Style vs. the World

Often, when I am thinking about clothing and style, I am thinking about me. What will my style be. What do I like. What will I wear. What will I buy.

Occasionally I am jolted out of this me-centric microcosm and I catch a glimpse of the macrocosm. I am reminded, again, that none of my choices exist alone, that I belong to the Earth, that 'what I do to the web, I do to myself' (to paraphrase Chief Si'ahl). The True Cost was a memorable incidence of this (and I still recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who wears clothes). More recently, I read Consumed by Aja Barber, and it was another much-needed reality check. 

It's not that I don't believe that we as individuals deserve nice clothes and great style. It's just that it's easy to get fixated on the nice, glossy, surface aspects of the fashion industry, and big business in general, and then we can kind of ignore the difficult truths that our purchases are often doing harm in the world, and that climate change is fairly likely to pull the rug out from under our comfortable existences in the next ten years or so.

Let's tackle the first aspect of this first. Consumed was not a comforting read for me as a white person. I knew that the fashion industry of the global North was both exploitative and extractive, but I'd never understood it in terms of colonialism before. It strongly reinforced, for me, that there is nothing whatsoever good about the fast fashion business model, and we need to stop supporting it and pumping our hard-earned money into it, stat.

There were sections of the book that kept me up at night. I'm not sure how exactly to describe what I was feeling, but I think the best term is horror. 

"The settlement of Old Fadama is where a lot of the unsold clothing from Accra ends up; it's home to 80,000 people and is built on top of dumped clothing. These people are becoming physically displaced by the clothing that is disenfranchising their way of life."

I just... I'm still processing that. People are living on top of our unwanted clothing. Accra, in Ghana, is home to Kantamanto Market, the biggest second-hand market in the world. Up to 90% of donations made to charity shops in the UK will eventually end up there, because there is so much. Even in Kantamanto much of this waste remains unsold. But the landfills are struggling to cope, so there is waste clothing in piles on street corners, on the beaches, in the sea... If you want to know what that looks like, click over here.

I am mortified that this is what we, collectively, as a society, have been doing to other people. 

Now, thinking about climate change. I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I find it quite difficult to reconcile the way we are currently living with the devastation that - worst case scenario - could be occurring in the next ten years if we don't radically alter our trajectory. I am aware that the first and worst hit by climate change will be the already-marginalised peoples of the South (where climate change is already happening, lest anyone still think this is a future possibility - no, climate crisis, climate deaths and climate refugees are a reality that is happening right now), but I'm going to couch this mainly in UK terms, as I'm writing this mainly thinking about people who are privileged like myself, looking at this mess from the same position as me, but also, like many of us, not actually looking at it, because it's complicated and scary. People who, like me, say, "Ah yes, climate change, very terrible, much sad," and then turn right back to our phones and feeds and carry on shopping.

I think I've gone over a lot of these points before, so I'll just recap some of the highlights, as I notice that a lot of my friends in the UK are still thinking of climate change as something that will affect, say, the Amazon rainforest, or a handful of ice caps - and yes, yes it will affect those things, and that would be tragedy enough in itself, but also the UK will be facing:

- Increasing flood risk

- Crop failure and failing fisheries (that's food shortages)

- Climate refugees and potential conflict (when those low-lying coastal regions are under water, people will be in competition for the remaining land and food)

- Increased risk of pandemics

- Increased risk of fires

- More storms and extreme heat

- London mostly underwater by 2050

All of those at once sounds fairly apocalyptic to me, and makes it very difficult to plan for retirement or my child's future. I'm doing my best, but when the signs point to 'business as usual spells environmental devastation' but everyone in charge is doing a good impression of an ostrich, I'm also looking quite seriously at moving to higher ground and learning how to function off-grid. Did everyone else start talking about who would be on their zombie apocalypse team when The Walking Dead came out? Time to start dusting off those survival plans, IMO. Build your communities now. Unless you trust Boris and the gang to save us all. (My husband is a mechanical engineer; my skills include spinning, weaving, archery, foraging and some basic herbal medicine. It's a start.)

So, while in the short term I'm thinking about accessories and trips to Glastonbury, the long term future is uncertain and hard to look at directly. Is anyone else experiencing this disconnect? 

A book I have found useful is Climate Cure: Heal Yourself to Heal the Planet by Jack Adam Weber, who is himself a climate refugee, having evacuated from wildfires in California and then lost everything to volcanic eruption in Hawai'i. Weber directly addresses the weird limbo we are currently in: "I've also let go of the expectation of living indefinitely in a comfortable and standard home, with money in the bank. We are all now more nomadic and vulnerable than we realise or might prefer. We cannot know when we will be stripped of all for which we've worked so hard."

