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.