Intentions for 2023

New Year's resolutions aren't for everyone, I know. Back in January, when talking about our goals for the year ahead was perhaps more relevant than it is now, Moss of Spiral Path wrote an interesting post about the toxic standards and unrealistic pressures that pile onto us year on year.

Yet, during that curious, dark and still time between Yule and Imbolc, I wrote in my journal this list of intentions:

- I want to be fully myself; to discover, express and live my truth. This will mean setting boundaries, speaking my truth, spending less time online so that I can understand and develop my own clear-headed thoughts, opinions, feelings and ideas, being honest with myself, listening to my body and my intuition, honouring my own thoughts and feelings.

- Quitting Amazon. Over the coming year I will use the vouchers I earn from surveys to buy those things on my wishlist that are only available from Amazon; the remainder of my wishlist I will move to Bookshop.org. I will also stop adding books to my wishlist in 2023 - I will discover books through personal recommendations, physical bookshops and the library.

- I will continue my practices of yoga, meditation, grounding and centring. 

- I will spend as much time outside as possible - I will put my bare feet and belly on the earth, I will swim in the sea.

- As well as the OBOD Bardic Grade and the Sisters of Rock and Root course which I am studying this year, I will continue to focus on my exploration of Druidry and the enchanted life through reading and practice.

- I will start re-reading books that I already own.

- I will slow down and invite simplicity, joy, connection with nature, contentment, peace, healing and grace. 

- I will continue to honour nature, the passing of the seasons, and our cyclical nature. I hope to move deeper into these practices and grow my connections with deity, the ancestors and the world of spirit.

- I will complete at least one of my stockpile of crafts and models.

- Insofar as it is financially feasible, I will continue working towards a low impact, zero waste lifestyle.

- I will not cut or dye my hair.

It's March now, so I can share a little insight into how I'm doing with these things:

- a work in progress, but I am learning to set boundaries, stop carrying what does not belong to me, and to be honest even when it's uncomfortable. I was recently on a therapeutic retreat where I met some individuals on twelve-step programmes, and I was deeply impressed by their hard-earned ability to express their feelings honestly, unashamedly and with clarity. I've been online more than I wanted to be (mostly to promote my book) but I'm currently working on taking a bit more of a break.

- This is going well. I have added no new books to my wishlist this year so far, and because I am reading books I already own and using the library, I don't have such a towering TBR. 

- I have practiced yoga and meditated every day so far this year and it feels SO GOOD. I've practiced yoga sporadically for years but it's only since developing this daily practice that I've been able to see noticeable changes in my strength and flexibility.

- This has been a struggle - it's been mostly cold and wet. I want to double down on this intention as I think it will make a huge difference to my experience this year if I can carry it out.

- Really enjoying the Bardic Grade so far, and currently reading Zen for Druids by Joanna van der Hoeven

- Re-reading some of my older books has been something I've planned to do for ages, it feels great to finally get on with it

- It's been an unusually busy year for me so far so slowing down has been harder than I anticipated over the winter when I was basically a hermit, so I need to take some time for rest when I can

- Haven't taken as much altar time as I would like this year, but I'm finding a disciplined meditation practice to be very beneficial

- I am currently knitting a hat from a kit Marc bought me in 2019 😂

- This is going well. We're having veg boxes delivered, eating locally and seasonally, buying from a nearby smallholding, using a local milkman, and have switched completely to natural non-toxic cleaning products. We also make use of a local food waste prevention discount store and community fridge, which pass on food from supermarkets and online stores that would otherwise go to landfill and use the profits for charitable causes, but this sometimes means we end up with a lot of plastic packaging. Luckily, our local zero waste refill store have a partnership with Terracycle, so they pick up all our hard-to-recycle plastics. It's not an ideal system, and sometimes I am tempted to slip a note in with the plastic recycling to explain where it has come from ("I'm not just a bad zero waster, I'm preventing food waste!"), but it feels like moving in the right direction.

- This is a random personal thing; since childhood I've wanted to know what would happen if I didn't cut my hair for a long period (say, a decade) but with my butterfly brain have never carried out the experiment. Thought I'd start small, with a year!

2023 is turning into a really interesting year for me. The confidence I have been building since I started working on myself in my first shopping ban is growing exponentially. My comfort zone is expanding, I'm calmer, I'm addressing some traumas from my past with help from therapy, and I'm really excited to see where things go!

