirts that I like than it is anything else, so I'm more often tempted by T-shirts than any other item! And buying jeans is always a mare, more so when you're concerned about pesticide use and water use and labour standards and so forth - trying to find jeans secondhand in a particular size, fit and colour, whilst accompanied by a toddler, isn't the easiest thing, and the prices from ethical, sustainable brands can often be prohibitive on my budget. So I'd just put it off. And put it off. And put it off. Because I didn't want to go to the effort of replacing something not-quite-right with something else not-quite-right, but couldn't see how else to proceed. Meanwhile my jeans were wearing out, and I was now down to one pair, which had lasted longest simply because they were my least flattering pair. With coats, the issue was simply: cost. Can I really justify replacing a serviceable coat, even if I don't like it?

Underpinning all of this is the fact that I've been avoiding getting rid of stuff, as I've often cleared things out and then wished I hadn't...! 

You may be thinking, wow, she's overthinking this. But we live in a culture that teaches us to buy, buy, buy, and not think about it at all.

When I've discussed my attempted shopping ban with others, I have often been told that I need to be kinder to myself. Most recently when Christmas shopping - one of my friends is a jewellery maker, so I was buying some gifts from her, and I really wanted a pair of teacup earrings! I explained I was trying not to buy things for myself, and she advised, "One thing I've learned from being sick [obviously I won't elaborate on anyone else's health issues] is that you have to show yourself some compassion." I translated this to: buy the damn teacups.

However, although self-compassion is important, I'm not convinced that my right to buy things is more important than the rights of garment workers to be paid a fair wage, or for communities to have clean air and water. I feel very aware that my wants, my purchases, don't exist in a vacuum. 

Writer and activist Aja Barber said on Instagram (responding to messages about affordable clothing being a human right), "Where do our human rights end and others begin in a world where the mainstream notion of achieving affordability currently looks like systems of exploitation?"

I think, now that I have written this all down in black and white, that it might be time for me to shop. I can't afford to replace everything all at once, and certainly not from new, so it's going to be a slow process, but that's as it should be, I believe. Otherwise I'll still be wearing the same coat two years from now, and two years after that, when instead I can sell it on whilst it's still in good condition and source one I actually like to wear. And I really can't go any longer without a couple more decent bras, sheesh!

Sheila has often given me sage advice, which I am going to do my best to follow: "Self Care Isn't Selfish. Lead by example to your kid(s) - take care of yourself and express yourself. You can do this without spending a ton of money, as you know, and I love that you're all about sustainability, but love every item you put on your body! If you don't love it, let it go," and, "You're the boss of you, Katrina. It's possible to shop ethically and ensure you donate stuff you don't need. A no-shop ban helps to make us more aware of how much we buy and can help tweak bad habits, but it's not a law. It's okay to shop and support brick-and-mortar businesses."

Change Isn't Linear

Changing habits is difficult. At two and a half years into my shopping ban journey, I often feel frustrated that I still want so much. But I find it interesting to note how my desires have changed. At the moment, for example, I really want a steel tongue drum (preferably purple) and a particular poetry collection from Hedgespoken Press (I used to love reading poetry but have drifted away from it in recent years; now I seem to be drifting back again, which is enjoyable). I don't feel like the same person who wanted Louboutin shoes and lip fillers for her 21st birthday.

Thinking back, that age was a time of change for me as well. I was moving away from my goth style, and making a determined effort to put disordered eating behind me. Whilst I still had a lot of mistakes to make and a lot of personas to try on in the intervening years, I can see the seeds of the person I'm growing into in the confused, frustrated person I was then as I tentatively explored veganism, body positivity, feminism, meditation and magic.

Change isn't linear. Backsliding happens, not just in my spending as I have previously documented, but in other areas too. Recently, I've been using Facebook after about a year without it. I still don't like it much, but it has its uses - I've found out about a local repair cafe and a plastic-free activism group. Same with Instagram - it's really useful to be able to connect with people and see what's out there. I found a group trying to fund a local community garden. So many great things around me that I knew nothing about! But I still find it super hard to restrict my usage to a healthy, comfortable level, and I have to keep reminding myself that online connection, no matter how beneficial, is not actually the work.

It's frustrating to feel like I'm back at the beginning of trying to control my phone use. In many ways it was easier not to have the apps at all - it certainly helped with trying to keep my life simple, and I didn't have FOMO about exciting online events that conflict with the Spud's bedtime, or feel disappointed that I can't justify driving around the country each weekend to get to every interesting festival or market. Joining a lot of groups on Facebook hasn't actually made that much difference to my activities offline - I just feel as if my life has gotten more hectic. 

I feel happier and more content when I have time for good books, long walks, a yoga session, a homemade sugar scrub in the shower. I like myself better when I'm not trying to promote myself as a brand.

Sometimes I worry that 'simple' means 'safe', and that actually I'm just wearing a comfortable groove for myself, but in fact I think some of my biggest steps recently have been taken from this foundation of calm, such as the fulfilment of my dream to write a book and see it in print, my return to an active Pagan practise, the purchase of our first home, my forays into activism, and also I think it's had a positive effect on the way I parent. The nature of social media puts the self front and centre, and that's not a headspace from which I find it easy to do my best parenting. 

When I backslide or slip up, whether in my physical consumption or in my consumption of junk media, it's easy to convince myself that I haven't really changed at all. Imposter syndrome sets in, and I break out in a cold sweat thinking about my upcoming book. What can I possibly have to say about anticonsumerism, when I still want so much?

I have to remember that I'm not trying to present myself as 'an expert' or as the perfect example of anticonsumerist living. What I am trying to do is to be honest, to say "I struggle with this," or "I feel better when I do that," to tell my story and show how my life has changed, and in so doing to hopefully promote discussion about different ways we could live. If we can all encourage each other through the changes we need to make in this Tower Time, and hold space for each other's stories, perhaps we can find different ways of connecting socially, without the frenetic pace, deleterious effects and time-sucking tendencies of current media platforms.

It's interesting to me that my social media use and my constant craving for More Things seem to be so intertwined. But I have changed. I know I have. I might slip up from time to time, but this is not square one.

Further Reading:

Why I've Left Social Media and The Tyranny of Machine Meaning by Rhyd Wildermuth

And on that note, a merry Christmas to you.

Breaking the Spell of Consumer Culture

The winter season got me, like many people, thinking about aspects of our culture like commercialism, gifting, and money. As do probably quite a lot of people in the wider Pagan community, our family celebrates a kind of blended version of the Pagan Yule and the secular Christmas (which should be a contradiction in terms, but certainly for most people I know there's not a lot of Christ in the festive season - which itself of course pre-dates Christianity. Perhaps we should call the modern iteration, with its inflatable Santas and themed hand soap dispensers, something slightly different, like ChristmasTM). 

Anyway. There are aspects of modern Christmas that I really love, and which suit our extended family with its Pagan/agnostic/atheist/Methodist blend. I love mulled wine and roasted chestnuts, Christmas stockings and carol singing, roast dinners with bread sauce and Brussels sprouts (controversial!), visits to Santa's grotto and the big Christmas lights switch-on in town. What I don't love, and this is hardly ground-breaking (someone in the Guardian usually writes a similar column each year, for starters) is the rampant commercialism, over-advertising, over-saturation and glorification of all-out balls-to-the-wall consumerism.

This is where, for me, the gentler Yule traditions really come into their own. We're kind of feeling our way into what works for our family, as there are so many different practices associated with the season and already so much to do at this time that to try to re-enact all the aspects of a traditional twelve-day celebration would lead to total overwhelm. But it does help to remind me of some of the origins of our modern celebrations, and that keeping things simple isn't always the worst idea and in fact much more in keeping with the history of this ancient festival. Instead of buying more decorations and more plastic crap every year, we collect pine cones and holly branches. 

Yuletide, though, is one of the few times of the year when I feel that consumerism is largely absent from modern Paganism. The rest of the time, it seems to be part and parcel, sometimes even a main aspect. Consider: we are encouraged to own not just one Tarot or oracle deck, but to collect several - or many. Crystals, a limited resource, we often treat almost as disposable - leave one here, bury one there, buy three or seven or however many for each working, rite or spell. We are encouraged not just to have sufficient of any given item but to build collections. People seem to compete on social media to have the largest, fanciest, most 'aesthetic' of altars, even if that means buying new statues and altar cloths and other decorations with every turn of the Wheel. 

