#like literally In This Economy???? everything’s INSANELY expensive. there’s no way | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

brooklynbear32 · 11 months ago

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I interrupt my normal horny posting with some thoughts on finances, parenting, and parenting finances. Not your deal? Scroll on by, no worries! Want to know how I have two kids ~~~in this economy~~~ and am doing okay? Click the readmore. I'll tag this and future kiddo-related posts with #MamaSarah so you can block them if you want.

First off, $2.5 million in debt and overspending like that is completely insane. I literally can't comprehend living like that.

My husband and I are in a similar situation housing wise; I'd never heard of "golden handcuffs" is a very apt phrase. Yes, the value of our house has gone up proportionately with the market, but 5 years ago the next level up of house (small detached) only cost about $50k more than our townhouse. Now, detached houses are $100-150k more, and interest rates have skyrocketed.

I will say, though, as a mom of two, kids aren't always as expensive as made out to be. Formula and daycare costs are absolutely ridiculous and I don't have a way around that. Beyond those two expenses, I've found that so much spending related to kids are more about convincing yourself that you're a good parent than actually providing for your child's needs.

One of my friends has a $700 travel system (car seat plus stroller) because she was convinced that it was the safest option for her baby. Car seats are so meticulously regulated in North America that $100 car seats genuinely are not less safe. My $200 travel system has all the same safety ratings and has held up to years of use and abuse with no greater issues than needing a $15 replacement wheel.

Nearly everything you want or need for your kids can be found on Facebook marketplace for 50-80% less than store price, often in near-perfect condition. I paid $35 for a $200 baby swing that was barely used because the baby it was bought for didn't care for it. We used it for a few months with our baby until he didn't like it anymore, and then we sold it --- for $35. My husband and I refer to items we get from FB marketplace as rentals because we know we'll be able to sell them for almost as much as we paid, if not the same amount.

There's almost always a mom giving away big bags of baby and kid clothes in local free groups on Facebook, bags that cost $10-20 in the marketplace. No baby needs you to spend $10-20 for an outfit they'll wear 3-5 times before outgrowing, when you could pay that much or less for their whole wardrobe for that time. If you do go to retailers, walk straight to the sale rack and buy items a size or two up to tuck away. I paid $3 for a brand new pair of $50(!) Paw Patrol winter boots at Walmart yesterday. Seriously.

Cloth diapers can save you big money, but I will say it's only worth it if you have in-unit/main floor laundry. Unless you're a far more energetic and productive person than I am, you're not going to want to go up and down the stairs to switch out all the different cycles needed to properly clean the diapers. I spent $150 on cloth diapers for our first, the same cost as ~5 months of disposables, give or take. If you do disposables, I've found Rascal and Friends diapers at Walmart are better quality than Pampers or Huggies and cost less.

In terms of formula, sign up for every different brands mailing list. You will receive high value coupons which you can sell or trade on Facebook. Also, babies can be picky about different types of formula so it's common for parents to sell tubs of formula with just two or three scoops used. Obviously, use your best discretion on this for safety purposes, but it can be a good way to save.

People say that breastfeeding/chestfeeding is free but it just isn't true. It requires an extra 300-500 calories a day to create the milk, so you're going to be eating more and food is expensive. There are tons of resources online about how to decrease your grocery cost but my best advice is just to stock up on items when they are cheap, and make double of a meal occasionally and freeze it so you can pull it out and heat it up when you'd otherwise be tempted to order delivery.

My only tip for childcare is to find an early childhood educator or kindergarten teacher who is a stay at home parent to their kids and is willing to take yours on, too. Obviously vet them first, but I know several people who have down this, both as the provider and the parent. Beyond that, I can't make daycare cheaper, sorry, but maybe you can! Now is a great timr for you to volunteer with whatever politician/community leader near you is advocating for affordable childcare. Maybe you'll create change that you'll be able to benefit from down the road!

As your kids get older, prioritize low-cost or free community activities over high-cost extra-curriculars. A soccer program run by your local community centre will cost half as much as a private one at a fancy field on the edge of town (that is also a longer drive away). Make the library your best friend, not just for books and media but also for events. More importantly, let your kids be bored! It's good for them! They will find creative things to do, especially if you offer to find a chore for them to do instead ;)

Don't go insane at Christmas. Don't be the parents of the kid who tells everyone at school that Santa brought them a PS5, because Santa might have only brought someone else a few things from Dollar Tree. Focus more on holiday activities and quality time than presents.