As for shopping - well, I started a new shopping ban at Samhain, and I haven't broken it yet, which brings me to a personal best of 122 days without an unnecessary purchase. This time around, I'm definitely not finding it as difficult as I have in the past. I think I needed so many attempts to break the conditioning and habits that I had formed. This time, I think I will not only be able to achieve my 365-day goal (with some allowed purchases that I defined for myself at the beginning of the challenge), but also be under my annual budgets for the first time. Easy to say when it's only March 😂 but it just feels a lot more possible than it ever has before.

Into the Cauldron

During November, I scheduled myself a week of Cauldron Time, after taking the workshop Into the Cauldron with Moss of Spiral Path. Moss's concept of Cauldron Time is about taking time to rest and look deeply inwards during the dark half of the year. For me this involved taking space away from social media and screens, reading, journaling, meditating, yoga, divination, foraging, spending time in nature, cooking nourishing meals, and taking naps.

I'm a carer and parent, so I couldn't take a week off as would have been ideal, but I did try to maintain an atmosphere of calm and restfulness, and I also thought hard before agreeing to any social plans and only accepted invitations if I really wanted to. I found all this much harder than it probably sounds! Turns out, I am not brilliant at resting.

However, once I made the effort, I found it very effective. Taking time away from screens and spending lots of time outside under the grey November skies almost made it feel as though I had slipped slightly sideways out of ordinary time and into a liminal space. Suddenly I had loads of extra time which I had previously apparently been wasting fiddling about on my tablet and achieving very little. I also hadn't realised how rushed I normally feel, hurtling at ninety miles an hour from one responsibility to the next - again, apparently pointlessly, since during Cauldron Time the housework still got done, the Spud arrived at nursery on time, and everything was accomplished which needed to be, without me turning up everywhere sweaty, out of breath and slightly miserable. It was such a relief to stop trying to push the river.

I also spent time in darkness - the Spud and I sat out one night to watch the sunset, and were delighted to discover that our garden is apparently a bat hotspot. We also went walking under the full moon one night. I realised that I habitually do everything indoors, but I will try to make the effort to wrap up warm and head outside for reading, writing and playing (drinking coffee, doing surveys and checking emails could all be done outside too).

I found myself getting creative in the kitchen - mixing Penicillin cocktails on a whim to use up the last of the 'good' whisky, collecting rosehips and making syrup. 

I blitzed through my reading pile, and delved into poetry for the first time in a long time (The Girl and the Goddess by Nikita Gill was my starting point). Another notable book I read was The Stopping Places by Damien Le Bas. I found it really interesting to have a glimpse of different cultures and different ways of seeing the world, as well as different ways of experiencing this island where I live. I've been seeing Britain very differently since I started looking more into Druidry, folklore and history and learning about what's beneath and beyond the malls, car parks and council estates, and I find it fascinating to have these small peeks into a multiplicity of ways of living and of being here. We may share the same small bit of ground but we relate to it, see it and understand it in completely different ways. 

The lack of social media was a blessing during Cauldron Time. I often feel torn, as I've made some great connections on Instagram lately and found out about some wonderful events, but I can't deny I am more content without the mental chatter and feeling of being surveilled. No amount of giveaways are worth my peace of mind, surely?

The days felt strange - my life revolves mainly around caring for others and managing the household, so it was hard to find time alone or to deeply meditate as I might have liked, but the week was full of little coincidences and synchronicities, and that feeling that I was just outside normal life, in a secret and special space. The slower pace was wonderful - I did about as much as I normally would, but without feeling frazzled or habitually tense. And I prioritised time with my son over time with other people, which felt right - an important boundary that at times I had been lax about upholding.

I found taking Cauldron Time to be valuable, profound and powerful. There were many lessons that I plan to take forward, such as not letting all my time drain into my screens, being present, slowing down, and recognising that time with the Spud or time alone is also special and important, and that it's okay to prioritise it even when that means saying no to other things. 

Afterwards I felt more nourished, more settled, less scattered. I didn't really want to come back to normal reality, and I hope to try to keep my focus on rest throughout winter. I definitely plan to take Cauldron Time again next year, and at least once more this winter, to help me continue to live with more mindfulness and intention. 

