Let's Get Metaphysical

I suppose you could say I'm a lapsed Pagan. I've dabbled (the most accurate term in my case, I'm afraid) in assorted branches of Pagan religion since my pre-teens. Recently, due to my increased interest in and connection with nature, history, folklore and more, I've been taking another look at these faiths and traditions. My intuition suggests that introducing a spiritual aspect into my life will help to fill the void inside that I've previously papered over with excessive shopping.

This void is not the gaping darkness it once was. These last couple of years have done me good - I've picked up a variety of creative hobbies, renewed connections with family and friends, and even with the wider world through activism, and disconnected somewhat from my gadgets. I'm not as painfully self-conscious, not as distracted, and not as prone to constant comparison. Lately I've picked up my long-neglected yoga and meditation practice too. It's a bit sporadic, but it helps. Looking deeper into the spiritual now feels like a natural next step - one I've avoided for a long time, for fear of looking or sounding 'woo-woo', upsetting the die-hard sceptics amongst my family and friends (admittedly there are some people I just won't discuss anything of this nature with), or simply feeling worried that I don't know what I'm doing, and might not find what I've always felt I'm looking for.

(Do you ever have the feeling that you're following a trail of breadcrumbs through life? Since childhood I've felt 'nudges' or seen signs that I do my best to follow, trying to piece together a bizarre map of coincidences, hunches, feelings, and notes from a plethora of old books. More and more lately I find myself musing on the saying, "That which you seek is seeking you.")

Why Paganism? Because it feels right to me. I grew up with remedies from the herb garden and food from the hedgerows. When I walk on the land, I feel part of a huge and intricate web. The more I see and come to know of nature, the more it feels miraculous, magical. I feel my ancestors, my history, my connection to the soil and the chalk and the bones of the land. In our home, this year we have begun to celebrate the turning of the seasons by marking the solstices and traditional fire festivals - I think it's a good way for all of us to feel connected to nature, and the little one enjoys gathering greenery and blossoms to decorate the table for our feasts.

Our table for Beltane (May Eve)

Once when I was young, I stayed up all night reading poetry, and the dawn chorus and the breaking light seemed like such a gift, such a wondrous and incredible thing, that for a short time I thought I had found God, and became a devoted churchgoer. I can still feel that sense of awe and joy, of reverence, for the natural world, but I no longer feel it fits within the framework of patriarchal religion. That was just the only frame of reference I had at the time, the only hook on which I could hang such emotions and experience (having attended C of E school).

I'm also psychic. Or perhaps that's a bit strong - intuitive, or sensitive, might be a better term. In really small ways usually - dreams that come true being the most common. I also briefly had a sideline in telling fortunes at secondary school for fifty pence a pop, until my accuracy was denounced as 'creepy' and one girl spread a rumour that I could tell you when you were going to die (spoiler: no I can't). I've never made any real effort to work with it or hone it - in fact I've generally suppressed it (that fear of being too woo-woo, again) - but every now and again I get something a bit more dramatic and difficult to explain, such as the way I met my second boyfriend. I woke up one Saturday morning, and could 'see', in my head, exactly what was going to happen that day. Not as a vision, but the knowledge was just THERE, whole and complete.

I got into action before my rational mind could talk me out of it. I got up and dressed, tidied my room, took my guitar out of the cupboard and stood it in the corner. I wrote my phone number on a slip of card and put it in my pocket. I walked to my friend Ana's house down the street, and together we walked to a house we'd never visited before. My now-ex was in the garden. We looked at each other. Ana and I walked away. In my head, I was counting down - and on cue, he came running after us. I gave him my number.

An hour or so later we were all hanging out in my conspicuously tidy room. Ana was stroking my pet rat. The new guy was playing Basket Case by Green Day on my guitar. We were together for over a decade. In fact, part of the reason I stuck out the relationship was so long was because of the circumstances in which we met - I felt perhaps we were capital-F Fated. Now I suspect I simply wanted a boyfriend so much that I accidentally manifested one.

