Just Eat It: Intuitive Eating and the Ghosts of Diets Past

I've been reading a book recently called Just Eat It: how intuitive eating can help you get your shit together around food, by Laura Thomas PhD. A few pages in, I wanted to recommend it to pretty much every woman I know. Occasionally by slapping them upside the head with it until they read it, though I'm told that's frowned upon.

I can't call this a book review, because a book review needs to be fairly analytic and I struggled to evaluate this book logically beyond AAAAARGH MY MIND IS BLOWN EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS. Let's call this a book discussion, instead, because boy, did some weird shit come up for me while I read this.

Firstly, I hadn't really realised that diet culture is insidious as fuck. Take a second look at the TV viewing you grew up with, after reading this book. Here's a snapshot from my developing years: Friends. Buffy. 90210. The OC. Ally McBeal. Farscape. Other than showing my age, I suddenly realised that according to these (admittedly enjoyable) shows, there's pretty much only one way to have a female body, unless you are an actual alien. Cast members from several of these shows admitted to suffering from eating disorders whilst filming. This was such a lightbulb moment for me - until fairly recently, the vast and incredible diversity of human bodies was literally nowhere in the media. (I'm also white, cis, straight-sized and able-bodied, so compared to a lot of folks I'm well-represented in mainstream media.) There is one single main body type held up as 'standard' or 'normal' for women - thus all other bodies are implied to be aberrational (see: the running joke in Friends about how Monica used to be fat).

This obviously struck several chords for me, as I had a bizarre, somewhat melancholy dream about being a crew member on the set of a TV show whose entire job consisted of lovingly framing the actresses' hipbones and making them look as thin as possible. Doy....

I also found myself remembering the ghosts of diets past with a weird nostalgic fondness. That buzz that comes from the hope that this time, the stars will align and you'll magically transform into the thin toned babe in the lycra booty shorts, swishing your hair on Miami Beach. Or something. The excitement, the anticipation of a new "wellness plan". That one diet book I followed (with the hideous subtitle of 'get skinnier than all your friends') where you consume nothing but black coffee till lunchtime, blow up balloons every day, and take an ice-cold bath every morning (I'm not kidding, I did this). 

The chapters on clean eating and concepts around 'processed' foods were fascinating to me as well. I almost... didn't want to accept the facts being presented to me. Part of me wanted to continue to believe that the right combination of chia seeds, spirulina, coconut water and kale would make me pure and clean and lovely and forever unhungry. How can so many Instagrammers be wrong?!

The reason I chose to buy this book at this time was that I have a bit of a pot belly going on at the moment. This was brought to my attention by several friends and family members getting excited about my 'good news' and asking when I was due.

At first I laughed this off - I'd spent a good portion of our holiday on a cider farm... maybe I was becoming one with the apples? - but after a while it started to get to me and I started considering a diet. I'm not really sure why. If diets worked, there wouldn't need to be a multibillion pound industry built around the concept. Also, been there, done that, hated it, would put the whole concept in a dustbin and set fire to it if I could. I own a t-shirt that says 'screw diet culture', for goodness' sake. But in a moment of self-consciousness and weakness, the urge was there.

Happily for me I bought this book instead.

Why does this relate to my blog about consumerism? Well. Sit ye down and I'll tell you a story about the hundreds and thousands of pounds I would not have spent if I hadn't believed for a decade and more that the way I naturally look is actually a problem. A problem that it is presented as being my duty, nay, my life's work to solve.

Times that amount of money by the number of women in my friendship group caught in the same trap. Times that amount of money by the number of people in the world caught in the same trap. How many years of your life have you spent fighting your own body? How many products have you bought to hide, flatter, disguise, slim, tone, lift, sculpt? How many uncomfortable garments have you tolerated because you believed in some dark recess of your mind that your body, not the badly made clothing, was the problem?

Diet culture is fucking poison. Don't swallow it.

I thought I knew my onions (sorry) about food and nutrition, but this book was a revelation. I've remembered how to listen to my body instead of the clock. I laugh in the face of food guilt. I take great pleasure in reminding myself 'nutrition is cumulative!' when that stupid little voice in the back of my head starts chuntering away about my food.

If you've ever felt guilty about eating a doughnut, seriously, read this book.