I also had a guest spot this month talking to Hazel and Jenny on The Wheel podcast for their Sustainable Yule episode - listen here.

The Rarr

You might think I'd be used to getting my ass handed to me by oracle cards by now, but sometimes the accuracy of the insight revealed by a picture on a bit of cardboard still blows me away.

I pulled a card from my Faerie Oracle deck one morning when I was freaking out about style - again. I asked the cards, essentially, who I should try to be, but the card I pulled was the Rarr, reversed - a somewhat ominous warning that my energy was out of control, I was all over the place, distracted, I should make no decisions but take a cold shower, meditate, and try to ground myself.

I was slightly alarmed by this, and gave myself a quick three-card reading, which basically said 1) you need to reground yourself; 2) you need to reconnect with nature; 3) you need to slow down and stop trying to push the river.

Surprisingly (to me, perhaps not to you?), one of the most helpful practices for staying happy and motivated during my current no-buy was renewing my study of Druidry. My books are now peppered with post-its, I developed a strong daily routine that includes time outside and tending my altar before my yoga practice each morning, and I feel grounded, calmer and more contented. Seeing my everyday activities as sacred really has an effect on the energy that I am able to bring to them. Not that I'm never Shouty Mum any more, but definitely not as much. 

At this moment I have decided not to sign up to one of the two 'big Druid' correspondence courses in the UK, which are offered by the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids and the British Druid Order respectively. I'm aware that both are highly regarded and I have sent off for samples from both, but found myself reluctant to proceed. Partly because a lot of the basic material is already known to me from fifteen-ish years knocking around the Pagan community and studying folklore (and assorted New Age practices, many of which don't resonate with me - the OBOD course in particular I have seen described as New Age), partly because I'm not a joiner by nature, and partly because I'm not a huge fan of scripted ritual or male/female binaries. Yet I feel very connected with and drawn to Druidry, I just feel that as such I need to approach it in a way that makes the most sense for me. 

So I have a massive stack of books from different authors with different 'takes' on Druidry, and I'm also considering a course or two from Sharon Blackie, which aren't specifically Druidic but offer a deep dive into concepts such as the anima mundi and the mythopoetic worldview, which I feel would be useful. (I also attended Moss's excellent Re-enchantment is Resistance workshop back in the summer, and loved it.) So I've ended up with a sort of hodge-podge ramshackle hedge Druidry, and I imagine that there are people who may object to me using the word 'Druid' because of that, but I cannot overstate the value this way of relating to the world brings to my life.

For a few months this year I'd drifted away from studying Druidry. I always seemed to have other things to be doing - laundry, dishes, mucking about on my tablet. But after renewing my nature connection in Pembrokeshire, it seemed totally natural to return to it. Not only did it add fresh motivation and enjoyment to the practice of my no-buy, but it felt like a step I needed to ground that frantic, out-of-control Rarr energy.

I also recently re-read some of my own work, including my own book and this blog. I was startled and disappointed to notice how easily I'd slipped out of some good habits and into some bad ones. I actually had my shit much more together and felt overall more content when I was working much harder on my no-buy challenge. I think I knew that, deep down, and I think that's why I keep coming back to the idea of a no-buy year even when common sense should be telling me to give up. I've tried, in my book, to express the sense of freedom and deep joy I began to discover when I reoriented my life around not shopping, but even so, I've increasingly drifted away from it in the years since.

I think I need to take my own advice once again, go back to the beginning, and re-root myself into the practices that led me here. It isn't easy, but it is so beneficial to me.

Authenticity and the Introverted Bard

My word for the year last year, as you may remember, was 'authenticity'. I've been choosing a word to steer by each year since about 2014, but I found this to be one of the most meaningful and powerful - I am still feeling its effects throughout my life. Particularly in the latter half of the year when money became tight, events felt out of my control and I had to contend with the all-pervasive and visceral nature of grief and loss, keeping my focus on living authentically meant that I was able to forgo a lot of bullshit and avoid performing the complicated dance of people-pleasing. 

