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.