Don't think that you have $500 birthday parties for your kid every year to show them you love them. Have them pick three friends to take on an adventure like to an indoor playground or rock climbing or bowling. Buy them tons of snacks and make goodie bags and you'll still spend 1/3 as much.

Beyond meeting basic needs, more money never made a child a better person. The most important part of parenting is consistently showing up for your child with love, patience, and empathy.

This is (obviously) something I'm pretty passionate about, so feel free to send me an ask or a message if you gave questions or want to talk about it more!

I have a random question. How is everyone doing in these trying times? Like it’s so hard out there right now while my partner and I both make what I thought was good money, yet we’re both really struggling. He just got a second job and I’m looking for another job where I can work from home. We were hopping to have a house by now, but are still living in a dinky apartment. Don’t know if we can ever afford kids. Forget a vacation. Social media has given me extreme fomo and made me feel like a failure compared to my friends despite having an MA. Seriously how are y’all managing? It’s hard out there. Sorry, I know sometimes you like to discuss other things 🫶🏻

The world really is a hot mess. It’s crazy how expensive everything keeps getting while wage remains stagnant for most people. It’s a really rough spot to be in for so many people.

I’m personally within the “ok, but I wish things were a lot better” camp. I’ve found myself in what’s now being called the millennial golden handcuffs. Golden meaning I was fortunate enough to buy a house before prices and interest rates skyrocketed, but handcuffed because I can’t afford to move from where I’m at. The house we live in now is a cute little starter home, but around the 5-10 year mark my husband and I had planned to sell our house and upgrade to something bigger before we had kids so we had the space we’d feel like we’d need to fit a growing family. Well. I’m fortunate to have a house, and I will never take that for granted, but selling it and moving now is out of the question because home prices have literally almost doubled where I live in the last 6 years. I literally could not even afford to buy the same house I already live in right now. It’s seriously insane.

But I feel with you on everything else. I thought my life would look a lot different by now and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever have the things I originally wanted for myself out of my adult life. I always wanted 2 kids when we were ready to start a family for various reasons I won’t get into right now, this will be long enough as is, but I don’t know if we can even afford 1 child in this economy when I see the prices of diapers, formula, and childcare. And it all just keeps getting more expensive every time you turn around. I try to think about those costs being tacked on to our already expensive bills and I’m not sure that we’ll be able to swing it. Not without making severely drastic changes anyway. I also wanted to see so much of the world by now through travel. Covid ruined a lot of travel plans I initially had, and now that we’re mostly in a post Covid world (yes, I acknowledge Covid isn’t truly over yet) the cost of travel has gone up so much that it’ll eat away too much of my savings that I’m not willing to part with. I’m always worried about needing that money for things like medical or home emergencies and spending it down on something like travel just doesn’t feel like a wise choice right now. And it’s hard to continue to save money when the cost of everything keeps increasing. It’s like a never ending circle where you just can’t get ahead.

I wish I had some sound advice to share with you that would help or make you feel better. (Shit, I need it too sometimes). Just try to keep in mind that sometimes what we see on social media isn’t always reflective of what’s happening in reality. For example, a good friend of mine had two babies during Covid, she and her husband bought a new, massive house for their little family, new cars, she’s always posting stories about new jewelry he bought her, and they’re constantly going on lavish looking trips or going to concerts and sporting events. Looking at their life on social media it’s like “wow, must be nice.” It’s really easy to feel envious when we see those things. There’s times where I’ve even wondered “how are they doing it?” and it turns out they aren’t. After a conversation she and I recently had about life in general while we were catching up, she told me they are $2.5 million dollars in debt between their student loans, mortgage, car payments, and maxed out credit cards. They are one small emergency away from losing everything they have because they can’t take on another expense. Their life looks beautiful on Instagram, but that’s a level of debt that makes me feel physically sick and I’d absolutely not want to trade her places for it. The jewelry, trips, concerts, and games are not worth that level of debt to me. Sure, it’s nice to experience those things. But not in exchange for being that financially unstable (IMO-you’re all free to disagree of course). Some of the debt is understandable, they need a home to live in (although their last house was still very nice and perfectly fine for the four of them), they need cars to get to work, and whatever expenses that come with raising their children. That’s understandable debt/finances that most people have. But they could easily be saving thousands of dollars a year on frivolous spending that’s done for the sole purpose of putting up a false facade on Instagram about living that easy high life. I personally don’t know why they feel compelled to do it, they aren’t trying to be influencers, nor are either of their families materialistic like that. But sometimes those great Instagram feeds aren’t always what they seem. 🦎

#mamasarah

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csuitebitches · 2 years ago

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Family money/access to wealth seems like the #1 determinant of success.