It's not that I think this kind of experience is a prerequisite for choosing a Pagan path, but I do feel that these traditions provide a good structure for learning how to use and channel this 'ability', so that - I hope - it can become something I can work with and direct rather than being something that just happens to me.

I've had other weird experiences - both in similar vein, and very much not - which I may talk about at some point, as some of them have shaped my world view in a big way. I don't often discuss any of this, as I know even my most supportive friends might be disbelieving, and I don't want to feel I have to excuse or justify what I have felt and experienced. But I'm done with pretending that such experiences and feelings don't have a huge influence on who I am. I don't want to suppress this part of myself any more - I want to embrace it, and go deeper.

As a teenage Wiccan, I very much followed a Pagan-by-numbers approach. I bought a book that told me the names of some deities, and the right words to say for this or that ritual, and which herbs or coloured candles to buy. I dutifully followed the steps, but I never FELT anything. It was like shouting into an abyss.

Now I am a bit older, it's obvious why this approach didn't work. You can't just read a name in a book and tell yourself to believe in it. This time around, I intend to listen to my intuition, read widely, get my hands muddy, and find a path based on what I know, feel, experience and believe.

It's time to get my woo-woo on.

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. 

In Praise of Borrowing

When I was in my early teens, sharing clothes was pretty normal. It was exciting when my best friend Topaz got a bag of clothes handed down from her older, trendy neighbour, because I knew she'd give me what she didn't want and probably let me borrow the rest if I pleaded enough. My mum and I used to borrow each other's clothes too. Sometimes we even gave them back.

Nowadays, it's not so common to borrow a mate's dress to wear to a party. But for me, on my shopping ban, having a community of friends and relatives I could call on to help out was heartwarming and uplifting, not to mention it saved me a pretty penny or two.

When our electric whisk spluttered and died halfway through Dai making our son's first birthday cake, I called my friend Rose - she lived five minutes away, was a fellow mum so likely to be awake at such a silly time on a Sunday morning, and given her perfect house and propensity for holding coffee mornings, I felt sure she had a set of beaters we could borrow. And she came up trumps, saving us from a two-hour wait for the shops to open so we could have the cake ready in time for the party. (And she even said we could keep the beaters! What a woman.)

My friend Topaz lent me a pair of smart shoes for an evening out, and we now have an agreement whereby we share the shoes - mostly they live with me, unless called upon by Topaz for an occasion, thus saving us both from needing to buy any more nude wedding-guest shoes for quite some time.

When lockdown started, I asked Alice, a hardcore movie buff, if she could lend me some family-friendly DVDs to get me and the Spud through those long afternoons. She dropped off a stack of DVDs on her way to work - along with her Disney+ password.

At first I felt awkward and a bit weird asking for stuff, until I realised that it opened a door for people to ask me for things in return. This year I have lent and borrowed items from irons and plungers to books and hairdressing scissors, and therefore we have all saved a) money and b) resources, because rather than having one of everything each, we are sharing what we have.

I'm pleased to say as well that, as well as sharing, my friends and I do a lot of swapping. Maternity wear, baby clothes and toys have done the rounds from mum to mum in our group, saving us each a small fortune. And when we have a clear out (or just an item of clothing we're sick of looking at), we have developed the habit of rehoming the clothes with a friend rather than plonking them straight into the charity shop. 

Sometimes this has come in extremely helpful - just before my planned clothing swap in January 2020, my friend Ana was living in a camper van, which was stolen from a supermarket car park with all her possessions inside. Under my stairs at the time was a huge stash of clothes - spare items from all I had been given by Topaz, Bel and Alice, plus bags of things that had been given to me for the swap party. After making sure no one minded, I was able to go through it all and sort out an emergency stop-gap wardrobe for Ana. 

I've noted before that the generosity of friends had helped me out of a tight spot during my ban, and I really feel now that being able to help each other out - and ask for help (and nick each other's old clothes) - has brought us closer, and created a feeling of community. With the added bonus of being kinder to the environment. Happy days! It's not exactly ground-breaking, but I was so out of the habit of asking for what I needed (when I could just buy it) that people's willingness to share came as a lovely surprise.