Being authentic, it turns out, involves owning your needs and being unapologetic about them. It means being honest, being imperfect, and being okay about being imperfect. It means getting okay with discomfort - my own, and other people's. For me, this was quite a radical thing. Not rushing to fill uncomfortable silences, not prefacing every thought with "Sorry, but..." , not rushing to smooth things over or taking personal responsibility for everyone else's experience. Not constantly wondering, "Did I come across weird there?", not striving to micromanage everyone's perceptions all of the time. 

It meant accepting how much emotional energy I had to give and not over-committing. It meant not agonising over composing perfect texts. It meant being more direct than I have ever been. Sometimes it meant facing up to mistakes and looking at how I could do better next time. I noticed that I stopped avoiding eye contact, or feeling silly if I didn't always have a pithy response ready.

Authenticity as a practice is both freeing and scary. One of the biggest things it gave me was the freedom and strength to speak at my father's funeral. Until the very last moment, I wasn't sure if this was something I could do. But I did - I probably rushed a bit, as I was nervous, but I didn't hyperventilate, or panic, and when I tripped over my words I was a able to gather myself and carry on without feeling embarrassed. I've rarely been so proud of myself.

This held relevance for my spiritual life as well. The first grade in many formal Druidic orders is that of Bard. As a lifelong writer, I felt some kinship with this idea - I'm a great believer in nurturing and developing our creative expression. I'm a published poet and previously performed once or twice with a bellydance group (although I got so anxious about this that I stopped, a good few years ago now). But my mental image of a bard was of someone who is comfortable on a stage, a talented musician, performer or storyteller, and that is definitely not me. I once stumbled over my words reading out a poem I'd written at a writing class, and instantly froze, unable to continue - I had to pretend I'd only written a single verse! 

There are, doubtless, innumerable ways to express oneself as a Bard, by the way - I certainly don't think that getting to grips with public speaking is an intrinsic part of Druidry! But to me, as someone who loves stories and the art of storytelling, it feels like an important step to get more comfortable with being able to express myself to an audience.

I'm not a brilliant orator, and I don't know that I'll ever be a fully confident performer. But the power of authenticity has shown me that I am capable. I'm not as frightened of people as I used to be, and I have really come to understand that mostly everyone is worrying about their own stuff, rather than scrutinizing me or expecting perfection. Storytelling, or even speaking out loud in front of others, no longer feels like an impenetrable realm accessible only to the extroverted.

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.

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...)

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.

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!

Avoiding Pagan Posturing in the Age of the Insta-Witch

I mean to tread lightly with this post; it's not my intent to offend anyone, and it's important to remember that I don't actually know the thoughts or intentions of other individuals and therefore can only pass conjecture on what I have observed. However, as someone with a (disturbingly) deep-rooted interest in style, personal image and how the above manifest in our bizarre social-media-driven consumer society, this topic is of great interest to me!

I was musing recently on how I'd managed to go from the relatively simple concept of a shopping ban to finding myself interested in Earth-based spirituality and considering a course in Druidry over the space of two years. But actually when I looked back it was quite easy to track the progression, a sort of spiralling journey from needing to do something to take my mind off shopping and get out of my own noggin; spending more time outside; falling back in love with the Earth and trying to live greener; taking up foraging and gardening, as well as environmental campaigning, which made me feel more and more connected to the Earth. This sense of connectedness then led me to start exploring Paganism - and here we are. Adding a spiritual or philosophical element to the green(ish) life, for me, helps to make it even more meaningful and fulfilling. The mythopoetic worldview (Sharon Blackie describes the mythic imagination here) ties into my lifelong love of the imagination and the liminal, and my staunch belief that all we can perceive with our limited human senses is far from being all there is.

However, knowing my tendency to cling to labels, not to mention my propensity for theatricality (I was goth for the better part of a decade - being at least a little bit theatrical is practically a job description), I determined to be slow and methodical about my studies, to make sure that what I was doing felt right for me and aligned with my actual lived experience (you can tell me all you want that amethyst and clear quartz are good for headaches, for example, and maybe for some people they are, but I might as well rub a custard cream on my forehead for all the good it does. Just because something is written in a book doesn't make it true for me). 