Yes and no. I’ve seen spoiled brats grow up and suffer because their parents didn’t teach them things properly and they couldn’t handle the family wealth, which either led to the family company being led by professionals or bankrupt. I’ve seen grounded rich kids grow up and expand their family’s empire. It’s all a part of your calibre to have ambition.

A boy worked as a security guard at a prestigious conglomerate. He didn’t speak a word of English, he only spoke his native language. He hailed from a small village in an Asian country, and provided for his family.

However, his boss, the main security head, had a feeling that he was smart. And when a prestigious financial company came knocking on the company’s door for some hiring purpose (my memory fails me exactly why they’d visited the conglomerate), the head security took the opportunity to talk to HR. He asked him if the boy could give the exam that the financial company gave for hiring candidates.

HR thought that the security head had lost his mind.

“Are you insane? He can’t even speak English!” argued the HR.

“Sir, please, if you just give the boy a chance, just to give the exam… I’m sure he’ll do well,” pleaded the security head.

The HR thought for a second.

“Very well,” he decided. “The boy may give the exam. Let’s see if he’s as smart as you say so.”

The exam had two components to it. One was a theoretical test and another, a spoken interview.

The boy aced the theoretical test and was only one of two people from all the candidates to do so. But his lack of English failed him in the spoken interview.

Still, he had impressed the financial company’s panel. They told him that they would hire him, under various conditions - one of them being learning English in a mere four months.

For four months, the boy toiled and toiled, until he grasped English. The company was ready to pay for the English tuition expenses. And in four months, when they were satisfied with his level of fluency, he joined the company.

•

When I was 16, I began working. One of my first internships was at an education firm. A very kindly man mentored me and I learned a lot under him. He was passionate about education, especially educating backward, rural communities and previously had worked in a prestigious financial company. I was surprised to hear that he had left such a big job at the finance company to come and work in education. He said that the stress, burn out and lack of empathy wasn’t worth it. He told me how he would have to fire people in the most unsympathetic way possible - the company would provide him with a script, he would have to recite just that and watch the other person’s face fall. He couldn’t take the pressure that his job had anymore and felt stuck in his life. He wanted to create impact on people.

I learned plenty under him, and he was always ready to take me to business meetings and trips. He didn’t treat me like a child or as a teenager with unbalanced ideas - he would listen to my suggestions as a whole and give me genuinely honest feedback on it. I grew as a person under him.

My father later told me about my mentor’s backstory. You should have seen my face. There isn’t a single thing that gives away that he came from humble origins - his English impeccable, his knowledge vast, the way he dresses and carries himself with confidence - everything screamed “privileged upbringing” to me. I would have never guessed that he came from a challenged background and had to literally work his way up.

My former mentor now does social work. Him and his brother have created a project where they provide rural children who struggle to feed themselves with food.

The more calamities that exist, the more opportunities will come up. To survive in today’s world, you need to be able to solve problems. In an economy where we can see tiny start ups disrupting massive family business legacies, and with so much access to information and the net - if you don’t take advantage of every single thing you have to climb up, then you don’t really want what you truly want.

#q/a #success

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years ago

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Understanding the aftermath of r/wallstreetbets

A couple days back, I wrote up my best understanding of what happened with /r/wallstreetbets and meme stocks like Gamestop, trying to show how all the different, seemingly contradictory takes on the underlying financial stuff could all be true.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/28/payment-for-order-flow/#wallstreetbets

In the days since, a new series of contradictory takes has emerged, these ones disputing the meaning of this bizarre financial spectacle, and likewise what response, if any is warranted as it unfurls.

I think that all of these takes can also be true, and as with the trading itself, reconciling them requires that we widen the frame.

Let's start with Jimmy Carter.

In 1978, Carter's IRS created the 401(k), a tax-sheltered account for people who wanted to gamble on stocks to fund their retirement.

That was a fringe proposition at best.

The normal retirement system was a "defined benefits" pension where your employer guaranteed you a certain monthly percentage of your salary from retirement to death.

The vast majority of Americans wisely prefered a guaranteed payout to a tax-advantaged gambling account.

Obviously, right? On the one hand, you have the guarantee of a pension (maybe even inflation-indexed); on the other, you have a bunch of bets, that, if they go wrong, leave you literally homeless and starving.