My Skin is Clear, My Crops Are Thriving: Weapons Against Overshopping

Now that I'm actually, finally, after two years (as of last week; I started my original shopping ban on May 14th 2019) getting a handle on my shopping habit, it seems only fair to share those things that help. What works for me personally is that I have built these ideas into my life as habits, and over time they have worn away the sharp poky edges of my desperate wants and desires, so I don't feel that nagging urge to buy, buy, buy in the back of my brain, like an itchy label. 

This is similar to my tips and tricks post of yesteryear, but I feel like I wrote that when I was a level one nonshopper, white-knuckling through each day and still slipping up every other week. Now I have levelled up, and although I still have a LONG way to go before I achieve the monk-like aura of nonconsumerism that I dream of, I no longer feel like I'm an irritating email away from slipping off the spending cliff all the time. Simply put, I've learned better ways of dealing with at least some of the underlying unmet needs - a brief selection: insecurity and lack of self-esteem, need for approval, self-expression, need to be recognised as an amazing limited edition snowflake with excellent taste in music, desire for a sense of belonging - which were fuelling my overshopping habit.

Some of those upgraded coping mechanisms are as follows:

1. Nature

My biggest weapon against overshopping is spending time outdoors. As the Spud has gotten older, we've increased the amount of time we spend outside from a begrudging half hour walk with the pram to as much as six hours walking around and playing at the park, and a minimum of an hour, rain or shine. In lockdown we took a daily walk around our local nature reserve and spent time tending our herbs and vegetables in the garden.

I don't always feel like dragging myself outside, but the Spud is insistent, and it makes me feel better about plonking him in front of Tractor Ted while I take a breather from time to time. And once I get out there, even if it's grey, mizzling and blowing a gale, after half an hour or so I generally morph into Annoying Nature Lady, getting excited about fluffy moss and interesting lichen. I even asked for a birdwatching guidebook for my last birthday (who am I?). 

One thing I know is that the more time I spend outdoors - preferably in nature, but a trek to the post office will do in a pinch - the calmer and more content I feel. I usually leave my phone at home too, which frustrates some of my relatives to no end but does me the world of good. It was initially a wrench to go out gadgetless, but in the year or so I've been going phoneless nothing dire has happened and everyone has largely gotten used to the fact I'll get back to them when I'm ready. 

For best results, as my two-year-old has taught me, you need to actually interact with the nature - squelch in the mud, paddle in the river, listen to the birdsong. Mooching about with your eyes on Facebook and your headphones in won't actually do you any good. Also, don't forget to bring snacks. I have learned to always take along a peanut butter sandwich as we're always out longer than I expect!

This has evolved into a newfound love of the outdoors, and is probably the most I've spent time outside since I was a child myself. I've got tan lines on my feet, my complexion is about as good as it's ever been (except for those three weeks after giving birth when I had the clear, plump, glowing skin of a baby angel), and I feel better in myself, physically and mentally. We've also developed an interest in foraging, and can be found in the hedgerows harvesting apples, blackberries, elderflower and sweet chestnuts throughout the summer and autumn. 

I realise not everyone has the ability to access nature as we are lucky enough to do; fresh air, natural light, a view of the sunset and a bit of birdsong go a long way. I think the reason this helps is that it reminds me I'm one tiny part of a huge and intricate web - it really puts my worries about clothes and make-up and whatever into perspective. It also reminds me how incredible everything is. You just don't get that sense of awe and wonder in TK Maxx. 

2. Creative living

Inspired by books such as Timeless Simplicity, Radical Homemakers and Big Magic, I eventually realised that creativity isn't just about being An Artist, Capital-A, or A Writer, Capital-W, but is a way of living. It's a way of living that in particular is directly antithetical to constant, demanding consumption, as the rigours and stimulation of overshopping and excessive screen time seem to wither imagination - and happily, vice versa.