I also didn't want to do what I often do and believe everything I read without question, especially on the internet. Accepting an animistic worldview is an easy step for me - hello, I am a person who, as a child, brought home sticks that 'looked lonely' - I'm pretty much there already. However, I'm not going to go 'full Glastonbury' as Dai calls it and start thinking I'm a starseed. Reminder to brain: believing some stuff that makes sense to you and fits with what you know and have experienced does not equal believing everything ever espoused by anyone who owns a pentacle necklace. In the age of self-publishing on Kindle, one must have a pinch of salt ever at the ready.

But it's that theatrical tendency I'm particularly on guard against. I've mentioned before that my previous forays into Paganism have been accompanied by much swishing of velvet and esoteric jewellery. I love the look, and I'm really only ever a heartbeat away from putting on elf ears and a flower crown and flouncing into the sunset in a flutter of tie dye and a jingle of silvery bells. What I didn't want to do this time around was buy into a Pagan 'image' without doing any real work, confusing witchcraft with shopping (to paraphrase Terry Pratchett); or worse, spend time on social media showing all my friends how earthy and spiritual I am... 

This is where I need to watch my step. I understand that for many people, online communities, based around social media or otherwise, are very valuable. This is just as true within the Pagan community (the Resistance Witches with the 'Hex Trump' campaign are a memorable recent example!). And by no means does enjoying fashion (of any kind) or posting a selfie mean that someone is not participating in something real or valuable or meaningful. 

But I have found that for me personally, it detracts. Maintaining an image, whether through fashion or an Instagram feed, takes energy, time and work. Energy, time and work that I could better use studying, or writing, improving my focus, tending my herbs (or my son), or just going down to the river and spending some time in nature. If I break away from that to craft a good photo, my focus is split; I am not as peaceful, the connection falters; some of the benefit is lost. Likewise if I am worrying about my hair, or concerned about snagging my skirt.

Dai and I also saw, on our last trip to Glastonbury, a fair amount of what Dai describes as 'Insta-witches' - a lot of the more 'mystical' areas in the village, such as the beautiful Chalice Well, were surrounded by people taking photos for social media - we couldn't actually get near the Well on that particular visit as two women had colonised the area to set up a jewellery display which they were photographing. And we queued for half an hour to drink from the Red Spring as we had to wait for another bevy of phone-clutching mystics to finish setting up crystal grids and photographing their bare feet. (Please see my opening remarks about not actually knowing what other people are doing. I don't intend to cast aspersions or be snarky! But from an observer's perspective, it seemed... like posturing?)

It certainly got me thinking about my own approach - I really want to avoid taking a sort of Anne Gwish approach to spirituality ('being myself, as long as it looks good and people are watching'). 

I've been reading a book by Penny Billington called The Path of Druidry, and when I read some online reviews I noted that some people were irritated by a remark she makes in one of the early chapters: "A Druid should fit in, should be able to be invisible; that's what gives us the freedom to get on with our work. [...] Being self-consciously eccentric as a way of life is like trying to appear wise - it takes too much energy away from what Druid life and work are all about."

Now, I can totally see why some people found this irritating - 'fitting in' isn't really something I'm big on either. But my daily nature-walking wear of jeans and t-shirts is, well, pretty invisible. And for me, this was such a refreshing thing to read - an instant antidote to the itchy eBay bidding finger (step away from the Jordash dresses). 

I am someone who was recently described by a dear friend as "a New Age hippy... I think of you like one of those paper dolls, you mix it up and try different things, but your base setting is hippy fairy". (Naturally I'm delighted by this description.) So, believe me when I say, I can EASILY devote my time to being 'self-consciously eccentric'. I could start my own IG account of woodland selfies where I never look directly at the camera because I'm very mysterious and bohemian, or rip up flowers and fungi so I can take a photo of my hand holding them (I found a great post about this on an old blog by Grace Nuth - totally worth a read). Or, I can dress in a way that's pleasing enough, comfortable, and still allows me to tromp through muddy fields, and just get on with it! It was a RELIEF to have it spelt out for me that clothes do not maketh the Druid. It may not be even vaguely an issue for those who do not have my preoccupation with style and shopping, but it was a huge deal for me.

I've decided that balance is, as it often is, the key. My dramatic skirts have their place - when we visit our favourite canalside Pagan pub for a pint of ale, or roaming the streets of Burley or Glastonbury. But when I want to be able to crawl into hedges, cross streams or move through woodland, it's sensible coat and shoes all the way. This probably seems really obvious to you! But I, for whatever reason (gothy theatrical tendencies?) benefit from a reminder.