I realise it's a fine balance, as we want to support the artists and artisans in our communities, as well as the shops and small businesses, but as gift shops and crystal shops abound at every mystical or sacred site, and our communities both on and offline come to revolve around shops, markets and commerce, perhaps we need to get realistic about how much is really enough. 

In the introduction to her book Seasons of a Magical Life, H. Byron Ballard muses that there seem to be less Pagans cleaning up streams and picking up litter - practical tasks to build relationship with the land - than there are sitting behind their screens quibbling over practices and terminology. To this I would add that also, we are shopping. You can literally buy a witchcraft-in-a-box kit; but for me part of the practice, part of the experience, part of the point, is in the finding, the growing, the making, the foraging, the adapting, the cobbling-together. The more we buy our tools and our spells, the less involved we are with the mud and the roots, the blood and the bones, the craft. If you can download an app to tell you when the moon rises, you stop needing to look at the sky. 

Grief

The sudden loss of my father didn't affect me quite the way I expected it to. The pain - yes, that was there, manifesting in the main as a tightness like an iron band around my chest, so that at times breathing felt arduous and moving a struggle. First thing in the morning I found myself lying in bed feeling not sad, exactly, but sort of blank, and it was an effort to tip myself out of the sheets and get on with the day.

Momentum carried me through the tasks of sorting out Dad's estate and arranging the funeral. Dad was a well-known author and a popular man who had enjoyed female company throughout his life, so I found myself receiving messages from journalists, ex-partners and step-siblings I'd never known, which in its own way was a blessing, as I got to reminisce endlessly with people who had known him in a different context than I had.

I had expected to feel like I was breaking inside, but instead it felt more like a forging, a hardening. I refused to cry in front of people - an abrupt departure from being the girl who has sobbed through everybody's wedding for the last decade - and I found myself standing taller, as if the backbone I was suddenly growing was literal as well as metaphorical. I felt as though my skin had become a suit of armour, protecting a fiery core as internally I raged at the injustice of his sudden departure, and determined to do him proud. He may have been as flawed as the rest of us, no saint, occasionally driving me crazy, but he was my dad, my son's grandfather, and very much loved.

Sitting on a tired blue hospital sofa beside my uncle as consultants and nurses gave us awful news and talked us through consent forms for organ donation was the first time I had ever really felt like an adult, and not like a teenager pretending. This feeling continued in the aftermath of that brutal day in the relatives' room, as I shed my people-pleasing skin and learned where my boundaries were. Words like, "That is my decision, thank you," and, "What I need from you is..." suddenly began coming out of my mouth. 

I wanted to do the best I could for my dad. In the absence of a will I had to guess at his wishes, but I knew what I felt would be appropriate, and I clung to that even when well-meaning friends and family offered different advice. I was also determined to speak at the funeral myself, even though I once had a panic attack reading a short story to four people at a writer's group and we were expecting a minimum of forty people to attend the memorial service.

I bought a new dress, too, mindful of my dad's appreciation of aesthetics and pride in being well-dressed. I knew he had always thought I could be more elegant, more sophisticated, more feminine, but that wasn't really me, although I scrub up all right when needed. I'm too plus-size for many sustainable brands and couldn't find quite what I wanted second-hand in the time frame I had available, so eventually I bought a black and white patterned wrap dress from a high street brand's 'eco' range, made from a fabric made out of wood pulp. I wanted to represent the family well to all those attending the memorial, but I also wanted to be true to myself, and in the end I felt I struck the right balance.

Families are complicated and ours in some ways particularly so, and at times I became stressed about feuds, finances, and other things which were out of my control. But one night I got a clear message that Dad, at least, knew I was doing my best - I was settling down to try to get some sleep when I felt, plain and solid as anything, his hand upon my shoulder. It jolted me awake, but the feeling remained, and I was grateful to him for letting me know that he was there.

Runner-Up in XR Wordsmiths' International Short Story Competition

 

I am so thrilled to be runner-up in XR Wordsmiths' Solarpunk Storytelling Showcase! I'm really looking forward to seeing my story Green Witch on the new solar-powered website and reading all the winners' works. (And now you all know my first name, heh. But it's such a beautiful certificate, how could I not post it?!)

The comments from the judges were absolutely incredible too, I'm stunned (and may have teared up a little bit).

From Lovis Geier, ecofictology vlogger: 'This was so beautiful! Reading it was like ASMR, your choice of words were melodic and painted such a beautiful picture, I could almost hear it rustling through leaves! I absolutely loved the image of words becoming extinct instead of species and I love that the change came about because people hear nature's many voices, in whatever form it reached them. This future speaks to me, thank you for it!'

From Nicola: 'I loved this one. It’s probably my absolute favourite. There are some memorable, poetic lines and a sort of wisdom throughout. It includes very powerful description of the practical changes which might save us, as well as how human understanding needs to develop. I find it hugely optimistic, lovely control of imagery and sentence structure, powerful sense of reconnection with the earth. This is a very moving word picture from a passionate writer. I’d love to read more of their pieces.'

You can read more about the competition here.

BOOK COVER REVEAL

I am so proud that I can at last show you the cover of my first book The Anti-consumerist Druid, which is being published by Moon Books and will hit shelves on 25.11.22. I'm absolutely delighted with the cover, I think the art is gorgeous and the Moon Books team have done a fantastic job.

From the back cover:

Many of us are coming to terms with the devastating global effects of overconsumption, and for me the desire to quit shopping has led me to explore Paganism, and then to Druidry!

This is not a book about Druidry. This is a book about how I stopped overconsumption consuming me, and on that journey discovered a connection with nature that led to me becoming a student of Druidry, and about how those beliefs and practices helped me to rebuild a more authentic, creative, enchanted life.

“Katrina Townsend's experience of navigating from a consumerist world into one that enters the realms of spirituality is beautifully expressed in this book. Her writing is open and honest, humorous and thought-provoking and takes you along the journey to where one can find peace in both the self and the world. It's an ongoing process, as she demonstrates so well, of reviewing and reflecting upon one's habits and, for some, addiction, and being able to come out with a real sense of breaking the cycle of wanting more through learning to love what you have. I highly recommend this book to everyone, Druids and Pagans, and people of all faiths and none," Joanna van der Hoeven, Director of Druid College and author of several books including The Book of Hedge Druidry, The Hedge Druid's Craft and The Way of Awen.

Letting Go of Labels

So, I have this one friend who makes me feel inferior. It's not her fault, it's entirely in my own head. At times I feel as though we have this weird imaginary secret rivalry, and sometimes I think she might even be doing the same thing, as our conversations seem to revolve around name-dropping and casual oneupmanship - who has been to the most obscure concert? Who has the most bizarre haircut? Who has read the most dark yet intellectual novel this year? Sound pointless and exhausting? Well, yeah. It kinda is. 

Eventually I realised that every time we hang out (which isn't often, these days - are you surprised?) I come away feeling like I need to amp up my weirdness and make it more visible.

I've always loved alternative fashion. When I moved on from my intense goth look, a lot of my friends expressed disappointment. They had enjoyed that I didn't dress like everyone else. But I've always found that my style is a fairly fluid thing. I take inspiration from a lot of places and I don't like to be limited to one palette or set of parameters. For a while fairly recently, after the flamboyance of being 'alternative' for most of my young life, I enjoyed the simplicity of T-shirts and jeans with no make-up, especially as a new mum. It felt freeing. But after a while, I found I didn't feel great about the way I looked.

One (brave) friend eventually commented, "I feel like this is just how you got used to dressing when you were pregnant. I don't feel like it's really 'you'."

I was furious about this for a while. But to some extent she was right. Between the all-consuming nature of parenthood, my 'eco-anxiety', which makes me feel as though the apocalypse is generally hanging over our heads (I mean, it is, right?) - might as well give up on looking nice when we'll all be killing each other over the world's last potatoes in a few weeks - and some vague, never-fully-expressed background thoughts about patriarchy and beauty standards and freedom, I'd slid into a rut of trying extremely hard not to care about how I looked and kind of hoping it would read as punk-rock-devil-may-care rather than, well, boring.

Every now and again I'd catch an unflattering photo of myself and think, wow, I need to get my shit together, but you know how it is, there are always more dishes to do, and the toddler mushed my eyebrow pencil anyway, and I'm saving money by not buying cosmetics, and Dai likes that I'm not so high maintenance... And so it would get pushed to the bottom of the priority pile over and over, manifesting only as uneasiness, a loss of confidence, feeling awkward in social situations.