When gamblers remortgage the family home and cash in the kids' college funds to play the tables, we consider them to have a mental illness, a pathological condition that harms them and the people around them.

Giving up a defined benefits pension in favor of a 401k is just the same kind of bet - staking all the money that will support you when you exit the workforce on the movement of stocks and bonds.

Who would do that voluntarily?

Pretty much no one. But the transition from defined benefits to 401k was not voluntary. Finance ghouls like Ethan Lipsig wrote memos to major employers like Hughes Aircraft showing them how they could ditch their pension obligations by moving workers to 401ks.

In the 80s, Reagan created a bunch of legal tools that allowed employers to coerce their workforces into giving up the security of a pension and force them into gambling their salaries on the prayer of a win in the markets.

This was insanely, amazingly great for the finance sector, in three ways:

1. It made companies more profitable. Guaranteeing that the workers whose labor made your company viable wouldn't spend their dotage starving and homeless is expensive.

Helping fund wagers on shares is much cheaper. The finance sector represented the major shareholders of the companies that transitioned to 401ks. The savings were transferred to these shareholders and the finance sector got commissions.

What's more, this temporary inflation of share prices disguised what was going on with the pension switcheroo: workers' defined benefits pensions were liquidated and turned into stocks, just as stocks were going up because their pensions had been liquidated!

Their legs had been amputated out from under them, but so subtly that they didn't yet feel the pain - and now their bosses cooked their legs and snuck them into their dinner, and everyone marveled at how full they felt after that hearty, meaty meal.

2. 401ks brought a lot of suckers to the table. The market was - and is - dominated by "sophisticated investors," AKA predators, who knew all the ways to fleece the rubes who had no idea how any of this worked.

The predatory nature of finance only increased over time. Hedge funds, for example, exist to find unethical practices that are legal (thanks to loopholes in the rules) and exploit them until they are illegal.

3. 401ks created a political force outside the finance sector that would lobby on its behalf. Transforming America into a nation of stockholders meant that workers had to choose between supporting rules that protected their jobs and rules that protected their retirement.

For your pension account to grow, you had to support policies that permitted finance ghouls to offshore your job, or misclassify you as a contractor, or eliminate the safety rules that prevented you from being maimed, or take away your right to sue for compensation.

Every time there's a particularly ghastly bankruptcy driven by PE or hedge funds - Toys R Us, Sears, etc - it emerges that at least some of that money is coming out of a union pension fund.

That's marketization - turning the once obscure, boring business of market-based capital allocation into a matter of import to everyday people.

Marketization begat financialization.

While marketization is primarily about capital allocation (who gets what money), financialization is about bets. Sometimes those bets are about things - businesses, houses, coal and timber - but things are limited. Mostly the financial market consists of bets on other bets.

Bets are infinite. Every time you make a bet, you create inventory for a market in a bet on the outcome of your bet. And that's inventory for a new market: bets on the outcomes of bets on the outcomes of bets.

It's called Wall Street Bets for a reason.

Bets need referees, someone who decides who the winner is. In sports, it's a major scandal if a referee is caught wagering on one of the teams in a match. In the financial markets, it's the norm - referees that lay wagers on the outcome of the contest they're overseeing.

Let's take stock:

Workers are forced to play the casino, and if their bets fail, they spend their old ages homeless and starving;

The vast majority of casino games are wholly abstract - bets on bets on bets - and require layers of refs;

the refs are all crooked.

Every couple of years, we have a massive, systemic financial crisis, and every time that happens, the finance sector lobbies for a no-strings-attached bailout, abetted by suckers who hate the finance sector but fear starving in their old age.

We're about to be engulfed in the second-largest crisis of our lifetime - the reckoning from trillions in capital market gains propped up by the Trump administration's policy of buying all corporate debt as a covid stimulus.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/28/cyberwar-tactics/#aligned-incentives

(the largest crisis of our lifetimes is a few years off, as the climate emergency piles losses on losses, stranding tens of trillions in assets, from fossil fuels to obsolete gas-stations to literally underwater coastal real-estate to whole towns incinerated by wildfires)

That's where we're at: a crooked casino that we've trusted our futures too, a crisis on the horizon, and a bunch meme-stock "players" who have thrown the normal weirdness of the market into stark relief through a spectacular stunt.