Walking the Wild Edges

Since I realised the calming, uplifting effect that walking in nature has on me, I've been spending more and more time outside. The Spud is benefiting from this too - he loves to be out in the fresh air. As well as our everyday walks, when the weather is good we pack a picnic into my backpack and head out on a longer expedition. 

In recent years I've moved from the country village where I grew up to a council estate in the suburbs (by way of a few people's spare rooms, after splitting with my ex shortly before we were due to go travelling). There was a bit of adjustment required when we arrived in this grey terrace, but soon I discovered there was a nature reserve behind the estate with a river running through it. Now the Spud is bigger and can walk further, we hike across the fields to the woodlands I used to walk in when I was growing up. 

Each year more land is sold to the developers, and more of the fields I used to play in are swallowed by the urban sprawl, but it's still relatively easy to scratch off the thin veneer of civilisation and find ourselves far from anywhere, between Roman roads and Old Straight Tracks, copses and hedgerows and sun-dappled glades of celandine and primrose. You can still see the progress of mankind in the ploughed fields and tumbledown barns, the glint of a beer bottle in the nettles, the pylon stalking unexpectedly across the horizon like an invader from another time. But it feels for all the world as though we're alone on the edges of things, where something magical might still happen.

I grew up here, I found myself thinking, as the Spud and I shared a sandwich and a drink of water in the shade of a hedge. Looking out over the fields I could see the straight, tree-lined cut of a Roman road. I'd walked that road with my mother as a child, and for years after I'd had a recurring dream about it, a cloaked rider on a dark horse pounding down the hill towards me. 

The Spud and I followed the footpath across the centre of the field. Vast clouds sailed across the sky like zeppelins, sending shadows chasing over the ploughed earth. I felt like Tiffany Aching walking on the Chalk. Perhaps, I thought idly, if I were ever to set up an altar again, I might do better to have some of these flints than some fancy shiny foreign crystals, no matter how pretty. After all, this ground here is what I'm made of. This chalk and flint may as well be my bones. My mother's maiden name comes from "Free", and there have been Frees here, and in the surrounding area, since records began. (I did some digging into my ancestry recently, and other than my paternal grandmother who was from Bornholm - and her ancestors, back to the 1700s at least, adding a strain of Norse to my makeup that I'm quite proud of - my family looks to be of Anglo-Saxon descent on both sides.)

Just as I was musing about flints on my altar, the Spud caught hold of my jeans and offered me a huge flattish oval specimen that he had prised out of the dirt of the path. Crouching beside him, I turned it over in my hands, and caught my breath. The underside of the flint was covered in sparkling crystal that glittered in the sunlight. Wow, I thought. Okay. I can take a hint.

My sparkling flint

This is far from the most strange thing that has happened to me out on the wild edges of this land. Nor am I the only one who can tell stories about this area. (Britain on the whole is a strange country with an equally strange history, which is why I love it so much.) For example, a few years ago I was working in one of the last independent shops on my local high street. The owner was (is) a fairly well-to-do bohemian-ish lady who lived in the next town over. To get home from work she had to drive through several villages (including mine) and along an old, but well-travelled, road overlooked on both sides by woodlands and open fields. One night she had passed through my village and was heading through moonlit farmland when something dashed into the road in front of her, paused in the headlights for a moment, and disappeared into the hedge on the other side.

But in that frozen moment she saw it quite clearly. "I can only describe it as a goblin," was what she said, and though the shop staff speculated that it may have been a flashback from an acid trip in her misspent youth, she was quite shaken, and it was a while before she drove that way at night again.

The street I grew up on was at the edge of the village and ended in farmland. There was a big pasture at the end of the road, which was bordered on the far side by a very old narrow footpath known locally as the cinder track.

One evening when I was about eight or nine, my friend Alec and I were sitting with our backs against someone's garage door on the edge of the pasture, talking rubbish and looking out over the fields as the sun went down. We both saw, at the same moment, a figure striding along the cinder track towards the village.

I remember looking at Alec to make sure he was seeing it too, and my own fear was reflected in his eyes. The dark figure - a black silhouette - was taller than the straggly trees that bordered the footpath, making it ten, eleven feet tall or more. Its arms were unnaturally long, reaching past its knees. And even from this distance, impossibly, we could both see its eyes, which were deep red, glowing like hot coals. And there was this... feeling, seeping from it like mist, a malevolence.