Despite the title, which for me conjures visions of white light and sending positive thoughts, Climate Cure focuses on tackling eco-anxiety, engaging with climate breakdown and building resiliency, both on an individual and community level. Weber says, "Outer solutions remain only as effective as our passionate care to radically minimalise our personal lives so we 1) consume less, 2) free up time and energy to engage in regenerative acts, such as growing our own organic food and showing up to help one another, 3) demand top-down change from our governments, and 4) learn about climate crisis to support ourselves and others through it."

Books like Consumed and Climate Cure really help me keep things in perspective. It's not about how many pairs of shoes I have or what brands I buy. It's about de-growth; it's about what I can do if I'm not busy consuming, it's about doing my best in my lifetime to mitigate the damage that has been done. It's about learning new ways of living that are more viable within the parameters of our planet.

A World Without Climate Change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lessons From The Rebellion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Seaside Scavenging and Surfers Against Sewage

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not once.

But 7,000 times.

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

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

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

Lessons, Thoughts and Inspiration From My 30-Day Reset

Zero Waste Style

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

Clutter and Emotional Labour

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

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

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

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

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

Environmentalism, Joy and Style

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

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

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

Learning To Trust Myself

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

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

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

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

This blue bob was epic. And extremely blue

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

Letter to the Earth

Written for the Letters to the Earth project. I'd love for you to write and share your own letters (which can be art, or poetry, or however you like to express yourself) to help encourage and inspire change ahead of the COP in November. In uncertain times, putting pen to paper can be cathartic. And the more of us who speak up on behalf of the Earth, the harder we become to ignore.

Dear Earth,

I'd love to have something pithy and original to say here, but I'm going to try to speak from the heart. I think you deserve that much. 

The fact is that I'm scared. I never thought I'd be a mum, but now that I am, now that there's a little being dependent on me, I'm finally looking around at the mess we're in, and I'm terrified that it's too late to make meaningful change. 

For a long time I took you for granted. Yet as a child I loved nature. I loved to play in the woods and build 'grass houses' in the fields. I still remember waking early on frosty mornings to ride horses out on the rolling downs, when the grass was still cold enough to crackle under their hooves. I remember building dens in the woods with my friends, coming home for dinner with muddy knees and leaves in our hair.

I'm not sure when the disconnect started, but I know that for a while there was a time when I was too busy to notice a sunset, too concerned about my hair and make-up to swim in the sea. I'm lucky that my little one loves nothing more than to be outside - our daily walks gradually, quietly reminded me of all the wonder that was here all along. 

I just want to tell you that I can see now the state that we're in, and I want to change it. I want to help you, to protect you, like I wish I had been doing all along. I want my little boy to have a future, a safe and thriving future, but even had I not been a mother, I would want to protect and cherish you simply because it's right. Because you have given me everything. You are my mother, and my mother's mother. You were my playmate in childhood, and as I grew up your beauty gave me strength when I felt down or lost. 

I'm sorry for all the ways that I am and have been part of the problem. Change is slow, and going against the grain of convenience and consumerism is sometimes stupidly difficult. I'm also sorry that those in power are choosing not to listen to our voices. It's frustrating, and it's terrifying, when every day more is lost and we have so much more to lose. It seems that those who could change things will not. I'm furious that 'growth' and profit and business-as-usual are deemed more important than the Amazon and the pollinators and the oceans, and I don't understand how we came to conflate destruction with progress.

But I promise that I will keep trying to do what I can. I promise to take action on your behalf, as much and as often and as fiercely as I can. And I will keep on loving you, and I will teach my little boy to love you too, with all his wild heart.

Forever,

Kat

Scenes From The Impossible Rebellion

On Tuesday this week, the Spud and I found ourselves on the train to London. I hadn't really thought that I'd be able to take part in the Impossible Rebellion in person this year, mainly due to financial concerns but also because I'm a full-time parent and that's kind of an intense job. So on Sunday, when I learned about the XR Families group and their kid-friendly Feed-In and Play-In, I immediately started looking at train tickets. 

Monday night, I almost didn't sleep. I'd seen some scary scenes of somewhat aggressive policing at the protests, and whilst I trusted the organisers to have arranged a child-safe space, I was still a little nervous. Still, I reasoned, I wasn't going to be locked on to anything or glued to the pavement - if at any point I felt uncomfortable, we would get up and leave. 

I channelled my nervous energy into making a 'Little Rebel' patch for the Spud out of a stained old t-shirt, and for myself I recycled an old tote into a back patch for my waistcoat. I wanted to be able to cover the patches with our jackets if need be - I'd seen photos of a mother and children refused access to a protest site, preparing their materials in the street. I didn't fancy travelling all that way to become a rebellion of two, so I wanted us to be able to move 'undercover' if we had to!