A lot of people are angry at Robinhood, the stock-trading platform at the center of all this. Robinhood froze trading on meme stocks, and has only allowed it to come back in a useless, performative trickle that is seemingly calculated to prevent more meme-stock gamesmanship.

Is Robinhood just another crooked ref? Yes…and no. The meme stock run upset the stable cheaters' equilibrium whereby cheating never escalated to the point where the game just collapsed.

For example, the total short position on Gamestop exceeds its total stock issuance.

Translation: there were more Gamestop shares promised between bettors than exist. When the game stops, all those promises come due, and they literally can't be paid off because there aren't enough tokens in circulation to settle all the debts.

Robinhood halted trading in part because the big fish upstream of Robinhood also halted trading, because they have even more at risk than Robinhood does if the game collapses - they the refs for MANY players, all the same size as Robinhood or larger.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-29/reddit-traders-on-robinhood-are-on-both-sides-of-gamestop

But remember, the refs are cheating. And they are both downstream and upstream from other games in which the refs are also cheating.

And the games, as a whole, encompass our economy, including the solvency of the "real economy" (the people who make masks, deliver groceries and drive ambulances), and whether you spend your old age homeless and starving.

So the people who say, "Don't blame Robinhood, they didn't halt trading to help billionaires, they halted trading to prevent the game from collapsing are right."

But they're not the only ones who are right.

Also, there's the people who say that meme stocks aren't making money for little guys at the expense of the big guys. They're right too.

First, because these stocks will all need to be converted to cash, and that means selling them.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/the-gamestop-bubble-is-going-to-hurt-a-lot-of-ordinary-investors/

When the selloff starts, the price will plunge, because even if the stock was undervalued before, it's certainly overvalued now. Every bubble produces wealth for its early bettors who sell out to later players who lose everything when they can't find a sucker later on.

From Beanie Babies to subprime, bubbles burst and leave suckers holding the bag. If you just heard about meme stocks last week, you're too late to make money off of them.

There's another version of the "this isn't little guys, it's big whales" that's *also* true: the main beneficiary of the meme stock runs is giant funds who magnified and the bets from r/wallstreetbets and got out smart and fast.

https://twitter.com/zatapatique/status/1354904995901136896

So given all this, what can we make of calls (from parties as varied as AOC and Ted Cruz) to investigate Robinhood and other retail brokerages to see whether they're honest refs, or in the tank for billionaires?

At Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith calls this a "fatuous uproar," saying that the Senate has more important things to do during the racing-out-of-control pandemic than to investigate a literal penny-ante grift.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/01/the-fatuous-uproar-about-robinhood-and-gamestop.html

Do we really care who the winner is in "a beauty contest between Cinderella’s ugly sisters" ("clueless new gen day traders versus clumsy shorts")?

Smith is right too.

A speculator-v-speculator contest that falls apart when the crooked ref halts play to prevent collapse - who cares who "wins?"

But here's how they can all be right - the "who cares" and the "goliath v goliath" and the "bubble" and the "Robinhood is a plutes' honeypot."

*If* there's hearings, and *if* those hearings expose the absurdity and corruption of the system, *then* there is a chance to build the political will to make real, systemic changes when the crisis comes.

And there's a real crisis coming: two, in fact. The covid junk bond financial crisis, which is due very soon, and the climate crisis stranded asset emergencies, which will unroll with increased tempo and intensity for decades to come.

The half-century cycle of "addressing" finance crises by increasing financialization MUST stop.

If the meme stock spectacle gets us to pay attention to hearings that reveal the irredeemable rot of the system, then it's a unique chance to spread *real* "financial literacy."

And that literacy is the necessary (but insufficient) precursor to taking action when the time comes - and the time is certainly coming soon.

#pluralistic

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heroprose · 5 years ago

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the regular;

a/n. well what do u know.... turns out i WILL be writing for jojo on this blog...... @jojosmilktea, that is!! hi jojo i was ur bnha spring event anon! and i’m SOOO sorry this is late RIP!!!

ship. shoto todoroki x reader

summary. bubble tea shop au. it’s true that he knows your order by heart, but he wishes he knew a little more.

to be quite honest, you didn’t know this bubble tea shop even existed in this part of the city.

it certainly didn’t look the part, all pristine with white stone walls and flower boxes hooked onto the closed glass windows. no, in fact it looked a little too bougie for this gray high rise district and you suspect that if it were not for the current downpour, wherein great big rivulets of water are endlessly streaming down the streets, hipsters would populate this cafe’s space in no time.