Enter a visit to Secret Rivalry Friend. I feel bland in my jeans and jumper. That night I dream about - honestly - dying my hair radish-pink and getting a snakebite piercing. I hate this feeling that I have to be a certain amount of alternative for it to count. Like, all the little things that make me - make anyone - unique - music taste, reading material, sense of humour, talents, guilty pleasures, hobbies - don't add up to anything if I don't adopt the appropriate uniform.

I have a similar issue with Paganism. This is ridiculous, I know, but I always feel I ought to dress the part if I'm going to a public ritual, an esoteric shop or even a place with a notable Pagan community like Glastonbury or Burley. I worry that I won't be taken seriously if I don't look, well, witchy enough. 

And I find this tendency in myself deeply, deeply irritating, because the older I get and the more I learn, the more I find in myself that doesn't fit into a neat little box. The books I like to read. My music taste. My interests. My dress sense (which dependent on mood and activity runs the gamut from Animal to Mary Wyatt London via Wobble And Squeak, for want of a better way of describing it). And, yes, my Pagan practise also. 

I don't consider myself particularly 'eclectic', and what I do generally seems to fit under the banner of Druidry, but if I squint at it from different angles, on different days and in different moods, there's green witchcraft, kitchen witchcraft, a sprinkle of Wicca from time to time (I grew up in the 90s; Wicca was my intro point), a lot of wanting to be Terri Windling when I grow up, and a fair amount of winging it, with a sprinkle of 'stuff the house spirits told me to do'. Is this a thing? Is this Pagan-ing correctly? I really have no idea. But it seems to work for me. So generally I keep my mouth shut around people who might complain that I'm doing it wrong, and get the hell on with it.

And, to come back round to clothing - honestly, a lot of my actual practise seems to involve crawling into hedges or going barefoot or wandering about in rain and gales, so as I've alluded to before, when I look the most mystical I'm generally doing the least actual work, and when I look like a pasty, messy-haired anorak I'm probably feeling extremely Druidic. (Sadly this does not translate well socially - people do not see the anorak and go, "Aha, she's like super connected to nature and stuff,", they go "wow, she's really let herself go." But never mind...)

I've wandered, as I often do, far from the original point I wanted to make, which is that realistically, I like a lot of different and diverse things - I'm not sure why, in my head, I've made this into something to minimise or apologise for. This competitive comparison aspect isn't fun in my friendships, my daily life or in my Paganism, and I figure that the best way to get rid of it for good is to throw out all the labels and do what feels good to me. Looking nice doesn't mean always looking the same, being alternative doesn't mean adopting a uniform, and uniqueness is not something you have to wear like a badge. I want to embrace my different influences and inspirations by allowing myself to be as chameleonic as I please.

The Commodification of Enchantment

I recently read Making Magic by Briana Saussy, and one quote that really leaped out at me was about outsourcing our imaginations to the TV, books and movies. The reason this hit home so hard was because I absolutely do this. I've always been a bookworm, but nowadays if I have free time I will usually escape into a book rather than do anything else (ah, that'd be why my mending pile never gets any smaller).

Not that reading alone has atrophied my daydreaming muscles! I strongly suspect that social media and the ever-present temptations of the internet have their part to play. But there is a definite and noticeable difference - for a decade or so now I have been finding it a struggle to write fiction, and I can't visualise as clearly or as easily as I used to, both of which are slightly unhelpful for a writer and a practising Pagan. 

I remember a few years ago when I committed to following the weekly exercises in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, I baulked at the idea of a week without reading or other media input. Yet when I gritted my teeth and did it, I found it did me good (much like not shopping). I did consider doing the same thing again a while ago, but decided I couldn't go without my Kindle at the time as it was keeping me sane during the Spud's nighttime feeds. Perhaps soon. (Though, I'm also still restricting my shopping/spending and also changing my eating habits to help with an ongoing condition... Perhaps trying to cut back on everything at once is a terrible idea? But I digress.)

Unfortunately, it's not just my imagination that I've been outsourcing. When I was in the middle of my intended shopping ban and living near the nature reserve, I really felt connected to nature and thus to my spirituality. Since moving to town, I've noticed it's become more common for me, when I want to 'feel spiritual', to pop to the shops for a copy of Kindred Spirit, or drop into my local esoteric store - which opened a few months ago, just around the corner from my house. And I must admit it is an excellent store run by lovely people, but it certainly doesn't help with this whole non-shopping gig I seem to have been trying and failing at for forever.

I don't want my spirituality to be a thing that I buy. I'm very aware that I have a huge (H U G E) reading stack of books on all kinds of appropriately mystical knowledge, but neither the mental focus or the mental and physical space to put much of this knowledge into action. I'm at risk of becoming an armchair occultist.

The only saving grace here is that at least I've spotted the behaviours. I've been finding it extremely hard to recommit to a long-term shopping ban plan (say that one ten times fast). There always seems to be some exciting trip or event on the horizon where I might just see something I can't live without. Usually it's clothes I want to keep on buying, but at the moment I'm actually at peace with my wardrobe (since I started making more effort to dress the way I really want). Books are currently my biggest weakness - my TBR pile is getting out of control again, and I need to slow down and stop obsessively seeking novelty so that I can better enjoy what I already have!

I also need to go back to getting my hands muddy. Since the weather turned colder it's been easy to abandon my morning sit on the patio, in fact having much time in the garden at all, and our daily walks seem to have redirected from the riverside to the high street... For someone who bangs on about nature-based spirituality, I have developed an embarrassingly indoorsy streak. Well, enough of that. Back to poking around fox paths and wandering in the moonlight, because even if wild nature was a thing that could be bottled and sold, some things should never be commodified.

A World Without Climate Change

Even if there was no climate crisis, our way of life still needs to change.

If we continue clear cutting and burning our great rainforests, we will lose their beauty and biodiversity. Without forests, we would face greater flooding and soil erosion. Thousands of species, many even undiscovered as yet by us humans, will lose their habitats and face extinction. Many plants that could be used to create lifesaving medicines will be destroyed before we even learn their properties. Indigenous peoples will lose their ancestral lands. Their way of life will be under threat, their wisdom lost. 

If we continue strip mining the earth for her resources and using toxins in our factories, the air we breathe will continue to be pumped full of toxic pollutants. Air pollution is already killing people all around the globe. 

If we continue to demand more and more of those resources to make things we don't need, children and prisoners of war will continue to be forced to work in open pit mines in brutal and dangerous conditions to harvest minerals. Sweatshops will continue to flourish, trapping thousands of people, mainly women, to labour in degrading and unsafe conditions for long hours for paltry pay. The fruits of this labour will continue to be piled high and sold cheap - and we will continue to fast track them to landfill, where they will leach toxic chemicals into our soil and water. What will we do when we have no space left for landfills, no places left to build incinerators to belch out poisonous fumes over our communities?

Our oceans will continue to be choked with plastics. Our marine species will continue to decline, their bellies full of wrappers and cling film mistaken for food leaving them no room for nutrients and condemning them to starvation. Illegal fishing practices will continue to devastate our seas, destroying habitats on the sea bed, reducing populations of fish below sustainable levels and risking their extinction, threatening the livelihood and food security of coastal populations. The salt marshes and mangroves that provide protection from storm surges and flooding from the sea will be lost to human activity such as agriculture and development.

Our sewage will continue to pollute our rivers and oceans. Dyes and other run-off from our factories will continue to be pumped into rivers, killing wildlife, spreading sickness amongst those who need those waters for drinking and bathing. 

Pesticides will continue to devastate our insect population, again killing entire species, and those species that depend on them, and so on all the way up the food chain. Our topsoil will become starved of nutrients and unable to produce flourishing crops. We are degrading our soil far faster than it can replenish itself, risking desertification - meaning we would not be able to feed ourselves. Without wild bees and other pollinators, we would lose many plant species around the world, including some of those we rely on for food.

Imagine the world we are heading towards if we don't clean up our act - figuratively and literally. Polluted air; polluted water; food shortages. A world of poverty and misery, tarmac and concrete, the stench of landfills and burning plastics. Pandemics and flooding, slave labour, starvation and homelessness. Loss of bees, whales, dolphins, butterflies, birds, and millions more.

Climate change sceptics argue that there is no climate emergency, that we can continue on this course of endless profit and eternal growth. Even if that were true, look at what it would cost.

Lessons From The Rebellion

Apologies, I haven't been as active as usual or responding to comments with any kind of regularity due to the death of a close family member. I am still reading and do appreciate all of your comments!