Once we arrived in London we had plenty of time to make our way to the meeting point, as specified in an encrypted message by the organisers. We got there early, which was just as well, as the intended meeting place had been made inaccessible, so I had to try to follow directions on Google Maps to find the others. My complete inability to navigate made a five-minute walk feel like half an hour, but luckily the rebels were pretty easy to spot, their pink flags proudly bearing hearts and hourglasses. 

A lot of this particular group seemed to already know each other. There was a definite middle-class-hippie vibe, and the fashion choices ranged from cardie and leggings to the ubiquitous vegan mama uniform of colourful-harem-pants-and-relaxed-jumper. I spotted a boiler suit hand-painted with the XR hourglass on the back, with a tree growing up through the middle. The organiser Miranda made a point of personally greeting all the new arrivals, which was nice, and I struck up a pleasant conversation with a friendly blonde lady with a perky ponytail and a child slightly older than the Spud.

The Spud and I settled on the edges of the group. He was tired by this point and deeply cranky, but from his hiding place in my lap I could see one bright eye roving over the other babies and children. Eventually he plucked up courage to join the group and begin chalking on the pavement, beside a blonde boy of about nine years old, who, much to my amusement, was writing 'DISOBEY' in capital letters. (The Spud drew a tree.)

Watching the kids playing, I almost jumped out of my skin as an arm slid around my shoulders. It was a chap in patchwork trousers and a 'police liason' pink high vis, who introduced himself and asked who he needed to check in with. I directed him to Miranda, not sure whether to feel pleased or vaguely alarmed.

Once the group had assembled - don't ask me for an estimate of numbers; it seemed a desperately small group to begin with but by the time we set off our numbers had swelled - we began our march through Cheapside to the Bank of England. The Spud mostly marched with the index finger of his free hand jammed firmly in his nostril, so I was quite glad when I reviewed the livestream (you can see our action from 2.16; it's worth watching to hear the speakers) later on to find that the walk itself wasn't broadcast. Plenty of people stopped to watch the rebels go by and to take photos. One motorist beeped his horn as we crossed the road; not sure if it was encouragement or derision. A cyclist pulled her bike over to applaud.

We arrived outside the Bank of England and spread out on the pavements on either side of the road. As soon as the police and our liasons halted traffic, the group rushed into the road itself, spread out our picnic blankets, and sat down, much to the surprise and exasperation of our police escort. There we remained for the next hour or so, forming a road block. The kids played together, made art, blew bubbles, and we all sang songs. A friend I sent pictures to commented on how peaceful it was compared to the bad rap XR get in the press. Several speakers gave talks, notably Caroline Lucas from the Green Party. The speaker from Afghanistan moved several people to tears, including me. 

At three o'clock, the rebels had agreed with the police we would move off the road, and we did exactly that, resuming our camp on the pavement outside Fortnum and Masons, where a panel of doctors and scientists had set up an 'emergency childcare meeting' at a pink table. By half past three the Spud was indicating that he had had enough, so we quietly gathered our things and headed back to the station. At least he had had fun sharing toys with a new friend, and perhaps we had inconvenienced one or two billionaires. I like to hope that we helped get the message across in some small way, but it seems to me that however loudly we sing, no one in power is listening.

Why the Bank of England?

From an email from Digital Rebellion, whose actions this week are also focussing on the Bank of England: "The Bank of England regulates and oversees the stability of The Uk's economy. It had the power to bail out the banks during the Banking Crisis and to supply billions of pounds in COVID loans this year. 

"To quote them: "Promoting the good of the people of the United Kingdom by maintaining monetary and financial stability."

"Did you know that billions of taxpayers' money during the pandemic was handed to Fossil Fuel companies in the shape of very low interest rate loans (0.3 to 0.7% interest) - adding to the Climate Disaster we’re facing? Did you know that the Bank of England also has its own investments and bonds in Fossil Fuel companies? 

"The Bank of England acts behind marble walls and layers of institutional secrecy - but our money is being spent on propping up the very companies responsible for pushing us over 1.5C degree warming into 3C and they have said it on their own website. The Bank of England could, overnight if they wished, refuse any financial institution in the UK to do business with Fossil Fools. Have they? Nope.

"Recently, the Bank of England has claimed to build a ‘Path to Net Zero’ but its actions fail to live up to even that hollow promise. We ask whether the Bank of England will stop funding fossil fuels? We ask whether it has a Climate Bail Out fund for the flooded cities, ruined businesses, and impoverished communities that the Climate Crisis will create? We ask whether it will ensure that UK insurance companies keep their promise? Because so far it has utterly failed us - despite telling us they work for the Good People of The United Kingdom they are still doing business as usual and funding Climate Change."