you cannot blame them, of course. it’s certainly a nice building and totally instagram-worthy. but what attracts you to it is not the vintage stone walls nor the massive poster plastered on the inside of the glass window, with vibrant letters that spell out NEW SEASONAL FLAVORS! but instead, it’s the generous pink awning in front that’s saving you from the insidious downpour.

you were supposed to do a little grocery shopping before heading home, damn it. technically, though, you could brave the rain for a while and shop for bread and eggs while sopping wet, but it’s a deeply unappealing idea. it doesn’t help that your go-to grocer with the terrific deals is three train stops away either and that your phone is dead, drained from too many rounds of crossy road on your commute long before the rain even began.

restless, you squint through the window of the shop inconspicuously and gape in horror as you realize it is just as cute inside as it is outside. from what you can tell, it’s set up like a little garden party, with metal outdoor chairs and circular tables and the tiles even have flower smiley face stickers on them. oh no.

it is something of a relief you’ve only discovered this bubble tea shop now because any earlier would have you blowing your bank account on extra boba and grass jelly. and in this economy? not ideal.

still, your eyes waver to the poster again. rose milk tea? peach iced tea? the prices aren’t listed anywhere so you presume they must be absolutely monstrous. completely insane, probably, and jacked up immensely to compensate for the expenses gone in the decor alone and--

“we’re open, you know. you can come in.”

you pull away from the window hastily, letting your back bump into the metal back of chair. biting back a cry of pain, you eye the speaker head-to-toe before letting your shoulders slack. the black apron tied at his waist screams barista. actually, everything about this dude screams barista, from the rolled up sleeves to the vaguely disheveled collar. even the watch on his wrist-- woah. is that a limited edition tag heuer watch? you blanch a little.

he grips the broom with both hands and gestures with the jerk of his chin to the door. “you can come in,” he repeats. his bangs flutter about his forehead thanks to the gusts of wind and it’s a bit mesmerizing to see the red and white flutter like that.

“oh,” you say, desperate to recompose yourself as you pretend you weren’t wringing out droplets of water from your clothing just minutes before. “it’s okay, thank you. i’m just waiting for the rain to pass.”

the barista opens his mouth but before he can speak, a loud clap of thunder zips through you and goosebumps erupt across the expanse of your skin. with ears ringing, you wince and the tag heuer-wearing fellow only watches. you purse your lips, glancing from him. to the onslaught of rain, to finally the door.

well. so much for staying outside. wordlessly, he pulls the door open for you and you oblige quietly, mumbling a small word of thanks as you pass him.

unsurprisingly, the shop is wholly vacant, save for him, the boy who follows you in, and another barista behind the counter, who leans against the table behind him with arms crossed. the radio is on but it’s turned down so low that it might as well be off.

it would be painful to loiter in this shop for an hour or so without buying anything, so begrudgingly, you pull out your wallet and pray to whatever higher deity up there that you won’t get hooked on their drinks and subsequently, their freakish prices. you’ve got a budget, for goodness sake.

when you step to the counter, the barista that met you outside sets his broom aside to meet you on the other side. “what would you like?” he asks automatically, with the tilt of his head. you glance over the menu above his head despite knowing your answer deep inside your heart.

“taro milk tea, please,” you say, bringing your gaze back to him. a trickle of rainwater slides down the curve of his cheek and you have to tear your gaze away. “medium, with boba. and extra sugar too.”

“will that be it?”

“yes,” you reply with your eyes downcast, carefully deciding on whether to use cash or credit. maybe you can use some of your spare coins this time.

his gold name tag says “shoto,” and it gleams even in your peripheral vision as he nods and turns to the other barista with the spiky hair who stands a few ways’ away and glowers a bit.

“katsuki,” says shoto. “one medium taro milk tea with--”

“yeah, yeah,” says the other barista snappishly. “i heard. i’m literally right here.” he pulls away from the table and exits to the back forcefully and you two watch him in relative silence. a guitar-heavy shawn mendes song plays in the background; played too softly for you to determine which one though.

shoto’s gaze swivels back to you, undisturbed by the attitude his coworker just presented and so you do your best to remain indifferent as well. it is similarly pure irony to have such a gentle cafe hosted by such personalities.

“name?” he simply asks and you tell him, not bothering to question why that was still necessary if you were the only customer in the entire shop.

and it is equally strange that after katsuki returns with your drink, about to hand it to you, shoto acts to intercepts with an extended hand to take the cup away.