Weeks after taking part in the Impossible Rebellion, albeit in a small way, I realised I was still thinking about it. Partly this was simple satisfaction - I can be prone to cloistering myself away, partly because I'm an introvert, but also partly because of the intensive nature of being a full-time mum, partly because I'm finding that Druid study, in fact an interest in the esoteric in general, requires a fair amount of headspace for processing, learning, practising, and investigating. And also, not least of all, partly because those aspects of me and my life that go against the grain of normal living - or perhaps are simply different to what some of my friends are doing - sometimes make me feel a bit alienated. 

Not shopping is one of these things. Many blogs will attest to the fact that it's fairly common nowadays to take some time off from shopping. Maybe for environmental reasons, maybe for decluttering or financial purposes - maybe all of the above. However, my fascination with the mechanics of consumer society has led me to believe that I am looking not at a temporary pause but at a move towards a different way of life, as I try to unhook myself from the capitalist machine, as much as I am able.

The more I learn about a culture that feeds on our disconnect, our wants, our insecurities, the less bandwidth I have for girls' night chat about who's getting Botox. 

So, anyway, Rebellion felt liberating for me because I actually got myself out of the house and went and took part in something meaningful with others of, if not like mind, then at least similar hopes and fears about our planet and our future on it. Rebellion also showed me some of my dreams in action, such as non-hierarchical organisation and a gift economy. 

It was a bit startling to come home again, and after a fortnight of daily actions and emails showing wild creativity, love and rage, as well as the deep concern for our environment that drives the movement, to take my mum's rubbish out and find that a neighbour had shoved fifteen leather handbags in perfectly good condition into the bin to be incinerated. I'd almost forgotten that possibly the majority of people are not coming at everyday situations thinking about their effect on the environment, or even the simple facts of where our belongings come from and where they go when we don't want them any more. (I rescued the handbags, by the way, and they have been rehomed. I also rescued a box of Christmas cards, a pack of gift bags, and four brand new rolls of gift wrap. I really don't mean to make a habit of pulling stuff out of bins, but I cannot stand waste.)

The more I keep up to date with the climate science, the more I find I'm becoming a sort of apocalypse prepper. Like, might as well face my addiction to shopping now, because there ain't gonna be no trips to the mall when Southampton's underwater and people are rioting in the streets because there's no food and no space. I can't decide whether this is an unhealthy mindset or simply a logical one. Either way, my skill set of spinning, weaving, knitting, foraging and that archery course I took will hopefully stand me in good stead when the chips are down. I hope. Meanwhile, there's a lot of dissonance between my position, and that of someone who thinks the place for their unwanted leather goods is the dustbin. And it's hard to summon up enthusiasm for Botox when the chances of living long enough to develop serious wrinkles are looking increasingly slim.

As well as forever marking myself out as some fringe-dwelling weirdo, I came home from the Rebellion armed with information:

The government aren't listening. No one is coming to save us. I find it utterly horrifying that our alleged representatives are blithely making things worse - while saying all the right things. They are not even bothering to work towards their own targets. It would be embarrassing if it wasn't so frightening. On an unrelated note, remember that time Iceland peacefully overthrew their government? Oh, you don't? Wow, our billionaire-owned UK media sure kept that quiet, didn't they? Wonder why. (I'm not saying XR are planning a revolution. But I hope that someone is.)

Trying to do the right thing can also backfire. I was confused when I saw in one of the email dispatches from XR that youth activists were peacefully occupying the headquarters of environmental charity WWF. When I first became interested in environmentalism I set up a small monthly donation to WWF, and I was appalled and deeply saddened to learn that this organisation has been partnering with and/or receiving donations from polluting companies such as Coca-Cola, HSBC, Pepsi, Domtar (a coal company), Monsanto and the ubiquitous Shell (see below). Their management and board of directors includes people from General Motors, BP and Unilever. They are also guilty of an array of human rights abuses, including funding raids on villages by paramilitary organisations, stealing land from indigenous peoples in the name of "conservation" (here's why that doesn't work to anyone's benefit), and working with vicious anti-poaching guards and "shock troops" who have committed a terrifying variety of crimes from rape and torture to murder. Wow. For more about all of this, please check out WTF WWF. I used their page to cancel my direct debit to WWF (and you can bet I wrote to WWF and told them why), and will be donating my money to the Guarani Yvyruppa Commission in future.

Shell are everywhere. From former Shell employees putting together panels of scientists to fight against the move towards net zero (this is old news, but I came across it fairly recently, hence I flag it up for your perusal), to the company sponsoring a Science Museum exhibition about greenhouse gases and climate change - the museum signed a gagging clause forbidding them from naming Shell as a sponsor for the exhibition, and agreed not to 'sully the reputation' of the company by carefully not mentioning the part that fossil fuel companies are playing in the devastation of our environment. (Also, MURDER, can we all just stop giving Shell money, they are awful and terrible.)

Mo' money, mo' problems. Or, as the Bible says, "The love of money is the root of all evil." Will Farbrother from Money Rebellion has said, "If the City [of London] was a country, it would be the world's ninth biggest emitter of CO2, worse than Germany." I recently experienced myself how addicted we are to the accumulation of money when we had some cash flow problems due to Dai changing job. I had enough savings to carry us across the gap, but oh how deflating it was to see that number in my savings account go down - despite my fondness for anti-capitalist rhetoric and staunch belief that money isn't everything! Of course, the amounts I'm talking about are small change to many of those who work in the City. How much more gripping must their addiction be, played out on such a tremendous scale?

To end on a brighter note, my biggest takeaway from the Rebellion was that a different world is possible. I know because I saw it. I saw community and cooperation, kindness and honesty. I saw people making art on the streets and sharing free food. Extinction Rebellion's explanation of their principles and values is an exciting and hopeful manifesto. The entire Rebellion exists through non-hierarchical organisation, prioritising autonomy and decentralisation. During the protests, community hubs set up for rebels provided a safe space to retreat to, where hot food and drinks were provided, as well as support ranging from practical to emotional. For a short time out of time, these protesters form their own society, a society radically different than the violent, oppressive system we currently have - and it works. 


"Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. 
Want more of everything ready-made. 
Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery any more. 
Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something they will call you. 
When they want you to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute." - from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

A Mystical Year?

Like so many of my posts, this one is inspired by a book I read recently, The Year of Mystical Thinking by Emma Howarth. Apparently I just love it when people set themselves year-long challenges. Emma Howarth found a pack of Tarot cards she had used and loved when she was younger, which inspired her to spend a year exploring the realms of mysticism and magic to find ways to bring more joy and enchantment to everyday life. As you have probably guessed, I am very much here for this idea and was extremely tempted to have a go at the same thing myself. Although I'd probably set myself different challenges, as Reiki and astrology don't particularly speak to me, and my disposable income is a bit too limited to book too many crystal readings and sound baths.

But, a more mystical year sounds like a wonderful idea to me. I started thinking about different things I could incorporate - I already celebrate the Wheel of the Year, but I would like to go to more rituals (both in person and online). (Side note: we did try to attend a gorsedd for Samhain, which would have been my first public ritual, but we got held up in traffic, couldn't find a parking space, and then couldn't find the right group amongst all the covens and groves who had flocked to the same stone circle. For the winter solstice, we are planning to leave earlier!) I'd like to spruce up my altar, which is currently a very informal affair situated on the windowsill behind the kitchen sink, as that was the only safe place for it to be during moving chaos and with an inquisitive three-year-old, but it keeps getting splashed with water and I can't decorate it with paintings, photos or fabric. 

A huge factor for me would be trying to be more aware of nature - since we moved I'm still finding it hard to rekindle that connection, and generally don't know the moon phase unless I look it up on my phone (#paganfail). Oh, and that yoga and meditation practise seems to keep sliding down the priority list - don't know how that happens.

Now that I'm using Instagram again, it's quite important to me to make sure I stay rooted in the physical, offline world and not return to the days of doing everything for the 'gram - which is all right really, as my messy house, permanent exhaustion, and haphazard intuitive Paganism don't actually photograph that well. I still find it really easy to get sucked in to what other people are doing, so a challenge that refocuses me on my own stuff is also good. It's all about achieving that balance between being able to connect with people and be findable, but also being able to keep my mind clear, and I think I will only get there through trial and error unfortunately!

Of course, I'm very aware that I still have not completed the challenge of a year without shopping, and I'm slightly uneasy about how this might sit alongside a mystical year. I firmly believe that any kind of spiritual practise should not depend on buying products, but I'm also aware that local Pagan communities often communicate via their local supply stores, so when looking for open rituals, classes or courses it would be rather hard to rule out visiting such stores. Also, pretty things are tempting and nice, and I'm only human.