Living a creative life will mean something different to every person, but it requires time, care and attention, like a garden (it could be gardening). It could be home cooking, growing veg, painting, acting, figure skating, quilting, dance, playing the trombone, zine making, fashion design, keeping a beautiful home, soapmaking... All the unnecessary but fulfilling ways that humans have made ordinary life into something beautiful and satisfying. 

I know a person who does creative things all the time but describes herself as "not creative". Yet this lady creates beautiful outfits and colourful make-up looks every day, writes poems, and once presented me with a stunning hand-painted glass bowl. She also raised children, which takes A LOT of creativity. We have developed some strange ideas about what creativity actually is, and there are probably a lot of people shutting themselves off from various forms of self-expression because someone told them they weren't artistic, or talented, or 'being realistic', or were wasting time. 

I recently read a blog post about everyday creativity which really struck a chord for me and also expresses similar thoughts to the books I've mentioned above. Druid and author Nimue Brown says, "I’ve been glad to see memes doing the rounds pointing out that singing, dancing, making art and so forth used to just be things people did. In having turned that into professions, and in having industrialised our lives, we’ve lost a lot of that. Obviously I’m in favour of there being space for creative professionals, but I feel very strongly that creativity should be for everyone, all the time.

"We’ve traded our freedom to create for convenience."

It doesn't have to be complicated and you don't have to try to make a living from it. Over the last couple of years I have tried my hand at knitting, crochet, cooking, baking, singing (purely for pleasure, as I am tuneless), jive dancing, playing guitar and pennywhistle, and making my own house cleaning and beauty products. I also want to pick my fiction writing and drawing back up - two things I let drop when I realised I wasn't going to make my fortune from them - start a veg patch and take a pottery class. I want to fill my life with the richness of doing, even if I'm not very good at everything I turn my hand to, rather than spending my days passively consuming what other people have made.

3. Gratitude

I hate admitting to being the sort of person who writes gratitude lists, but the books I was reading - too many to ignore - kept recommending the practice and eventually I had to give it a go. It stands to reason that appreciating all that we have, even the smallest of things and the most ephemeral of moments, will stop us fixating on what we don't have. However I found writing a structured list really annoying, so when I write my journal each evening I just take care to note down a couple of things that were good about my day, from an interesting sky to a nice cup of tea, my toddler's reaction to a fart or a hilarious Amazon review (current fave: "this book reads like a tumble in the moss at low gravity").

4. Savouring

I did eventually realise that my frantic brand of decluttering had cleared my physical space but done nothing for my state of mind. It was time to make a serious effort to slow down and stop rushing from one task to another. I had been spurred on by the high I get from clearing stuff out, to the extent that I was often up at night, racking my brains to see what I might be able to get rid of next (I suspect that this is not terribly healthy). 

So once I'd purged the low-hanging fruit (because there really is no point keeping CDs you don't want to listen to), I decided to put the brakes on and enjoy what I had left, rather than keep forcing myself to find reasons to get rid of more. This turned out to be a brilliant idea. From putting one of my remaining CDs on in the morning to digging out my old vinyl and asking my dad to repair my record player, to making the effort to actually use one of the lipsticks I'd decided to keep, the acts themselves were fun and uplifting, and engaging with my possessions instead of just having them hanging around waiting to eventually be decluttered increased their value to me. It also made me slow right down and savour what I was doing. Appreciating - and using - what you have is key to not continually wanting more. 

5. Authenticity

My word for this year! A simple way to feel better in your own skin is to be true to yourself. I didn't find it as easy as it sounds, but through baby steps - learning to say 'no', speaking my mind rather than hiding my feelings, letting go of clothes I didn't really feel comfortable wearing - I found that striving to be more authentic did wonders for my self-esteem.