Parenting in a Nature-Depleted Age

'What is the extinction of the condor to a child who's never known a wren?' - Robert Pyle

I was an outdoorsy, free range child, but as a teen things changed. As I grew older and spent more and more time on my appearance, I also spent more and more time online. I was the girl who wore six inch heels to walk the dog. I wore a full face of make-up to stay indoors on the computer. It just became my new normal. I lost touch with the previous version of me who played amongst the bluebells and always had grass stains on her knees. Eventually I started to avoid doing anything that might smudge my eyeliner, interfere with my hair extensions or damage my lace petticoats. I stopped going swimming or to the beach. It actually got to the point when the breeze on my skin felt irritating - annoying and alien. I preferred to stay indoors, where the temperature was regulated and nothing might muss me. Chatrooms, blogs and forums were my 'real world'.

I realise that in a lot of ways I was an extreme case! Luckily this bizarre phase only lasted a short while. But I'll never forget feeling disturbed by the slightest of breezes! Now I'm more like my mum who, come rain, shine, storms or snow, always went to the back doorstep first thing upon waking, and sat on the step wrapped in her dressing gown, looking into the garden with her cup of tea. That peaceful time and connection with the outdoors is a great way to start the day refreshed and grounded, even if your toddler wants you to join in his persecution of the local woodlouse population rather than drink your coffee in peace. But I digress.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see now how lucky I was to be able to have such an outdoorsy childhood. We were able to rent a house in the village, which we might not otherwise have had access to, as my parents worked for the landowners. This provided a brilliant place to grow up - surrounded by woodlands and meadows, I could play unsupervised but safe from traffic, and I was able to range further as I got older. Of course not every child has access to this much unspoilt nature, particularly not nowadays as we try desperately to house our growing population and provide the infrastructure that they need. 

We now live in a digital age. Many well-meaning friends and family have said things to me like, "Not to worry, soon you can get your little one a tablet, and then you won't have to do so much with him." I absolutely could plonk him in front of a screen for several hours a day, but as we've learned when we've fallen back on that easy option before, we all suffer. His mood suffers, his behaviour suffers, and bedtime becomes an all-out battle. So we keep screen time to a minimum - just an episode of one of his favoured shows now and again, usually if Dai's working and I need to cook dinner without small hands trying to investigate all the hots and sharps. 

If it hadn't been for the Spud, I'm not sure whether I would ever have rediscovered my love of the outdoors. He's an extremely active child - I once took him to a class for lively toddlers and he ran rings around all the others before effecting an escape through a door one of the other mums had left open whilst looking at her phone. I had to hurdle chairs, bags, and other people's children to catch him before he could find his way out into the street.

To keep his energy levels under control so we can have relatively calm days, he has a minimum of an hour's walk around the neighbourhood. Every day, rain or shine. In the warmer months, he spends more time in the garden than in the house. Had I not been a parent, I might have spent a good chunk of 2020 under the duvet, or vegetating in front of Netflix. As it was, every day we spent our allotted hour down on the nature reserve, avoiding other people and enjoying the birdsong, and we've kept up the habit. If the weather's bad, we often don't see anyone else around. On rainy days, we put on our wellies and waders and go splashing down the river, just us and the ducks. 

I recently read about 1000 Hours Outside, which encourages kids and parents to match screen time with time in nature, and I've kept this in the back of my mind ever since - on those days when I struggle to feel enthusiastic about rebuilding the leaf pile for him to jump into for the 97th time, or when he's leading me further away from home just as I'm starting to think about checking my email. Every hour we spend wandering woodland paths and back alleys is another hour closer to that epic 1000 hours. 

The Spud with his bag of wildflowers

The fact is that although I no longer live in an idyllic village, I want my son to have the same interest in the outdoors that I have. The sad truth is that we now live in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. One in seven of the UK's native species face extinction. Just 13% of the UK's land area has tree cover - compared to a 35% average over the rest of Europe. And if my generation raise our children indoors, staring at screens, things can only get worse.

Nature deficiency is bad for children. Author Richard Louv describes some of the symptoms: 'Diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses.' In her book Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild, Lucy Jones writes, 'My grandmothers had an inherent lexicon of the natural world and how it operates. My parents knew their birds, flowers and plants; names, timing and behaviours. I knew a bit, maybe five to ten per cent of what they knew, and I was keener on wildlife than most of my friends. It would follow that my daughter's connection with the natural world would be even more remote than mine. Would she be able to name - by which I mean know - anything at all? Or would she be so desensitized to the point where a connection with nature would have little - or no - value?' 