What I've been thinking about for the reincarnation of my shopping ban is running the year from Samhain to Samhain, as a way of connecting my Pagan practise with my desire for escaping consumerist living. And a vague hope that trying to flow with the seasons might make the process a little bit easier - for example, right now we are spiralling inwards towards the contemplative and restful period that is the dark half of the year, which to me does not feel like the right time for the bright, intensive stimulation of an online shopping frenzy. (So yes, I've already started another no-shop year, with little fanfare this time - but to be honest, there are currently some life circumstances that are not too great, and I wonder if perhaps it won't last that long as willpower is in short supply. On the other hand, so is money, so there's that...)

Change is Afoot

Can you believe I've been blogging here now for over a year?! Thank you all so much for dropping by to read my words or say hello!

I'm going to make some changes here over the next little while in preparation for being able to announce the publication date of my debut book (squeeeeee!), so please bear with me as things appear, disappear and otherwise move around. 

I am also having a bash at social media. As you will know from previous posts, I don't always get on with modern (addictive) technologies, but I'm aiming for moderation and community - not intensity and FOMO! So you can now find me on Instagram here.

Happy Samhain everyone!

The Reincarnation of Objects

One thing I've become much better at this year is 'shopping my wardrobe'. In my first shopping ban attempt, I lived in fear that I would be invited to a black tie ball or some event with an unusual dress code and have nothing to wear. Two years later, this has still not happened, and I've begun to accept that my existing wardrobe contains something that will tide me over for most occasions, with a little ingenuity. 

Now that I had a better idea of how I wanted to look and dress, I'd been worried that I'd immediately want to go out and buy a bunch of new things. But I was pleasantly surprised by how close I could get to the look I wanted, using items I already had.

I still, on occasion, get rid of the wrong things and end up regretting it later. But I've started to learn how to avoid this, and the answer is simple - get rid of less. I know, I know, this flies in the face of common minimalist logic and the pervasive urge to declutter. Not to mention that we all seem to have those few items lurking in our closets that we know we don't want to wear, but that we are hanging on to, mainly out of guilt (at least, I'm assuming it's not just me). In my case, a pinafore that I thought would be versatile but I never bother to wear because it's pretty boring; a pair of hot pink cargo shorts - I love cargo shorts, but the colour goes with nothing else that I own; a number of oversized t-shirts; and a pair of black and white patterned harem pants I got bored of years ago (plus I have a secret suspicion they make me look a bit frumpy). 

I was just steeling myself to donate some of these items or resell them through Loopster, when I had a sudden brainwave. I have a lot of difficulty finding summer tops that I like, but a plethora of oversized tees - suddenly the answer was obvious. 

Using a top I liked the fit of as a template, I cut down one of my oversized tops and quickly sewed the sides back together. I'd only tacked it loosely to check the fit, but I liked it so much I ended up wearing it that day, before I'd sewn it together properly. I'm really pleased with how it turned out - it's obviously a DIY, but to my mind that's a plus. And I still have more t-shirts I could do this to, if I need more strappy tops next summer.

Apologies for the terrible composition and random things in the background of the photos in this post! I originally took them to send to friends rather than to post here...!

The other three items I decided to dye. This was kind of spur of the moment - I picked up a dyeing kit for £3.99 in Aldi (and still have enough left to dye another three items). This was probably not the most environmentally friendly of dyes, so if I was going to make a habit of dyeing things I would research my options better. But I feel that keeping items working in my wardrobe for longer is better than donating or reselling them, as once they're out of my hands they could end up in landfill, which is what I'm trying to avoid.

I'm thrilled with how these came out! I didn't tie my elastic bands tightly enough so I didn't get clear lines, but I really like the colours and I think I will wear all of these items much more. I'll definitely be less afraid to take the plunge and customise things in future before I think about getting rid of them. I love that I now have some completely unique items for very little cost too.

I had intended a sort of stripy dip dye... It didn't work out but I still like it

Seaside Scavenging and Surfers Against Sewage

On our recent holiday to Pembrokeshire, I found that my environmentalism, which had been difficult to keep at the forefront of the way I live what with house moves and renovations, parenting, worries about money, clothes and religion, not to mention trying to rediscover some kind of social life after the hermitude of COVID, was burgeoning again.

This was for a variety of reasons: firstly, it's hard to spend time in such an incredibly beautiful area as the Pembrokeshire coastline without being in some way touched by it. There's a moment on the way to our holiday cottage (we go to the same place every year), when the narrow road, set deeply between ferny banks and clawed hedges of gorse, has wound its way out onto the cliffs, and suddenly the hedges fall away and the vast expanse of Newgale beach is revealed, as if a magician has flung back a veil and shouted, "Ta da!" It never gets old, never ceases to take the breath away, and that seemingly endless vista of sky and sea is different each time, whether grey and wild, the peach and gold of sunset, or foaming and depthless turquoise on white sand. How can anyone not want to protect that, to preserve it? 

Secondly, whilst we were away I read a really fascinating book, Free by Katharine Hibbert. It's a memoir of the time Katharine spent as a squatter, mostly without money, living literally off the vast array of things that are thrown away every day. Having worked in the waste industry I thought I had some idea of the scale of our society's astonishing wastefulness, but this book opened my eyes in a whole new way. I think that reading this book had me looking at what was around me with fresh eyes - I don't normally go through bins, as a general rule, but when I was taking a bag of rubbish out I noticed a windbreak jammed into the holiday cottages' shared bin. It's probably broken, I reasoned, but some spirit of devilry made me drag the whole thing out to see what, exactly, was wrong with it. Turns out, nothing whatsoever. It's currently in our cupboard under the stairs, looking forward to next year's holiday. 

On an old blog of mine, when I was still working in the rag bins at the local recycling centre, I was quite open about which items of my clothing had come from the bins, and I took a lot of flak for it. I totally appreciate that dumpster diving isn't everyone's cup of tea (although perhaps we ought to consider those for whom it's the only option. Trash picking is a way of making a living in some countries. In the UK, cafes, supermarkets and restaurants throw away tons of unopened food on a daily basis - yet many throw bleach on the food or otherwise render it spoiled or inaccessible to deter people from trying to retrieve it. How is it even vaguely acceptable to send food to landfill when there are people who are going hungry?! Who writes these rules?!). But why is it considered fine to throw away usable - or even unworn - clothing, yet distasteful to retrieve or make use of it? Doesn't say anything good about this culture's values, if you ask me.

Thirdly, we spent a lot of time in and around the city of St Davids. I was really heartened and excited by the eco community I could see in action there - from environmental protests in the high street to sustainable, fair trade and zero waste shops, and a wild food cafe. I haven't had a lot of luck connecting with other people in my area who are passionate about the environment - there's a local Extinction Rebellion branch, but they sadly don't answer their emails - so other than Greenpeace Zoom calls, I generally don't get to discuss these issues outside of monologuing at friends and family (which is definitely a thing that I do. I mean, I try not to be That Person, but sometimes all the frustration and the worry and the love has to go somewhere, y'know?). And let's be honest, even were we not in a climate crisis, a noticeboard advertising 'Slow Flow' yoga classes alongside coastal foraging courses in a shop selling small batch local ales with folkloric names, and beauty products made out of seaweed, is definitely my jam.

So, all this in mind, it was both deeply disappointing and incredibly enraging when the first piece of news I read upon returning home was about my local water supplier knowingly and deliberately discharging sewage into the ocean.

Not once.

But 7,000 times.

Hugo Tagholm, CEO of environmental group Surfers Against Sewage, said, "It’s absolutely scandalous that Southern Water dumped raw sewage in the sea for so long, hiding their tracks as they went so they could increase their profits. This shocking, criminal capitalism is one of the worst cases of companies wilfully putting profits before the health of people or planet.

"Worse still is that water companies, including Southern Water, seem to continue dumping raw sewage into fragile, precious and finite blue habitats, with over 400,000 separate raw sewage pollution events pinned to their collective reputation in 2020 alone. All whilst their CEOs walk away with huge pay packets and dividends."

We are paying for the privilege of having our effluent dumped into the sea. How dare you, Southern Water. I'd like to round this post off with some snappy parting shot, but honestly I think I'm too disgusted. 

Lessons, Thoughts and Inspiration From My 30-Day Reset

Zero Waste Style

Early on in my thirty-day shopping ban which I completed from July-August, YouTube recommended me a video about a woman called Corinne Loperfido, and I found her lifestyle and ideas absolutely fascinating - here's the video for you. 