Without a word to each other we both bolted, ran for our houses, leaving dust in our wake.

Sometimes, walking in the woods with my little boy, I feel like I've stepped sideways out of the flow of what is deemed to be 'normal life'. There are days when I'm so enmeshed in the System -  earn your money, pay your bills, check your emails, go to the supermarket, watch telly, work work, rush rush, veg out, repeat - that getting out of it seems impossible. I look at those I know who live in vans and on boats, who drift on the wind and the tide at whim, and I can no longer figure out a way to join them. 

But I'm not sold on the other way of living either, and I feel that keenly when we're wandering on the edges. I feel this gulf between me and the world of Friends re-runs and hair straighteners, Love Island and eyelash curlers and Primark... Suddenly none of that has any meaning. I feel more and more like I'm looking at that world from somewhere else, and it's a language that I don't understand any more.

Sometimes it's alienating to believe in magic and monsters when most of those around you are existing in a different reality. But I've seen what I've seen and felt what I've felt, and the flint of the land, thousands of years old, is in my bones. Strange things still happen on the Old Straight Tracks, even as the sound of traffic encroaches and the pylons march on across the landscape. The weird and the wild are still out there, beyond this 'civilised' existence we've trapped ourselves in, if you know where to look.

I Suck at Being Green (But I'm Still Trying)

There are a number of reasons why I'm not very good at being green. I've been trying to 'go greener' since late 2019, when I learned about the climate crisis and went into panic mode. And whilst I do my best, I still often feel like a beginner at these lifestyle changes, and I've made more than a handful of bad decisions along the way. I console myself with the fact that I alone won't make any huge difference one way or the other, but as someone who cares about nature and the environment, and who wants to leave a safe and thriving planet for future generations, I still feel that it's worth trying to bring my lifestyle in line with my values.

In some areas, I feel like I'm doing okay. I've hosted a successful clothing swap party (pre-COVID!) and look forward to doing so again one day. We clean our house with reusable cloths and white vinegar, we use cloth wipes for the little one's bum (he doesn't like wearing the reusable nappies, though, which I wish I could have predicted before I bought them as they're hardly cheap. And I don't know if the staff at his nursery next year will be willing to use cloth wipes, but I'll certainly ask), and I continue to volunteer for Greenpeace. I use an eco friendly natural deodorant, and it took a long time to find one that was natural, effective, and doesn't contain baking soda, to which I'm sensitive (I use Space Cat by Awake Organics; it lasts absolutely ages - one tin lasts me six months - comes in recyclable packaging, I smell faintly citrussy, and I don't need to worry about aluminium in my breast milk). My hair dye is henna; for laundry I use an eco ball with a touch of Dr Bronner's if it's Dai's work gear or baby poop; I have a safety razor so I don't use disposables. We have a sustainable loo roll subscription. I'm on a green energy tariff (I use USwitch to get the best deals). So it's not all bad!

But there are still a lot of changes I'm struggling with. My biggest weakness - and this won't surprise you! - is that I still find it really hard not to shop for new clothes. Even though I don't need any! It's a problem. I've noticed that I have a big splurge around every third month (September, December, March). So gotta watch myself this month. And yes, I'm buying from much better companies, and I no longer spend my entire bank account every month (hooray) so things have distinctly improved. Fashion is such a polluting industry, though, that I really want to stop shopping when I don't actually need to be. (Even as I'm typing this, my brain is like "oh but when you go away for your birthday weekend you might see something you like," but I must try harder to be a bit more ruthless if I don't want to end up back at square one.) 

I find it hugely frustrating that others find it comparatively easy not to clothes shop. My friend Topaz has only bought a handful of second-hand items on eBay since her last big clearout, which was last year. Whereas I seem to be convinced that I'll miss out on some magical item that will, I dunno, round out my personality and give my life meaning? 