“what are you doing?” says katsuki incredulously, drawing back.

shoto presents the sticker with the order printed on it in the air. “i need to put this on.”

“seriously? it’s not like you could hand it to the wrong person,” he mutters, but lets shoto tease it out of his hand before promptly returning to the kitchen again, letting the doors swing behind him. you refrain from smiling too wide as shoto carefully presses the sticker onto the cup behind the counter with an unexpectedly concentrated expression on his face.

when he utters your name to catch your attention, shoto slides your drink over to you, not letting go until your fingers accidentally brush over his. “here you go.”

“thank you,” you say brightly, shaking it for good measure. the ice clinks distract you momentarily from the noise of rain hitting concrete. the cream and purple taro swirl together brilliantly.

he nods, turning away to take a cleaning rag into his hands. shoto wipes at the counter meticulously, every once in a while swiping a smudge with his fingertips to evaluate his work. the quiet is only periodically punctured by the clap of thunder and when shawn mendes starts belting out the background adlibs via the radio.

“when do you think the rain will let up?” you muse absentmindedly, fingers drumming the raised counter as you push along your bubble tea and dig around the container for a straw of your favorite color. “not for long, i hope.”

shoto blinks, glancing up. “i heard it’ll last all through the night.”

steely dread pools at the bottom of your stomach. “no!” you gasp, confronting shoto. “really? i don’t have an umbrella or anything.” you didn’t hear anything of the sort, but then again, you haven’t checked the forecast since this morning. maybe you can wave down a cab or something. you let out a brief laugh of disbelief that rapidly devolves into a groan. “man. that stinks.”

he looks at you sympathetically, watching you deftly pierce the plastic seal top of your milk tea with more force than necessary.

you bring the straw to your mouth, sipping quietly as you think of your next line of action. the richness is disturbingly good and you’re saddened to know that you’ll be returning in the future, rain or no rain.

taking a seat in a metal chair, you finally give the shop a thorough glance over. with all the bright lights and pale wallpaper plastered with colorful stickers. above you, the ceiling vents buzz quietly. the whole shop is just--

“dazzling,” you murmur after several minutes, submitting to its glamour. “everything’s so pretty here.” the interior designer really went ham here and it shows. you fish your phone out of your slightly damp pocket and wipe at the screen with a sigh. you’d even take a photo if you could.

unbeknownst to you, shoto had left the counter upfront and is wiping down a table nearby as you speak. “thank you,” he says and you jolt, head snapping towards his direction. “we do our best to be presentable and comfortable.”

“full marks on both then,” you say breezily and a ghost of a smile teases at his lips before he walks away to the backroom.

he’s amused. did he think you were funny? your ears start to warm up a little and you drain your milk tea faster. in any case, it’s best that you brave the storm sooner than later.

there’s little doubt that the rain won’t be stopping any time soon and it would really be the icing on the cake if you not only got stuck in a thunderstorm but fell ill as well. you’ve realized, from all your years of life, that people don’t appreciate their functional nostrils until they get stuffed.

and you don’t know how much time passes in that cafe with the absence of clocks and your phone, but after catching yourself glancing over at shoto for the fifth time, wondering if you can make him smile like that again, you finally think that enough is enough. your chewing speeds up.

then you stand up, careful to not let the metal feet scrape the tiles. should you just book it, through the rain? or should you stand under the awning a little longer, hoping the rare cab will notice your helpless self and save you? as you mull these thoughts over, you toss the cup into the bin and wipe your hands with a spare napkin, getting rid of the condensation.

“wait.”

shoto’s calm voice makes you whirl around yet again.

as he walks closer, you notice that he’s gripping something in his hand and you can only bring yourself to stare as he presents it to you.

“take it,” he says. “this is my umbrella.”

your heart stutters for a second. “huh? no, i couldn’t,” you say hastily, dismissing him with a wave. “that’s really kind of you though, thank you.”

“but you said you didn’t have one.”

you give him a quizzical look. “but if i take yours, then you don’t have one.”

“katsuki-- um, the other person who works here-- lives near me. we commute together sometimes. so please,” he says, gesturing the closed umbrella. you wrap your fingers around the clear plastic gingerly to his coaxing. “take it.”

tears nearly prick your eyes as you lean over to pat him on the arm graciously. he’s more alarmed than anything else as you do, silently wide-eyed, and is it only then that you notice his eyes are different colors. “thanks, shoto. i’ll be back tomorrow to return it then. i promise!”

he gives you a quick nod. “i don’t work tomorrow. i’ll be here all weekend though.”