Not only are we depriving our children of a vast array of joys and wonders if we fail to encourage this connection, but it's bad for the rest of the ecosystem too. Children won't care about what they don't know. In our increasingly industrialized society, facing a deeply uncertain future of extreme weather events, pandemics and climate chaos, further alienation from the world that sustains us will only further contribute to the modern view of nature as hostile and 'other' at best, and at worst a collection of meaningless resources to be plundered.

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). 

Ways I'd Like To Rejig Society (or, Unfucking A Couple of Things That Are Fucked)

I had a strange and memorable conversation with a dear friend a few years ago. We were talking about cosmetic companies testing their products on animals. Awful, she said, disgusting. Shouldn't be allowed. 

So, you check the labels when you buy make-up, then? To make sure it's cruelty free?

Oh no, she said with a brisk shake of the head. Can't be bothered with all that.

I think this illustrates the way a lot of people feel about this and other related issues - animal testing, food production, sweatshop factories, poverty and hunger, forced labour and modern slavery, climate change, mass extinction. Sure, we know there's a problem, and in general we think this stuff shouldn't be happening. But... the way we live is so easy. So comfy. Let's just draw a discreet veil over all the stuff we wish wasn't happening so that we can just carry on the way we are.

This is why I believe that, unlike economics, sustainability needs to apply from the top down. If new standards for businesses, new legislation, were to exist, the choices available to the everyday consumer could be made less damaging. It's easy to choose cruelty free when all of the options are cruelty free. You don't need to check your labels for the leaping bunny when cruelty free and sustainable is simply the default. 

I'm not really sure why FairTrade, cruelty free, organic and eco friendly options are still considered a bit niche, and items made by desperate people in horrific conditions using toxic chemicals are the acceptable norm. I hope to see this change - really change - within my lifetime.

Some people may feel a sense of resistance to the idea of having their options for consumption limited. We are used to choosing from a vast menu of options for everything - from wedding dresses to peanut butter - and we don't really want this to change. But who would knowingly choose children's toys containing lead and mercury, or a plastic lunch box that potentially releases carcinogens into your food? To say nothing of the hazards for the people who have to make such things. In his book Consumed, Benjamin Barber writes, "We are seduced into thinking that the right to choose from a menu is the essence of liberty, but with respect to relevant outcomes the real power, and hence the real freedom, is in the determination of what is on the menu."

Businesses and governments love to put the onus for change on the individual consumer, rather than accepting any limitations on their greed and rapacious behaviour. But no one individual can do everything, even if they felt inclined, when as we have seen, many simply aren't interested in doing things that aren't easy. In a world where we still have to employ people to pick up litter thrown on the ground, we can't expect every individual to make every choice for the good of the whole planet. And adding more and more green choices to the smorgasbord of options already available can't be the answer on its own - as Annie Leonard notes in The Story of Stuff, "It's simply not possible to get 100 percent agreement from nearly 7 billion people on any issue, and our ecological systems are on such overload, that we simply don't have time to try. Imagine if we had had to wait for 100 percent consensus before getting women the vote or ending slavery: we'd still be waiting."

I believe that we can build a less environmentally destructive, more equitable society. I also believe that as things currently stand, we need legislation to help us do so. 

Similarly, when we talk about sustainability - or, more to the point, when our so-called leaders talk about sustainability - the emphasis is always on preserving the status quo. As John Michael Greer demonstrates in the introduction to his book Green Wizardry, "Consider the endless bickering over the potential of renewable energy in the media and the internet. Most of that bickering assumes that the only way a society can or should use energy is the way today's industrial nations use energy. Thus you see one side insisting that windpower, say, can provide the same sort of instantly accessible and abundant energy supply we're used to having [...], while the other side - generally with better evidence - insists that it cannot. 

"What inevitably gets missed in these debates is the fact that it's entirely possible to have a technologically advanced and humane society without having electricity on demand from sockets on every wall across the length and breadth of a continent. [...] What stands in the way of this recognition is the emotional power of today's ideology of progress, with its implicit assumption that the way we happen to do things must be the best, or even the only, possible way to do them."

Imagining other ways of living can be uncomfortable, even scary. This, I suspect, is how a lot of people feel with regards to the idea of buying less. It's a limitation. A sacrifice. A loss of freedom. Naturally, we chafe against even the idea of restraint. We are so used to having whatever we want, preferably immediately, that alternatives seem dismal, frightening, unpatriotic. Certainly I have felt that way, even though my attempts to buy less have increased my resilience, self-esteem, appreciation and contentment almost from day one.

Ultimately, however, these are the changes we need to make - as a society, we must learn to consume less, waste less, and cooperate more. Because we have already done damage to the Earth, our home, through our current mode of living, and as this century wears on and the results of that damage become ever more apparent, we will need to adapt if we wish to survive. 