Food is another bone of contention for me. We did try switching our weekly grocery shop to an organic delivery company last year, but in the end we had to accept that although the quality was great, the cost just wasn't realistic for us. I also don't do all the grocery shopping for the family, and those who do don't necessarily share my concerns about excess packaging and imported foods. I did put my foot down over blackberries in January flown from South America, but when somebody else is buying your food you can only do so much whingeing before you start sounding seriously ungrateful. We also do eat meat, although we have cut down a lot, but I can't honestly picture Dai ever going veggie.

I have also found that frugality and environmentalism don't always go hand in hand. Often they do, such as with our kitchen cloths and baby bum wipes, but sometimes the price of an eco alternative puts it well out of my reach. Sometimes I accept paying more for an item which is better for me and better for the environment, for example I only use cosmetics without a whole host of toxic ingredients (except the batch of seriously colourful make-up I recently bought off a goth friend - she wasn't using it, so it's recycling, and although I'm ambivalent about make-up on occasion I've been enjoying playing with things like upsettingly orange eyeshadow and swamp-witch-green mascara. I dread to think what's in it, though). And since I switched us all to natural bath products, the Spud's eczema has cleared up, which is telling. It means that my spend on cosmetics is a lot higher than some people's - what's a body lotion cost in Aldi? 70p? The last one I bought was from Luna Levitas and cost about a tenner. But I use what I buy, only buy what I need, and my skin does actually seem to benefit. And we save on eczema creams, so there's that.

I had a bit of a problem with shampoo, though. I tried switching to natural shampoo last year, but I didn't know that in a hard water area, shampoo needs to have a surfactant to actually work. Many shampoo bars and natural shampoos are just made with oils, so for several months I went around with greasy hair and a horrible grey waxy build-up that even the strongest apple cider vinegar rinse wouldn't shift. I couldn't understand what was going on and thought I was just going through the worst detox phase of all time. Then just when I was ready to give up, I found a post on a blog called Sustainably Lazy that explained the whole thing. I immediately switched to a shampoo bar from Lush and have never looked back! 

I've made the mistake of trying to buy my way to sustainability, spending a fortune on organic veg boxes and reusable nappies and fancy matching cloths and zero waste bras (okay, I actually really recommend these, they're from Pethau Bach on Etsy and they're brilliant and gorgeous. They also come in a breastfeeding style, which is what I currently wear) and jute washing up cloths and organic toothpaste and so on and so on, which blew a chunk of my finances and turned out to be completely unnecessary in a lot of cases. You can use old cotton t-shirts for cleaning rags, you don't actually need a colour coordinated set. I've also tried to do the opposite and stop spending any unnecessary moneys ever, but I went too far in my Eco Thrift Crusade and felt like a right joyless old frump; in the end it was a relief to run out and buy some nail polish. So as usual, extremes are counter-productive, at least for me. I push myself too far in one direction or the other and then tend to burn out. 

For a while recently I felt tired of the whole thing - I'd lost any sense of what the point was, and the ever-present temptation of shopping my way to fulfilment (or at least a sort of pleasant-ish numbness) was starting to seem a far more tantalising prospect. Funnily enough, it was my rekindled interest in Paganism (more about this later!) which has revived my interest in green and simple living. I say funnily enough because my previous forays into various Pagan paths have involved purchasing a lot of fancy implements and setting up elaborate altars only to feel disheartened and move on after a couple of months. This time I've bought no athames, pentacles, incense, altar cloths, crystals, divination decks, Goddess statues, wands, runes, singing bowls, ritual robes, goofer dust, crystal balls, besoms, black mirrors, candles or anything else! Instead I've taken my own advice - spent time daily in nature, kept up my meditation practice and done a bit of online research. I came across a description of Druidry that stopped me in my tracks, as it seemed very close to what I've been feeling and experiencing myself. 

I'll need to know more about Druidry before I say for sure, so I need to get my hands on some books and look into it further, but it really seems like a down-to-earth philosophy of living that could add meaningfulness to my environmentally-based choices and depth to my experience of the world. The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids offers a highly recommended correspondence course that I'm intrigued by, not least because you're assigned a mentor whom you can plague with questions (Dai can attest to the fact that I'm full of annoying spiritual questions right now). I've also been reading some Druid blogs (Druid blogs!) and, well, isn't it great when you find someone else articulating things you've been thinking and feeling? 

So that's where I'm at right now. Imperfectly green but doing my best, intrigued by Druidry, excited by possibilities (and overfond of parentheses).