Clutter and Emotional Labour

I found that I was still thinking a lot about decluttering, which probably had a lot to do with moving to a smaller house. But I couldn't really find a lot to clear out, which I suppose is both good and bad - we like and use the things we have, but we have so much that it feels like everything is just crammed into the house. We have been trying to part with a lot of the Spud's baby stuff, but are finding that we can't give it away, much less sell it. Not sure if the market is saturated, or if people simply don't want second-hand baby things at the moment. In the meantime, I've become very aware of the amount of emotional labour I'm doing around household maintenance, cleaning and tidying. 

In her book Sustainable Minimalism, Stephanie Seferian observes, "Your "mental load", or emotional labor, describes the total sum of responsibilities required for you to manage your household. Women tend to experience heavier mental loads than men, as the never-ending domestic juggling act of organizing, thinking, planning and keeping a home afloat continues to be considered a woman's job." I see this a lot - many of my friends have partners who want to be helpful yet somehow 'can't see mess' (hello, social conditioning!), and certain of my in-laws, jokingly but repeatedly, refuse to defer to Dai about topics from wedding planning to holiday prep and family birthdays, insisting that 'I am in charge' of anything organisational.

Unfortunately for them, I am usually trying to hold on to so much information already - to-do lists, menus, shopping lists, appointments, which food is going off in the fridge, when are we having guests and where are the sheets for the sofa bed, playdates, upcoming celebrations, birthday lists, expiry dates for vouchers, and more - that I'm getting pretty scatty (yes, I do write these things down! But I still have to actually remember and execute the right tasks at the right time, which requires brainal resources (that's definitely a real word)) and therefore I'm extremely firm about which jobs I have delegated to Dai, and will not be budged. This month, without Etsy to distract me, I couldn't help but notice that the household chaos - and my inability to do much about it singlehandedly - was driving me up the wall, and I found myself in tearful fury over a crisp packet that had not managed to migrate to the bin under its own steam.

My urge to declutter (or go live la vida Loperfido in a van) probably had more to do with this sense of overwhelm than anything else. There is in fact an entire book on the subject of women's emotional labour, Fed Up by Gemma Hartley, but to be honest I'm frightened to read it. Even reading the Kindle sample made me cringe. (Dai, I should add, is generally very thoughtful and decent to live with, and happily does his share of the housework, but works very long hours, which is why two months after moving house we were still living almost entirely out of boxes.)

My vague hope is that, whilst I'll probably never be a minimalist, if I can at least slow the influx of new things into our house, as things wear out and/or are outgrown and given away, we will eventually reach some kind of equilibrium. Or at least will avoid being buried under a tower of books, clothes and toys.

Environmentalism, Joy and Style

The other thing that kept coming up for me during this month was about clothing and style, which of course related back to why I had decided to try to quit shopping in the first place, in 2019. I realised that, although my spending on clothing had been fairly high since I stopped this year's attempted low-buy (although still low by my previous standards - maybe three items of clothing a month, predominantly second-hand from eBay, but also from small businesses and indie designers in physical shops and on Etsy), I'd been making much better choices and was really loving what I had. I still wouldn't be able to put a label on my style, but I had a much better idea of what I would wear - and better yet, what I enjoyed wearing, what I would be excited to put on in the morning.

Corinne Loperfido's video reminded me that it's possible to care deeply about the environment and still have personal style. I'm not sure why I tend to fall on the side of sackcloth and ashes, but this habit I fall into of wearing baggy, stained old clothing in the name of sustainability is frankly a bit depressing. Throughout the month, happily, I learned to shop my wardrobe and put together outfits that I enjoyed wearing, without constantly craving an influx of the new. And, thankfully, without falling once again into the hair-shirt-frump trap.

Don't get me wrong - eco anxiety is a logical, sane reaction to the state we're in, and conscious consumerism isn't a magic bullet for the ills of the fashion industry. I know that the only way forward for us as a society is to buy and produce less. But I noticed as well that this kind of joyless, performative environmentalism had found its way into other aspects of my life. I don't, obviously, mean choices like reusing the bath water to water the garden, or using cloth rags instead of paper towels - in my view these are just sensible things that should be totally normal (and are for many people). I mean things like... not buying a drink if I'd forgotten my reusable bottle, and ending up with a pounding headache. I realise that in the long run we will all have to make changes and, yes, sacrifices if we want to actually survive the climate emergency, but in the meantime we still live in a consumer society, and me getting heatstroke saves nothing and helps no one. 

Learning To Trust Myself

Also on the topic of style, this month I started seeking out and reading more blogs. I have been working on a book that grew largely out of this blog, so I wanted to look for ideas for new blog content so that I could keep posting without reproducing my entire book - it would be nice if there were some surprises (although there is some stuff I'd love to tell you!). Having devoted a good chunk of time to blogging previously, I was wary of falling back down the rabbit hole, but it was really exciting to see what's out there now and how the blogosphere has grown and changed.

Most of all, I was extremely excited to see women in their 30s, 40s and up to their 60s and beyond really embracing style - and I don't mean cookie cutter fashion, I mean women who are absolutely doing their own thing and looking phenomenal. I realised (again) that I've been trying so hard not to obsess over my appearance that I've essentially become invisible; I'm nervous of taking risks or drawing attention to myself, I feel guilty for spending time on my appearance, and - I'll admit it - there's a little voice that says "you're being selfish... You're a mum now...you've put on too much weight," and worst of all "you're too old." Well, clearly not.

I also found some old photos from yet another blog I used to have on the go, from a time when I felt absolutely the worst about the way I dressed - I remember feeling stressed and anxious all the time, doubting my ability to put an outfit together, spending literally entire days on Pinterest trying to find the secret keys to good style... And now I want to shake myself and scream with frustration, because it turns out that I looked great (IMO). This is exactly the kind of thing I would like to be wearing now. Except I gradually replaced all my funkier clothes with bland, anodyne stuff, a change which I can almost directly pinpoint to a time in my life which included a bad online experience and the end of my previous long-term relationship, because I was frightened I wouldn't be able to make my way alone in the world and meet new people if I was Openly Weird.

I will forever regret parting with this t-shirt instead of mending it. Still have the boots, though

This blue bob was epic. And extremely blue

I should have trusted my own opinions and ideas, as it turns out I had my own sense of style and aesthetics all along - I just let it get eroded by fearfulness. But it's never too late, and I can start from where I am with what I have, and just learn how to be me again.

30-Day Shopping Ban: Recharge and Reset

Towards the end of July I was feeling a bit directionless. I'd gone hard into my reading on Druidry (and other aspects and traditions of Paganism, polytheism and earth-based paths, such as Heathenry, traditional witchcraft and Wicca) and was feeling a bit... Druided out. I still felt that this was the path for me, but I'd noticed that I was starting to anticipate feeling super connected and sort of spiritual-mystical all the time, which is actually kind of exhausting.

It had been really exciting for a few months - I'd been experiencing strange synchronicities and what I can only describe as communications. I won't go into too much detail here as it's going to be in the book I'm working on (yes! and it has a publisher lined up!), but I will tell you that Dai had witnessed some of this, which happily confirmed that I wasn't actually losing my mind. At first this reaching out was a bit random and sporadic, but gradually I learned it was a two-way channel, and I began to ask questions and receive answers, mostly in images, in some instances information that would later be confirmed in books I picked up. 

It was spooky and exhilarating, but after a while I realised I was now trying really hard all the time to communicate with everything and be open, constantly striving to be a sort of antennae for signs and portents, and I actually needed a break. I felt I was losing track of the ordinary world a bit, and, as I had taken my eye off the ball, my spending - and more so, my obsessive browsing - had taken an upwards swing again. Not seriously or harmfully, but enough that I wanted to recalibrate and get a better grip on it.

I get why I was back to browsing. It was a way to switch off from being Super Mystical Druid Student Lady - a very mundane way to decompress. Reality TV would probably have served a similar function. 

