Early Summer Morning By Mikhail Kornilov

hi! since i've really leaned into witchcraft and spirituality, i became much more appreciative of the earth and i've been talking to her lots but i want to also become more sustainable in my daily life to help the environment even in small ways. do you have any ideas for simple things to do or habits to change to be more sustainable?

I do indeed!!

I think some the best things you can do for sustainable living is develop sustainable skills:

Learning to sew allows you to:

- fix holes in clothes

- adjust the height/seams/etc of clothes

- crop or add to items of clothing

Which means that clothes have a longer lifespan in general!

Learning to garden (even if its windowsill gardening!) helps you:

- spend less on certain herbs or plants (an easy way to start is regrowing spring onions in water)

- grow more native plants in your area

- encourage more insects into your garden

Learning to cook and bake can actually be super helpful because:

- you don't rely on takeaways or ready meals as often

- you can have more control over where your food is sourced and what you're eating

- you can meal plan and prep which saves time and money

- you can learn how to make your own jams, pickles, syrups etc! And you can get pretty creative with it!

Learning simple diy skills is super beneficial as you can:

- make things unqiue and suited to yourself (I.e. perfect sized shelves or a cabinet that fits perfectly in that gap between your bed and wall)

- restore thrifted furniture (staining to a preferred colour, cutting off legs to shorten it, fix the wobbly door etc)

- recycle old furniture, cabinets or similiar unused items into something else (I've turned a old cabinet into a small outdoor storage unit) rather than throwing them away

Learning basic maintenance for things you own is a money saver and:

- means you can fix your bike chain or replace your car's oil and filter without needing to call anyone or spend extra money

- can keep you safe and at a lower risk of motor accident (knowing how to do basic maintenance checks can help you see warning signs for damage)

- means that simpler things like clogged drains, non-flushing toilets, leaky taps etc no longer require calling and paying for a plumber

Of course you don't need to be an expert in any of these, I'm certainly not! But I can cook myself a decent meal, sew some new buttons on an old shirt or fix a hole in my jeans and restore an old wardrobe into something usable.

I love Pete Seeger's quote:

"If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production."

Basically it's so important to be aware of your consumption - avoid overconsumption, buy quality over quantity, thrift and reuse things, trade with people. Throwing things away should be a last resort or a necessity, rather than a "I don't know what else to do with it".

And, while recycling isn't quite the saviour people think it is, it is so important to get into the habit of sorting your rubbish correctly!!

Other important sustainable habits include:

Changing your eating habits. If it's feasible for you, try:

- reduce meat and dairy consumption (including fish, as they're massively overharvested)

- prioritise locally and ethically sourced animal produce (local butchers can be a great place to start for this)

- eat more seasonally (its not really feasible to only eat seasonal foods, but try to learn about them and incorporate them more)

- reduce food waste with composting, food donations, meal planning/prepping and learn to love leftovers

- invest in a tap filter and reusable water bottle (drinking tap water is not always safe depending on where you live so research first!!!)

- use public transport (or walk) where possible!

- connect with other people near you who also care about sustainable living: trade services and items and knowledge!

- learn about your local area and ecology!! I sound like a broken record saying this, but the BEST way to start living with nature, is to understand it. You can't help your local wildlife if you don't know it, you can't take steps to protect your environment if you don't know the threats.

All of these are just a few tips and ideas, they may not be feasible for everyone for numerous reasons but it's important to remember that it's not about being perfect, it's about *trying* and doing what you can.

There's so much more I could get into here, from foraging to activism to how and what to thrift vs when to splurge on new items but I think this post is long enough! Let me know if there's anything you want expanding or going into more depth on!!!

There are so so so many ways to experience the gods.

There is no right or wrong way. There is no blunt way. Its all feeling and ephemeral.

If you’ve felt warmth, if you’ve had a dream, if you’ve seen a crow that stares at you for too long, if something inexplicable happens and you’re lucky suddenly, if you’ve caught eyes with a stranger and felt like you knew each other. If the candle flickers a certain way, if one time when you’re singing your voice sounds gorgeous in a way you weren’t expecting, these are all the presence of a god.

God phoning is popular on witchtok but half the time what they’re saying is bullshit. I’ve very very rarely heard a voice and every single time it was my own voice, just suffused with something, saying something I normally wouldn’t say. Or maybe I would. I’ve never heard a clear, distinct, audible voice. Its an invisible world we’re connecting with, its a different plain. We cannot experience it the same way we experience every day life.