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."

Burnout

In April, I mostly felt like shit - not to put too fine a point on it. I'd had a moderate-to-severe headache on a daily basis for about a month, which wouldn't shift despite new glasses, a new pillow, herbal teas, earlier bedtimes, yoga, and drinking enough water to float a small battleship. I was popping more painkillers than I felt comfortable with just to stay functional.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised - I had a lot on my mind. We were applying for a mortgage, and it had taken close to five months to get to a stage where we could actually submit the application to the underwriters. I'd kind of accepted that the whole thing wasn't going to come off, and we were going to keep living in our crumbling, single-glazed beige shoebox for astronomical rent (you get used to taps and towel rails coming off in your hand and the arctic wind through the lounge, but the window that could be pushed outwards like a cat flap was a bit of a problem, and the electrician doing a safety inspection was rather startled by the plug socket that lit up orange and spat sparks). Except suddenly it was starting to look like we might actually be buying a house, and I started looking at our library of books, mountains of baby toys and antique farmhouse table in a sort of dazed panic, wondering how on earth we were ever going to move it all.

Then there was the wedding. We had postponed it twice and then eventually cancelled when our venue called us to say they were no longer sure whether they would be able to honour our booking and wouldn't find out until a few weeks before the wedding date. We decided not to take the gamble. Now that the COVID madness looked to be drawing to a close in this country, the gears were grinding into motion again as we looked at starting from scratch. Our current plan is a quick legal ceremony with immediate family (possibly with me wearing my tie-dye dungarees if we are able to get a date before I can finish having my dress tailored) and then a handfasting next May, followed by as many very casual receptions as it takes to celebrate with all our friends and family depending on how many people we are allowed to gather together at any given time. 

This time I'm trying to do things in a stress-free way - no seating plans, no chasing people who don't respond to invitations, no printed invitations in fact. No make-up artist, no fancy caterer, no favours - just a nice pub with a Pagan bent and an interesting supply of local ales, and a meaningful ceremony followed by laughter and song and merrymaking into the night.

Except I was stressing about my no-stress wedding, because a good chunk of the extended family didn't know I'm Pagan, or at least Pagan-adjacent, and at least one of those people really, really doesn't do religion or spirituality of any kind and could almost certainly be counted on to say something that will make me feel three inches tall and stupid to boot. And I couldn't just not invite this person, for a variety of reasons, so I was trying to forge ahead without worrying about it and let their issues be their own, but that was easier said than done. (It came out all right in the end!)

Lastly there's parenting. This is generally not too bad, except we've rarely had an unbroken night's sleep in two and a half years and counting (this seems to be improving lately - hooray!) and apart from the occasional weekend when Topaz babysits for an afternoon, that's also roughly the amount of time since Dai and I were alone together. My personal time, now that Dai was on call again and couldn't do regular childcare stints, consisted of an hour a week when a family friend took the Spud to the park and I desperately tried to make the house less gross. Lately I'd managed to use that time to do yoga and meditation instead, which helps somewhat - the house can take its chances - but overall I think I was just... burning out.

My mind was full of questions and worries - about the environment, my family, our finances, some downright stupid but extraordinarily persistent ones about what to buy or to not buy. It was also close to the birthday of a dear friend who had taken her own life, and I found myself sitting awake at 2am thinking about how she always wore blue or turquoise or teal, or wondering whether it would have changed anything if I'd phoned on the Sunday instead of putting it off till Monday... So yeah, I hadn't been sleeping well.

In May we had a ten-day holiday booked. It would have been our honeymoon, but since we hadn't managed to get married yet I was calling it the Unhoneymoon. I decided to use that time as a kind of retreat - I'd figure out how to set up an autoreply on my personal emails, put my phone on aeroplane mode and ACTUALLY DISCONNECT and have a rest. No mortgage brokers. No solicitors. No estate agents. 

I was going to be present. I was going to play with my kid instead of trying to clean house around him. I was going to eat well and keep drinking lots of water. I'd even pack my yoga mat. I was going to go to sleep on time and not stay up late reading blogs and Kindle samples and browsing eBay for those beautiful rainbow skirts I never should have got rid of (I'd noticed my technology use shooting up again the last couple of months). I was going to retreat, reset, and get rid of this damned headache.