6. Randomness

I did, however, have to learn to strike a balance between authenticity and openness. For example, I was recently given a pair of wellies as a gift from a much-loved family member. However, they were leopard print, which I dislike. Whilst a focus on curating my perfect wardrobe, which I had considered part of 'being authentic', led me to worry about the gift and think about asking for an exchange, I eventually realised that even though these wellies weren't my 'dream wellies', they were good quality, they fit beautifully, and were chosen by someone who cares about me a lot. And who obviously thinks I'm more glamorous than I actually am, which is quite complimentary. I started to feel quite fond of the wellies, looking at them in this light, and in the end I was happy to wear them and pleased that I hadn't returned them. In this case, I was perhaps striving for an over-controlled idea of perfection, instead of authenticity, and being open to a little randomness, a little imperfection, made me happier and more appreciative.

Likewise, as I have mentioned previously, a free library book from a random selection can be more of a delight than you might find on Amazon and its careful algorithm, simply because it's a bit different and new and unexpected. Choosing not to over-curate and remembering to leave space open for surprises has brought me great happiness, and allowed me to 'make do' without feeling in the least bit deprived.

What Would You Do Differently If You Loved Yourself?

For the first time in... Okay, possibly ever, I have less than 120 items in my wardrobe. That's not counting coats, shoes or bags. By some people's standards, this is an awful lot. I am certainly very privileged, to have so much. And by others' standards, this is hardly anything at all.

To me, it feels about right. Enough for variety, to be creative in how I put things together, but not enough to overflow my storage and become unmanageable. I'm doing the little trick of turning the hanger around after I wear an item, so that I can double-check that everything I've kept is pulling its weight.

This is a massive improvement on my wardrobe situation this time last year. However, I have identified two issues that I need to take in hand.

1. I'm not being very kind to myself

I often talk about wanting to be able to be creative with my wardrobe, but I'm not actually doing that. 

Eliminating the clothes I didn't like but was keeping - and wearing - to avoid being wasteful was a good first step; now I need to tackle the other end of the equation and start making the effort to put myself together in a way that feels good to me. Not the current situation where I scrape my hair back into a frumpy low ponytail, throw on the nearest clean-smelling jeans and tee, and go, only to soldier through the day trying to ignore the fact that I feel crap.

To Buy or Not To Buy talks about self-kindness and self-care - not necessarily the fun kind like taking bubble baths, but making those appointments you keep putting off, keeping your living space clean and tidy, giving yourself time, space and tools for creativity and play, and (in my case) using the correct toothpaste for my sensitive teeth even though it's not the cheapest, drinking water - not just coffee - and changing my outfit if I don't like it instead of forcing myself to wear it anyway (because I'm an eco-conscious mum and therefore must not care about my appearance? Or something equally nonsensical).

I've fairly recently started to be able to wear jewellery again - without fear of the Spud ripping my ears off or breaking my necklaces - and it's made such a difference to how good I feel when I make the effort. And it's lovely to rediscover all my favourite pieces. But more importantly it's proof of how the littlest effort can have a huge effect on how I feel.

Taking half an hour in the mornings to do my hair and make-up isn't going to make me a bad mum. (Although the two-year-old is currently wearing blush and gold eyeshadow because he wanted to be involved. He chose the colours himself.) I have always enjoyed expressing myself through clothes and style - when it's because I want to, not because I feel like I have to - and I hope that I have the experience now to not let shopping for new things become the aim, but to be creative and thoughtful with what I have.

It also wouldn't hurt to take the odd bubble bath (something I've let slip since Dai's been working longer hours) and to take a bit more time to do things like shave my legs or paint my nails - things I have avoided doing, as a kind of reaction to my previous ultra-high-maintenance existence, but would actually quite like to do (I'm also looking forward to being able to re-book my cancelled treatment at the Lush spa once things are back to some kind of post-COVID normal). No one's handing out prizes for Martyr of the Month, and life's too short not to at least try to enjoy being in your own skin.

Which leads me to:

2. I have become a fearful dresser

Before I deleted Instagram, every now and again someone I vaguely knew from my old blog would pop up to tell me they liked what I wore better when I was goth. I used to tell them in no uncertain terms that their opinion on the way I dress was less than relevant. 