Up until fairly recently, I've been frightened of these changes. Dreading them. I couldn't picture what a society might look like that could weather the future and the crisis we face. However, John Michael Greer's Green Wizardry, with its discussion of appropriate tech, made me feel far more hopeful. And if you'll forgive me referring once again to The Story of Stuff, I found much to be optimistic about in Annie Leonard's description of her living situation, which I would very much like to emulate:

 "It's really just a bunch of good friends who chose to live near one another - really near, like next door. We find life easier and more rewarding because we focus more on building community than on buying Stuff. We share a big yard; we often eat meals together; but each family has its own self-contained home into which we can retreat when we want to be alone."

In Leonard's community, even watching TV is something that people generally do together. Stuff is shared between families so less resources are used on buying new items. Services are shared too - plumbing, cooking, babysitting, repairs, carpooling. (I WISH I had had this as a new mum.) If someone is sick, the community steps in again for rides to the doctor, childcare, even bringing flowers. 

If we could shift to a society set up like this, we could buy less and lose nothing.

Some Stuff My MP Doesn't Want Me To Tell You

There's some stuff I've been wanting to get off my chest for a while, so buckle up. 

Last year I spoke to my MP on Zoom about the climate emergency. It was hard to get a word in edgeways as he graciously allowed that he might upgrade his car from a hybrid to a fully electric model, and boasted about his heat pump boiler system (I'd recently contacted my council representatives about the possibility of installing heat pumps in public parks, to be told that the government had helpfully introduced legislation to make this an impossibility. I told my MP about this and he quickly changed the subject). 

After fifteen minutes of this smug waffle in my half hour time slot, I got a bit annoyed and suggested that I didn't feel the government is treating the climate EMERGENCY with the appropriate amount of urgency. (You know, where they encourage us all to buy electric cars and use bags for life whilst also trying to open new coal mines, and trying to fund new fossil fuel projects in Mozambique that would produce enough greenhouse gas emissions to, oh yeah, kill us all. With taxpayers' money, by the way. I didn't say that bit, though, I don't think the Mozambique thing had happened yet.)

The MP's eyebrows shot up his ruddy, pork-pie face and he started on about how we don't want to scare the public. I pointed out that 'the public' are going to be pretty scared when food shortages start in this country, which Extinction Rebellion predicts could be as soon as a couple of years. He didn't have a lot to say about that, other than to caution me again about scaring people.

We're not supposed to talk about the state of the world today. It scares people. It makes them uncomfortable. It puts them off their tea and biscuits.

Except, not talking about it isn't going to lead anywhere good. If we can't look at the problems, if we can't discuss the problems, how in hell are we going to do anything about them while we still have time?

The MP said that change needs to come from the individual consumer. That's you and me. Not governments, not banks, not corporations, not big business and energy companies, but the little people. 

This made me feel deeply uneasy. I hope these opinions were representative of this MP only, not the whole government, as it made me suspect that when the world is past saving, and the people are in the streets demanding to know why more wasn't done, the whole bloody lot of them might just shrug their shoulders and slope off to their bunkers mumbling something about "Well, it's your own fault for buying so many disposable straws."

This was a bit startling to me, as I had been assuming that the people in charge were largely rational and would be stepping in to help any minute now. This was the first time I got a look at the mindset that prioritises profit over people, and wants to preserve the status quo - unrelenting economic growth - over all else and at any cost.

 

It's a little concerning if the UK government thinks that our beeswax wraps and moon cups are going to save the world when 71% of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by just 100 companies. That's right, companies, not countries. Businesses and their investors are doing the majority of the damage to our ecosystem and, oh yeah, killing us all. Sit with that one for a moment.

I posted about all this on Facebook once, and was surprised to find that a good few people still think that the climate crisis is a big hoax. I've agreed that in ten years' time, if they're right and we're all still alive, I'll buy them a pint. Inwardly, I found it difficult to understand a point of view based on completely dismissing fifty or so years of scientific study from assorted geniuses across the world.

But okay, let's leave aside the changing climate for just a moment. We're still in the shit, in a variety of disturbing and terrifying ways. And still nobody is talking about it. We're talking about TikTok and television and the weather, but we don't generally like to look directly at the fact that our lifestyles cannot logically continue as they are today. 

So here's a few more things you may not have known about:

- We get the metals and minerals for our cars, phones and other gadgets - and our jewellery - largely from open-pit mining. Environmental issues aside, this is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and children are doing it. Also, rocks don't grow back. Future generations will not have access to these minerals, so unless we change our technology and vastly improve our recycling (and stop upgrading our gadgets every two minutes), we will reach a point when we can't actually manufacture any more.