Perhaps relatedly, Pagan traditions, unlike other faiths and philosophies (such as Buddhism or Christianity) don't put much emphasis on the spiritual benefits of restraint, asceticism or denial (as a choice, I should perhaps point out, not the grind of day-to-day poverty). Generally quite the opposite - writers such as Laurie Cabot encourage a mindset of abundance, though generally it is acknowledged that 'the primary goal of life is spiritual and not material' (Laurie Cabot, The Power of the Witch); spells to create wealth abound, and in our modern consumer culture many 'spiritual' books essentially encourage one to present the universe with a shopping list. And as I've previously mentioned, you only have to step into your nearest esoteric store to note the myriad fripperies and trappings with which you could ornament your person, house, altar and so forth should you choose. (There are, however, many modern writers who are deeply aware of the climate crisis and the ways in which our consumption is contributing to this destruction, such as Dana O'Driscoll, Glennie Kindred and others, which is a really positive direction and much more in keeping with 'nature based' paths IMO. I could also point you towards Graeme Talboys's The Druid Way Made Easy, which has a really interesting discussion of simplicity and living more in harmony with the natural world.)

Another, very different experience tweaked my thoughts on spending around this time. Now, I know it's daft and first-world-y to say that I had a life-changing experience at a spa! Besides, that's not quite how it went. What happened was that I was FINALLY able to use the Lush Spa voucher I had bought myself about a year and a half previous, and I had such a wonderful time that it really clarified for me what it is and isn't worth spending money on. More new clothes and jewellery? No, ta. A completely immersive, sensory hour of pampering and relaxation with fresh, eco friendly and ethical products? Oh my Goddess yes, bring it on.

I had a treatment called the Sound Bath, which involves facial massage with hot and cold stones, tuning forks applied to pressure points, scalp massage, sound therapy, ear candling, and a bunch of other stuff that was very lovely but which I can't explain or describe because my eyes were closed and I was, frankly, on another plane at this point. A fresh breeze, incense and possibly a rain stick were involved. And at the end the therapist made me a fresh lemonade - as in, she squeezed the lemon and added mint and chamomile right there in front of me, and I have no idea what was in the teapot but mist came rolling out over the tabletop as if by magic. (And it was served in a singing bowl. So much thought went into every area of this, my mind was totally blown.) So, yeah, I'm going to start setting some money aside to go back, even though it's clearly frivolous as heck. I don't get manicures, I make it to the hairdresser maybe once every couple of years, my self-care is poor to say the least, I'm gonna have this indulgence every now and again. I have never felt so blissfully pampered!

It also didn't escape my notice that a lot of the worries and anxieties I needed to escape from with this treatment were - still - insecurities around clothing and appearance, as well as what to buy and what not to buy. I had another - very different - holistic treatment arranged for my 30th birthday, which was last month, and it occurred to me that perhaps between those two points I could continue this sense of relaxation and rejuvenation - boost my wellbeing - by continuing to eliminate this category of worries and stresses. A 30-day shopping ban would allow me to gather myself, have a break from those persistent insecurities and obsessive thoughts, and let me go forward with peace and clarity. After the first week or so, which I suspected from my previous shopping bans would be a bit of a nightmare.

After two or three false starts, my shopping ban began on the 25th of July.

Week One

This wasn't how I wanted my story to go! I wanted to be able to wrap it up neatly and say, "Once I discovered Druidry, my overshopping and consumerism faded away and never troubled me again." Alas, not so.

However, this first week was not the gritted-teeth, white-knuckled battle I had been expecting. Quite the opposite - it felt like a relief. I knew there was nothing I really needed or wanted. Even when a rainstorm caused the Spud and me to take shelter in a large department store, there was not even a flicker of temptation. I must admit I was astonished. If it had become so easy to not shop, then what on earth had I been shopping for? Out of habit? Boredom? That old chestnut, the Diderot effect?

Weirdly, at around day five I found my old comparison tendencies flaring back up. It felt yucky, and was a useful reminder that life's too short for this bullshit.

Week Two

This week I realised I'm kind of an information addict, a knowledge junkie if you will. I've got so many online courses bookmarked, and one of my biggest timewasting activities is browsing books on Amazon and reading Kindle samples to find more and more sources of new information. This isn't necessarily good or bad in itself, I don't think, but it's definitely a time eater, can be a money eater, and also means that, particularly with spirituality, I can be prone to reading instead of doing. In his book Unsubscribe, Josh Korda says, "Filling the mind with information is really a variation of seeking security by lining our pockets or filling up our living rooms with gadgets and flat screens, for whether we are accumulating information or consumer goods, the underlying premise is that the answer is somewhere out there, not available to me already - this is the belief that fuels craving."

I decided to stop adding new books to my wishlist and try to cut down on my Googling and online information mining. Instead of seeking more and more knowledge, for the moment I wanted to start using and working with the wealth of information already available in my home library, as well as developing my personal gnosis.

I had two purchases this week which could be considered 'non-essential', one of which was a haircut, but I decided to let it stand, as the last professional haircut I had was a trim in August 2020, and the last before that was having a bob cut in 2018, before the Spud was born! My hair is now quite long, and I wanted some choppy layers put in to add shape and interest whilst keeping the length. I've been trimming my own hair for a while, or asking friends to have a go, but I decided that attempting my own layers was probably a bad idea, having spent so much time growing my hair for the wedding! So I hope you'll agree with my decision to give myself a pass on this one.

The other purchase was a book, but I'm not counting that as a ban break either, because it was the debut novel of a dear friend! It's wonderful when supporting artists and supporting friends falls under the same spending category.

Week Three

At the end of week two I'd had a revelation regarding my personal style, which I'll discuss in an upcoming post, so I went into week three feeling slightly startled and not entirely trusting my self-control. 

The biggest challenge this week was that it coincided with our annual trip to Pembrokeshire. I've referred to this trip as a pilgrimage before, and this year that was a quite literal descriptor. We had decided to visit some sites related to Saint Bride, as I'd been experiencing a strong connection to her ancient goddess counterpart, Brighid (this has been literally life-changing, but I'm not speaking too much about it here on the blog as it's covered in detail in my upcoming book). I was hoping that this spiritual focus for our trip would help me NOT focus on shopping, but I also knew there are some great shops in St David's, and the temptation would be strong.

There were, unsurprisingly, a couple of items I lusted after - briefly, but intensely - namely a jumpsuit by sustainable brand Tentree, and a deliciously sea-blue T-shirt with a 'wonder-filled coast' slogan that I found in a St David's gift shop. However, I was pleased with my progress on this new ban and so I chose not to break it or devise loopholes for myself. I also found that spending so much time in such a spectacularly beautiful place really revitalised my commitment to environmentalism - Dai became used to me staring out at each glorious sunset vista, watching the crescent moon rising over the liquid-gold, sparkling ocean, whilst wailing "Whyyyyyy do people pollute THIS?!"

Week Four

This week, back in the normal world, I found myself thinking more about the divide between where I am in life and where I want to be. I preach freedom and anarchism, but have a mortgage (we intend to renovate our house, sell up and get ourselves a smallholding in Wales where hopefully we can better live our values. In the meantime my job is to provide safety and stability for my little one, even if that means being a hypocrite and a sell-out). I aim for simple living, but I feel like I'm wading through stuff, my to-do list is endless, and I spend a lot of time fiddling about on my tablet or watching the clock. I never get enough sleep. Yoga, meditation, writing, making offerings, and other aspects of my spiritual life were becoming things I would perpetually do 'later' - once I'd cleared some more of my TBR pile, or finished the laundry, or made a centimetre of space in the back bedroom. Everything felt like a fight against the clock, even what I thought of as my more holistic pursuits, like planting veg and harvesting herbs. To borrow an expression of Dai's, all the jobs I hadn't done yet were hanging over my head like some sort of smelly bat.

I realised that I was doing everything in a rush. Our daily walks had been shunted aside in favour of frantic gardening, and I hurt my back while doing some DIY jobs I was too impatient to wait for Dai to help with. I'd almost stopped scratch cooking, too. It was definitely time to slow down and get mindful. 

I definitely benefited from taking this break and doubling down on controlling my spending. I'm going to take a bit of time now to decide what my next move will be - whether or not I'll try again for a full year without shopping.

Diderot's Dressing Gown: The Answer To the Question, "Why Am I Like This?"

For a long time, one of my greatest frustrations has been this ridiculous way of thinking I have, whereby my style, appearance, wardrobe, preferences and identity are all tied up in one enormous, oddly-shaped, possibly ticking parcel, onto which I become desperate to stick a label.

 "Ah..." says my brain. "I see you are admiring those patterned harem pants. This means you must be a HIPPY. Come now, cast aside your former identity as a non-hippy, put on this patchouli and go out and buy some bangles forthwith."

However, on the way to the bangle shop (bear with me, kids), I am tempted by a velvet cloak and some mugwort tea.

 "Ah..." says brain. " I was mistaken before. You are in fact a PAGAN. Come now, cast aside those harem pants and let us seek some altar statues and medieval gowns."

