This four-day festival aimed to commemorate the Pendle witches who were tried and killed in Lancaster in 1612, as hysteria and panic toward ‘witches’ rose. These women, and men, were not allowed to be mourned for; their whole families were eradicated in some cases, so we gathered to learn about them, remember them and in doing so heal and learn new things about ourselves and our connection with other women.
I am a witch – there I said it. ‘Coming out’ is always tough when you’re starting out in witchcraft. Witchy communities can often feel gatekeeper-y and non-witches can often not understand your practices… But there we are! Here’s to the start of my journey. *clink*
How have you been this lock-down? Since I am pretty sure all my readers are UK based and now in the drudgery of a third lock-down, I think we can assume we’re all feeling the same. Lethargic. I feel like the joy and energy has been sapped from life, and I am just waiting out until the end and hoping for the best. Daily, it’s a struggle. But these mini lectures and art workshops have given me little pockets of meaningfulness and learning, so I wanted to share them with you.
If there’s one thing I’ve been doing more these last few months, it’s treating myself to the little things. Those small things that I can change for myself have helped keep me afloat for a while. Whether that be making a self-care to help combat my anxiety and stress, or just straight up pampering myself, here are some of the products I use and wanted to recommend to you!
Now I’m going to spill some not-so-sweet tea… just before the lock-down my anxiety hit a spike after months of burying it, and I ended up having to sign myself off work due to stress. It’s not been pretty, but that’s the truth of it. Since then I’ve been phasing back and, more importantly, feeling a lot better. Here’s a few ways that I have been coping with anxiety and stress since then; I hope you find them useful.
I decided to try 30 new foods I’d never had before, in the hope of broadening my culinary experience before I turned 30. I did it but never posted this, and it was one of the few goals I managed to complete… Probably because it involved food. I hope this helps you on your journey around the foods of the world!
You probably won’t want to try the last one though…
One thing I am thankful for is that I am able to write this post, since there’s so much time for self-reflection and hobbies nowadays. I’ve been feeling for so long (since around October to be exact) like a shell of myself. Like I’d essentially peaked at 30 and I was now somehow struggling back uphill to become something I used to be…
I did something today that I thought I’d never be able to do again. I took part in GoApe in Coventry. My body screamed “Don’t do it!”, my mind screamed “You’re crazy!” but this tiny part of me looked back at my scouting days and said…
“You’ve just got to try…”
If you aren’t scared of anything, are you even human? I have a few irrational fears, the kind that few people share and aren’t based on real explanations (like heights, drowning etc.) I am so disturbed by one of these fears, that I can’t mention it in case friends decide it would be funny to send me pictures of said creatures, my other is bathophobia.
Bathophobia; is a fear of unknown depths. (Not a fear of baths.) Places of utter blackness deep beneath the world, and my particular phobia relates to water too. I often get bad dreams about the vastness of the sea and rivers that defy gravity and surround me. I’d promised myself I’d address this fear and so this week when going on a trip to the Peak District I decided to face my fear!
We all know that there are a LOT of sci-fi stories out there. I mean, there are whole sections of book shops dedicated to the genre. Speaking of which, I now sponsor one! I pledged to help my local BookShop’s expansion and they let me brand their sci-fi section. In celebration, I decided to explore what makes a good sci-fi story?
To answer this question, I took 2 sample texts, from “Amy’s Storys” (sic) written by 8-year-old me, to analyse as core texts. It’s as good a starting point as any…