- I don't know about you, but I've never really thought much about these metals and minerals and where they come from, or how. Let's just hit a couple of the highlights. One gold wedding ring creates 30 tons of toxic waste, and cyanide is often used in its production to remove the gold from the ore. Generally nobody is cleaning up this cyanide afterwards and it just sits around in pools, leaching into waterways. So that's nice.

- Did you know that the release of the PlayStation 2 helped fuel and fund a war in the Congo? Coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of the games console - as well as laptops, phones and other such devices - became suddenly extremely valuable when Sony released the PS2, and rebels and militia troops from neighbouring Rwanda, as well as Western-based mining companies, forced children and prisoners-of-war to mine the 'black gold' in dangerous conditions. It's estimated that as many as 40% of coltan miners are children.

- There is enough food being produced in the world to end global hunger. It's not that we don't have the food. It's not that we don't have the money to distribute it. It's... just not happening.

- The one where Shell had nine activists killed following a sham trial. Or the one where Shell used a military police force against peaceful protesters and eighty people ended up dead, their bodies dumped in a river. There are actually more examples, yet this company with blood all over its hands just keeps on truckin'. Consequences? What are those?

- Disney's merchandise is made in sweatshops. Child labour, again. Workers are beaten, sexually harassed, and in some factories, forbidden to speak. It makes me sick that my child's Winnie the Pooh clothing was made in squalid conditions for pathetic pay by someone else's children. In 2018, Disney's CEO, Bob Iger, earned $66million. I say earned because I don't know the word for money made from the blood and sweat of impoverished people.

- The price of the average cup of chain-brand coffee could provide malaria medicine for six children in India. But again, because of the unequal spread of wealth and resources, this isn't happening, so we go on drinking our caramelattes while other people's kids die from preventable disease.

- On the topic of preventable disease, one hundred thousand children per year die of dysentery because they don't have access to clean water. If you're wondering what that's like, you might find out. Water shortages are predicted within some UK counties within the next decade or so, as our own natural water reserves are becoming too degraded, depleted and polluted to sustain us. Southern Water is looking at building a desalination plant in the Portsmouth area to treat sea water for human consumption. Which is great for us, but a bit shit for all the plants and wildlife that also depend on those polluted natural waters. Good job we don't need trees to breathe or anything! Oh, wait...

- On the topic of preventable disease once again, I don't know if you've noticed any pandemics lately, but if you missed the last one, there'll probably soon be more on the way due to our revolting factory farming practices. 

- One hundred species are going extinct every day, mainly due to deforestation. One. Hundred. Species. A day. 

- Do you know where we derive much of our medicine from? Lifesaving leukaemia drugs, for example? Quinine, another example? Oh yeah, that's right, plants from the rainforest. Imagine what other lifesaving drugs we could have found by now if we were preserving them instead of bulldozing them into clear-cut oblivion. Just a thought. We've analysed roughly 1% of rainforest species for their beneficial properties. We're destroying the rest, apparently. 

Do you find pandemics scary? Do you find food shortages and polluted water uncomfortable?

Me too. I think it's a sign of sanity.

I don't have the answers. I do know that we can't continue to deplete the earth's finite resources, or keep treating people and animals like commodities - or worse - to make stuff that ends up in the bin (for examples, see the shelves at your local Poundland or B&M). I know that we don't solve the problems by ignoring the problems. 

I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable. But I hope I am. I do believe that the big changes we need to overhaul this unfair, violent system need to come from governments and world banks and big business, but I'm also faced with the reality that they aren't going to make those changes until and unless they have to. That means we need to speak up. We need to hold them to account. We need to point out the problems and keep pointing them out until something is done about it. We need to do the boring legwork - the 'clicktivism', the petitions, the letters, the emails, the protests, the boycotts - we need to vote with our wallets, we need to raise our children to care for the planet rather than seeing it as a collection of resources to exploit. We need to stop waiting for someone else to do it. 

I'm sorry to break the news to you that Disney aren't good guys! I don't like it either! 

I know you're tired. I know you're busy. I know you'd rather not think about it. There is so much work to do. There are so many problems, and they're all interconnected - women's rights and racism and child labour and war and poverty and deforestation and air pollution and palm oil and about a million more 'ands', and it's so easy to feel disheartened and helpless. And nobody wants to be accused of being 'shrill' or 'too serious'. 

But the first step is talking about it.

We need to start talking about it.

This post was heavily inspired by Annie Leonard's book The Story of Stuff. Please do read it, if you're able. There's a lot of stuff that's shocking, but there's also a lot of reasons to be hopeful, and ideas for how we can change and what we can do. 