We’ll never sit down at a coffee table across from the physical manifestation of our god, and know that its them, not until after. And even then we can never be sure. That’s the nature of it. There are no absolutes, there cannot be. That’s what makes it beautiful. That’s where belief comes in. It isn’t about being good enough or worthy enough or devout enough, that doesn’t exist. That isn’t what its about at all. You are worthy even if the divine doesn’t manifest in a way we’ve been told is the only real way, and you are connecting even if you cant see it now. My most intense spiritual experiences are never something I realize are happening in the moment, its always only after that I can see it clearly.

The gods are all around us.

I’ve got another quick and easy tarot trick for y’all! The featured card for this one is The Hermit because I always associate it with taking time to care for yourself. 1. Find The Hermit in your deck. 2. The card below is what’s stressing or draining you. 3. The card above is something you can do for yourself.

hope it helps make somebody’s day a bit better!

Life finds a way, even in the cracks of concrete.

this leucistic blue jay, photographed by sue kiesel, is almost pure white - in stark contrast to a typical specimen’s vivid blues. leucism is a genetic mutation that presents in a lack of pigmentation, but not a full loss as in the case of albinism.

getting signs from asmodeus :33 who knew i’d be so popular among demons /j

Spiritual Progress Tarot Spread

Where you are in your spiritual cycle

Central cycle lesson

Positive Influence

Negative Influence

Advice 

Thought I would share this spread that his been super helpful for me and for others that I read for! Hope it has good results  for anyone who decides to utilize it!

oh boy is divination exhausting :’))

Tips on Grimoire Organization

Please note that if you are using a hard bound notebook or journal, adding in additional pages will bulk up your book, like so: (these are the exact same journals, btw)

- Envelopes. Let’s say you’re doing a section on Tarot in your Grimoire, and you want to include a few Tarot spreads, but you don’t want to waste two or three pages. Glue an envelope onto one of your pages to make a “pocket” where you can store little cards or papers with the tarot spreads written on them.

- Pockets. Similar to the envelope idea. If you have a page, or section for example, on herbal teas, you can make a pocket out of a piece of paper to keep your current favorite tea recipes in.

- Dividers, Cover Pages and Ribbons. If you’re like me and you like to have “sections” in your grimoire, you can easily make dividers by gluing a sheet of paper in your book (to make it heavier to make the sections stand out more). You can go further by turning your divider into a cover page for that section. And if you don’t like the idea doing that, you can always glue a ribbon, or a string, to the spine of your book to act as a bookmark.

- Double pages. I always had a problem with “wasting” pages in my grimoire. For example, my page on consecrating and charging. These two concepts are very similar to me, and I didn’t want two page stating the same thing. So, what I did was write out all my information on charging on a separate sheet of paper, then glued the top of that page into my grimoire. This way I could flip up the page on charging (as if it were on a clipboard) and have my page on consecrating underneath.

- Extended pages. Similar to the one above. In my Crystal section of my Grimoire, I decided to write out a chart that let me search for crystals by intention. So I drew my chart on a long sheet of paper, then folded it over (side to side) so that it fit comfortably in my book, then I just glued one side down into the book.

- Brochures. In my Elements section, I had a ton of information I wanted to write down, but I didn’t want each element to have more than two pages. So I used a piece of computer paper and folded it into a brochure (or into thirds) and glued it into the book so that the flaps would open and give me double the space to write.

- Clear Tape. There are many times where i finished a page in my grimoire only to find out there was a section that I left out. A simply way to fix this was with clear tape. I would write my forgotten bit of into on a separate piece of paper and then use clear tape to tape one side of the paper to my page. This allows me to flip the paper back and forth without covering up anything that I had written.

Other Resources on Grimoire Organization:

- Witch Tip by @pumpkin-bean - Grimoire Index by @triplevirgo - Witchy-Woman’s Grimoire Organization by @witchy-woman - Altar in a Journal by @thesubtlewitch

I hope this helps everyone with their Grimoire organizing needs! If anyone knows of any other awesome organizing tips, feel free to share!

P.S. Check out my Grimoire Masterpost for more tips on making a grimoire!

~L