However, this year I realised with dawning horror that I don't really dress for me any more, either, and I've given the opinions of strangers far too much relevance - even control.

This is partly to do with where I live - a small, conservative southern town. As a goth I used to get a lot of attention, both positive (little old ladies wanting to touch my poofy blue deathhawk, being photographed by art students) and negative (spitting, throwing things, insults). When I moved on from that style, it was a relief to feel more like a private person and to have a bit of anonymity. 

Unfortunately, this feeling of anonymity eventually became a bit of a rut I was stuck in, helped along by a lack of confidence, comparing myself negatively to every woman I saw, and a weird feeling after reading too many fashion books, blogs and articles that there was a secret fashion police who might be summoned if I dared to wear the 'wrong' thing. (An annoyingly precocious child in a playground did once threaten to "call the fashion police" on me. I was wearing New Rock boots, ripped fishnets, and a black corset and frilly skirt, both trimmed in hot pink lace. I was on my way to a doctor's appointment; that was my version of casual.)

The items I purchased in Glastonbury reminded me that I didn't always dress to be invisible. Whilst I think my days of corsets-as-casual-wear are probably done, if I'd lived in Glasto for the last decade - or Brighton, or London - the way I dress now would probably be quite different. I love the clothes that I have, but I'm aware I often talk myself out of buying anything too 'out there'. 

I really want to channel that less self-conscious, more creative version of me into future purchases (which will be CAREFULLY chosen to work with my existing wardrobe and SLOWLY acquired according to space constraints and budget. And prevented from ever again being the be-all and end-all - I once wore fishnet tights, a faux fur coat and a full face of make-up to go to the beach, and I won't be returning to being that anxious person, unable to let go and take part in things, like a big decorative doll). In the meantime, I'm really enjoying taking a fresh look at my wardrobe, and putting together outfits that actually make me feel good. 

Gala Darling says a brilliant thing in her book Radical Self-Love, which I'll have to paraphrase from memory because I lent it to a friend (two years ago, hun, just saying): "What would you do differently if you loved yourself?" Asking this question has changed my life, from getting out of bad relationships to getting off the sofa to drink some water and go outside. Next, it's going to help me embrace who I am inside and stop telling myself I can't wear this or that because it's too fanciful, too daring, too bright, too dark, too masculine, too feminine, too weird, too dramatic, too basic, too noticeable. Because I do love myself, and I don't need to be invisible any more.

However, A Caveat

Once I'd been making more effort with my wardrobe, hair and make-up for a few days, I realised why I'd downgraded these things so dramatically on my priority list in the first place. On day one, I spent almost all day browsing shopping sites, daydreaming about what I would buy next. On day two, I'd noticed the drift back to shopping so I put my tablet away and went out for walks with the Spud, but I wasn't really present or focused - I was trying not to mess my hair up and planning future outfits in my head.

By day three I was cross with myself. I'm not sure why I find it so hard to get this particular balance right, but I could understand why I'd forced myself to stop caring about my looks - to make room for other things. I think this is my ideal next step - I like to try to dress in a creative way, so I need to make sure I'm actually reflecting that in the way I live my life. Doing before dressing, so to speak - I must make time for writing, doodling, knitting, trying new recipes, long walks and dancing. I also must not discount comfort in favour of style - I love my New Rock boots, but they're not great for playing with the Spud outside as they're heavy and sometimes rub a bit. So I need to make sure I dress for what I'm doing, which sometimes means an anorak and wellies whether my 'personal style' likes that or not.

So I had never intended to be unkind to myself. I'd shoved my fashion obsession out of my head to make room for the rest of my life. Now, my goal (because I love myself) is to dress in a way that I'm happy with WITHOUT OBSESSING. Just get dressed in the morning, smile at the end result in the mirror... and go do stuff. Step one: plan some exciting stuff to do.

Just a little note to say, I am away this fortnight, leaving early tomorrow, so I may be a little late to respond to comments on this post! Many thanks for your understanding. Normal service will resume upon my return.