Instagram, Eco-Anxiety and Shopping Addiction: An Evil Tag Team

In June last year, I started taking more baby steps towards the kind of life I was dreaming about. I hadn't even particularly realised, until I started reading back through my journals looking for blog material, how my life had started to change since I quit overshopping. I tried to explain it to Dai the other day, but I'm not sure I managed to express myself terribly well. I had kind of been hoping that the uptick in my sense of wellbeing and my growth in self-esteem was noticeable to people around me, but I think perhaps it has been more of an internal shift.

Although I wasn't necessarily aware of it at the time, I was starting to experience for myself the truth of Kyle Chaka's words about beauty being found in contingency and randomness, such as when I started picking up books from local community libraries and free book shops, which were springing up around my hometown like dandelions as people sought entertainment and connection during the pandemic. I deliberately chose books that looked interesting, but which I would likely have dismissed previously as 'not my genre'. It was really exciting to be open to possibility and expand my horizons in such a small and gentle way. 

On sunny afternoons we went foraging, and we ended up with so much homemade elderflower cordial that we were able to distribute bottles amongst family and friends. I was becoming aware of a new contentment, a peace of mind that I could never have purchased. I felt more connected to my loved ones - gift-giving had become a source of pleasure and joy rather than stress - and my enjoyment of nature and the outdoors was reaching new heights.

As the lockdown restrictions eased, my mum emailed me a special offer from Travelodge - budget prices from July, so I booked three days in the village of Glastonbury, one of my favourite places, for me, Dai and the Spud.

Towards the end of June, through my work with Greenpeace I ended up taking part in the Climate Coalition's The Time Is Now mass virtual lobby, for which I had to take part in a Zoom meeting with my MP (he's a prick). The day before the meeting I was shitting a brick - I'd actually initially chickened out of setting up a meeting but then decided I'd better walk my talk. I made a page of notes from Greenpeace's briefing and asks, and I was very glad that I had, because in the event, of the twenty people in my constituency who had signed up to attend, no one appeared but me! (One other lady tuned in twenty minutes late; I have never been so glad for the presence of a stranger.)

It was absolutely terrifying. I was shaking, and my voice went really high-pitched, but I delivered the list of asks and managed to mention some quite frightening statistics I had learned about how nature-deprived the UK is compared to the rest of Europe, and the sorry state of our tree cover, and also how lifeless and meek the government seems to be with regards to the climate emergency. The Climate Coalition host sent an email afterwards saying that I and the other lady had done 'incredibly', and that ours was the only meeting where only one person turned up at the start (great...). I was really proud of myself, and glad I'd done it.

In July, the evil tag team of Instagram, eco-anxiety and shopping addiction came barrelling into my life. I'd set up an Instagram account to document my no-buy year - I hoped it would keep me accountable, and it obviously seemed like a good idea at the time.

It wasn't.

Inspired by my new online community of eco-friends (their word, not mine!) I started trying to radically overhaul our life. Now, I do think that cloth nappies, organic veg boxes, natural cosmetics, growing vegetables, foraging, composting, crafting, bamboo toilet paper, home baking, charcoal water filters, toy libraries, visible mending, natural dyes, bee saver kits and so forth are all good things... However, trying to invest in and do all of these things in the space of a single month exploded my budget and didn't do my peace of mind many favours either. I was also spending a couple of hours each day on Instagram, which brought my mood down without fail. Everything I was doing still didn't feel like enough. At first I enjoyed being part of an eco community, but after a while, every time I picked up my phone I felt like I was being bludgeoned with more things I ought to be doing.

I found it slightly alarming at times that I'd suddenly become this person who cooks and darns things and grows vegetables and gets excited about birds. I'd become the baggy-fleece-wearing sandal-clad make-up-free mum type I would have heaped scorn on as an arsey teenager. Adding the pressure to promote my new lifestyle on social media and also change the world by buying everything marketed as 'sustainable' was overdoing it, and I was soon knocked for six by a vicious migraine, as if to make sure I got the point.

Yes, I was extremely worried - terrified, actually - about the climate. But sustainability isn't simply something you buy, and blowing my recently restored savings wasn't going to save the human race all by itself (sadly). I do believe in supporting the supply chains that try to do good things and mitigate the bad, but I also believe in buying less. And I didn't want to undo the positive changes in my own life that had been wrought simply by shopping less. 

So I got Dai to change my Instagram password, and deleted the app. I tried to go easy on myself - I didn't screw up the environment by myself, and I can't magically fix it either.

And we went out foraging for blackberries and elderberries to make our first wine. I wanted to stay anchored in the world around me, the world that over the last few months had filled up with colour, as if I was coming back to life instead of just getting out of my own head.