(The other solution I found was writing down all the weird niggles and worries that tumble round my head at night. It was like sweeping my brain clean! And that's how this post was born.)

My Love Affair With Old Clothes

One of the biggest shifts in my thinking since I started making efforts to change the way I shop has been in the way I view clothes. Previously, like many people, I bought new clothes unthinkingly. I worked in a charity shop, so often bought secondhand, but I also trawled Topshop (RIP) in my lunch breaks, and as regular readers will know, shopped online on a daily (if not hourly) basis. Clothes came into my house and went out again to the charity shop like flotsam borne on the tides.

This last year, I've stopped buying fast fashion. It's something I'd considered before - and tried before - but I failed to resist the siren song of New Look, Zara and H&M. This year, for whatever reason, it just suddenly clicked, and all of a sudden fast fashion holds no more interest for me than a dictionary would for a bumblebee. 

Old clothes are just so much more interesting! Whether from charity shops, online resellers, or passed on from friends, you never know what you might find. I'm currently wearing a pair of mauve, navy and emerald brushed cotton trousers - St Michael - which I got in a charity shop for just £2. They are so unusual, and comfortable too.

I have a tendency to rescue the weird and unwanted from charity shops - a moth-eaten cardigan with a Fair Isle-ish pattern in an ugly colourway gets a few punk patches added and becomes a wardrobe favourite, warm and versatile. 

Charity shop cardigans mended with patches

Another source of old clothes is my own wardrobe. I have clothes that are coming up ten years old - most notably an orange Star Wars t-shirt with a pun about coffee (May the Froth Be With You), which I originally bought for 94p in a charity shop when I was about 21. It's been worn on pretty much a weekly basis for all those years and has become attractively weathered. It still goes with everything.

The longer I go without buying new, the more grateful I feel for what I have. I expected to feel bored with my older items, and sometimes I do 'rest' items for a bit, but at the moment every time I open my wardrobe I feel delighted!

I regret getting rid of an old favourite t-shirt of mine - it had a beautiful Ganesha design on it and was just the right length - when it became peppered with holes. It didn't occur to me then that I could mend the holes, or put a different coloured fabric underneath and make a feature of them. 

Customising clothes was an idea I first really became aware of in my goth years. As the goth scene developed out of punk in the late 70s and 80s, it came with a strong DIY ethic. Or perhaps it was more deconstruct-it-yourself, as rips, patches and safety pins were often strongly featured. Sadly, over the last few decades this handmade, creative ethos has been seen less in alternative fashion, with the rise of goth brands selling ready-made items to the black-clad masses (as seen particularly in the 90s with Hot Topic chain stores in the USA). Whilst more expensive than conventional fast fashion, the majority of these brands  - in my day some of the big names were the likes of Dead Threads, Hell Bunny, Poizen Industries, Phaze, Banned - are no more transparent about their supply chains and manufacturing processes than any of the stores on your local high street.

Whilst I certainly availed myself of these brands as a young gothling, I was always aware of a faction within the goth scene who sourced their clothes secondhand, customised and altered prosaic items of black clothing into something unique, or even made their own clothing from scratch. I didn't have the commitment then to adopt this ethos, although even I got handy with some black dye and safety pins from time to time.

Since moving on from the goth look, customising hadn't really had a place in my life. I was a bit wary about being judged for things looking 'handmade'. Funny - now I embrace it. I love that visible mending is becoming more popular, and as well as darning, patching and replacing buttons I'm looking to tackle bigger challenges. I have a much-loved dress that doesn't fit any more that I'm intending to make into a skirt. 

I don't worry much any more about whether I'm suitably alternative, or how to define my look, but I do love having a wardrobe that is totally unique. The only possible downside is that my growing tendency towards making things work means that I'm keeping things I would have previously let go of. This is better for the environment, but not brilliant for keeping my wardrobe under control! Especially since I'm working in a charity shop now - I'm trying really hard to keep my acquisition in check, but gosh, I really couldn't resist those checked trousers. I'm spending wayyyyy less on clothes these days, but not necessarily buying less!

I am away next week - normal service will be resumed upon my return!

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.

Avoiding Pagan Posturing in the Age of the Insta-Witch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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