On the way to the medieval tailor I stop to admire a pair of combat boots.

 "Ah..." says brain. "It appears you are a GOTH..."

And so on. You get the picture. I have this whole mishmash of things I'm into, but my brain would really rather it not be a mishmash, and instead be a nicely defined category with a set of convenient searchable keywords. Whatever new item I'm most in love with suddenly becomes The! Defining! Piece!, and I immediately want a completely new wardrobe (personality/bookshelf/living space) that channels the same vibe. Given that in my time I have run the gamut from dreadlocked hippy to befanged goth chick and back again via a brief dalliance with pink velour tracksuits and furry moon boots (what can I say, I'm changeable), this gets very old. And tiring. And confusing. Not to mention expensive.

Turns out there's a name for this kind of thinking, and it's not actually uncommon, although my brain's fetish for alternative lifestyle niches that may or may not exist ('granny punk' was a descriptor I once briefly used, for example) may not be typical. 

Allow me to Wikipedia at you: "The Diderot effect is a social phenomenon related to consumer goods. It is based on two ideas. The first idea is that goods purchased by consumers will align with their sense of identity, and, as a result, will complement one another. The second idea states that the introduction of a new possession that deviates from the consumer's current complementary goods can result in a process of spiraling consumption."

Boom.

You can actually see the Diderot effect working on me in the second half of this post I wrote in April. The term comes from this dude Diderot, a French philosopher, who several hundred years ago was given a new dressing gown. In comparison to this new item, the rest of his stuff started to seem lacklustre, inelegant, tacky. Diderot replaced his straw armchair with a newer, swankier model in Moroccan leather. Then he got a new writing table to replace his old desk. And so on, and so on... until he ended up in debt.

"I was absolute master of my old dressing gown," Diderot lamented, "but I have become a slave to my new one."

Grant McCracken, who coined the term 'Diderot effect', also spoke about 'Diderot unities'. This is similar to the way my brain clumps consumer goods together under basic labels: goth stuff, hippie stuff and so on. Most of your stuff will quite possibly represent your preferred Diderot unity - this is what you might think of as 'your style'. 

"A Diderot unity is a group of objects that are considered to be culturally complementary, in relation to one another. We as consumers, strive towards unity in appearance and representation of one’s self-image and social role. However, it can also mean that if a beautiful object deviant from the preferred Diderot unity is acquired, it may have the effect of causing us to start subscribing to a completely different Diderot unity," says this article. This sounds rather similar indeed to my bewildered bouncing from style to style over the last decade and a half.

Happily, the above-linked article also has some suggestions on how to defeat the Diderot effect - most of which are markedly similar to those I have blundered into through trial and error throughout my shopping ban attempts, including:

- Unsubscribe from marketing emails

- If you need to buy something, e.g. new clothing, make sure it works with your existing stuff

- Don't browse shopping websites

- Hang out with your friends somewhere that is not a shopping centre

For myself, I'm hopeful that just knowing the Diderot effect is at work, and being able to recognise it, will help to negate its power.

So there you have it. Learn from my mistakes, and those of a French philosopher in the 1700s: don't be a slave to your dressing gown.

Finding the Urban Wild

In June we moved house, from our grey council estate further into town. In many ways it was a relief - the new mortgage was cheaper than the rent, and finally we could put our own stamp on our dwelling without worrying about the landlord. Living closer to town was convenient for visiting friends, family, and helpfully our house is on the same road as the nursery the Spud will eventually be going to. The house is smaller, but it's a 1940s build with a fireplace and a beautiful archway between the kitchen and living room. It desperately needs redecorating, and we're trying to sell a lot of our furniture on Facebook marketplace in order to actually fit, but it's a brilliant house and I love it.

The garden is quite big, but it hasn't been tended in some years and is made largely of weeds and mud. This means I'm out there from dawn til dusk digging madly and putting down lawn seed, as about every two minutes the Spud traipses dirty footprints all through the house. I've given up on keeping anything clean in the meanwhile, so the downstairs is slowly becoming a swamp. I have also started a small herb garden and a vegetable patch, and my first crop of beetroot is coming along nicely. (I did, however, discover that we have an infestation of chafer grubs, which kill lawns - d'oh - so I'm going to sow clover seeds as a cover crop, which will also be good for the butterflies and bees.)

However, there have been some downsides to moving into a more urban area. Firstly, I no longer have easy access to woodlands and meadows for my walks with the Spud. We are within half an hour's walk of two brilliant nature reserves (the one we have made our territory for the last couple of years, and another, which is Green Flag rated and rather splendid), but it's not quite the same as having the river right on the back doorstep. I was surprised by how adrift and disconnected I have felt, not having quite such easy access to green space. We have been exploring the scrubby patches of trees and greenery around the edges of urban life, and I am learning that this kind of hardy, defiant growth has a very different spirit. It's harder to feel that strong sense of connection that I had been experiencing, but I'm hopeful that I can adjust and learn from this. I have Claire Dunn's Rewilding the Urban Soul and Tara Sanchez's Urban Faery Magick on my reading list to help me get acclimated!

Pentagram graffiti under a bridge. 
This is the same river that runs through the nature reserve where the Spud and I used to walk, but the vibe here is very different!

A more worrisome discovery is that living two minutes from the high street has kicked my consumerism into high gear. I've gradually been getting this back under control, but it wasn't an outcome I'd considered and it caught me rather by surprise! Sometimes it was obvious - hey, I'll just go browse this artisan market and the local independent shops for some home decor bits... yes, I definitely need another candle holder... - and sometimes less so - hey, a Nepalese takeaway, I'll just stop for some momos... hey, a Waitrose, I really fancy some sushi - but I quickly noticed that my finances were feeling the pinch and started avoiding the shops (and takeaways) unless I actually needed something.

The Spud wasn't immune to this either! He's well aware that shops are large repositories of toys, sweets and other things he doesn't have yet (on our last foray into the local independent shops he wanted a lucky waving cat and some crystal tumblestones... that's my boy) and has taken to hurling himself on the floor screaming if he is not bought Things! Immediately! I don't mind withstanding the hurricane of a toddler tantrum and will sit on the street and wait him out rather than cave in and buy a new toy from every shop we happen to pass, but avoiding the high street for now is probably the best strategy for both of us...

Another manifestation of the consumer trap I've noticed since we moved is that now I live on one of the main thoroughfares into town and am seeing lots more people every day, my anxiety about how I present myself also kicked up a notch for a while, and I had a few weeks where I wanted to waft around in flowy skirts and lots of jewellery to present a suitably alternative and Pagan appearance (although if questioned I'm quite sniffy about adopting a Pagan uniform, go figure). Looking a bit mysterious and witchy is far from being a problem in itself of course, but in my case it meant wanting to buy lots of new clothes, and also a tendency to stop doing the actual work in favour of spending a bit more time on my eyeliner. Style over substance is something I can easily slip into, and it's really not worth it.

This phase luckily came to an end when I was out on the new (to us) nature reserve and realised that I felt a bit conspicuous in my outfit. It was easier to switch off from the everyday and get connected when I was in my usual t-shirt and jeans or leggings. As I'd realised before, what feels great on Glastonbury high street or at the local rock bar doesn't always work well in other situations, particularly when my focus needs to turn outwards instead of inwards. I've not given up on my flowy skirts and jewellery for occasions when I know I'll be comfortable wearing them, but it was a reminder that, boring though it might seem to blend in, it does help me stop worrying about the surface stuff and writing shopping lists in my head and actually, y'know, do some Druiding.

Other than regularly visiting the nature reserves and spending lots of time in my garden, I have some other activities planned to help a) with being an effective student of Druidry and b) my transition to less consumerist living. Firstly, on my street there is a town museum, with a strong focus on the Iron Age, and I must pay a visit. I really want to get to know the history of this area, its folklore and - yes - its ghost stories (because I'm nerdy about spooky tales!). Secondly, I'm going to explore local shops of a different kind - I'm talking local produce and our excellent plant nursery. Thirdly, if time allows (which admittedly it may not) I'm considering getting involved with the group that runs conservation activities on the nature reserves as well as at other sites up and down the river. And lastly I've signed up to write infrequently on environmental issues for a local paper. I've also been asked to run a yin yoga class and guided meditation session for a dear friend's mental health support group - this is a bit out of my comfort zone (speaking? In front of humans?!) but when I thought about it, it seemed like a good way of supporting and being of service to my community. None of which require me to buy new clothes!

But I think the most important thing I can do is the same as it's always been - keep going outside!