“alright, shoto. i’ll see you on the weekend.”

“stay safe.”

you’re already turning away and pushing open the door before you see the flicker of a smile pass over his visage again.

“you gave away your umbrella?” says katsuki after the cafe closes later that evening. his eyes narrow down at his fellow coworker sharply. “to a damn customer?”

“it’ll get returned,” assures shoto. his upper arm is warm where you had touched him, and his hand hovers over it for a second before he shrugs on his jacket.

“that’s not the point,” his coworker seethes, angrily hanging up his apron. “my car is two blocks over and i was relying on you to do your part in bringing the umbrella. idiot!”

ah.

you come back that sunny weekend, with shoto’s trusty transparent umbrella in hand... as well as the weekend after. and the weekend after that. sans the excuse of the umbrella, of course.

when it is katsuki that greets you at the counter, he does little to hide his disapproval of your order; grunting when you greet him with a cheerful “hi katsuki!” and grimacing each time when you smile and add, “with extra sugar!” to your order.

“you’re aware of how much sugar is already in this stuff, right?” he tells you.

“i’m here for a good time, not a long time,” you reply. “and are you really supposed to be asking me that? as someone who works here?”

katsuki scoffs and wordlessly punches your order in anyway. his brew, however, is immaculate without fail so you don’t question his tactics.

but when it is shoto... he greets you warmly, stretching the conversation by asking about how you are and about your day.

“the regular?” he eventually asks after several weeks of you making the same order as the last.

you smile. “the regular.”

sometimes, you loiter near the counter when it’s not busy. you learn, with some semblance of glee, that shoto is a student like yourself and he only works part-time-- the rainy afternoon you met him on had been a shift he was covering for someone else. other times all you can do is take your drink and wave him goodbye.

even on the extremely busy days where you cannot even find a vacant seat, there are brief seconds where you think of leaning against the wall and enjoying the atmosphere. it is a startling realization, how desperate you want to linger in his presence.

your affection is making you ill. ugh, and being bloated is not a good look on you either.

drinking taro milk tea at competitor bubble tea shops don’t even sate you. it’s always too watery, too thin; the flavors rounding off as bitter, over brewed tea. but you drink them to wean yourself off. you should probably stop drinking them altogether though.

some time passes before you can find it in yourself to return. the storefront is as pretty as it always is whenever you pass it by on your commute.

“hey, how are you? have you been alright?” asks shoto right off the bat, dropping his washrag haphazardly beside the sink when you find yourself at the counter again after the weeks of hearty self-restraint.

his concern is so vivid it unnerves you. it’s a funny and ill-placed nervous look on his face, eyebrows pulled tense. “i’m fine,” you say, “how have you been?”

“i’m well,” shoto says. “and... that’s good. it’s been a while. i thought you might have started getting your milk tea fix from somewhere else.” he pauses. “have you?”

his sincerity makes you throw your head back and laugh, but your stomach gurgles at the recollection of drinking so many subpar taro milk teas. “never,” you tell him finally. “i like this place too much. and the people here too.”

“i see.” shoto’s smile is bright this time, eyes so soft even as he speaks. “the regular then?”

you let out an exaggerated sigh, your own gaze crinkling up. “you know me so well, shoto.”

“quit freakin’ flirting at the counter,” snaps katsuki, mopping the floor vigorously. “do that shit when you’re not at work, icy-hot. it’s disgusting that i have to stand here and listen to you two.”

shoto frowns. “it’s not flirting. we have to be kind to customers.” he calls from the kitchen.

“kindness is you giving extra napkins, not asking if they’ve been going to other bubble tea shops. as if.”

“we’re... just friends then.”

“just friends, my ass. what, you think that extra sugar ass sweet tooth loser came in every week alone just to get tea? you know what...” katsuki’s peeved grumbles trail off until they’re no longer comprehensible.

shoto just ponders on this as he drains the sink.

“here,” says katsuki one saturday afternoon. “take it. and go.” he pushes the purple drink into your hand and wipes his own hand on his apron. “extra sugar. don’t blame me when your teeth fall out.”

“damn,” you say, although you are hardly taken aback by his crudeness anymore. “but i will. i’ve got a lot to do today, so i can’t stay and chat. bye guys!”

“take care,” says shoto just as katsuki says, “don’t care, didn’t ask.”

(when you wave goodbye, however, you are pleased to see that they both reciprocate kindly.)

by the time you eventually take a sip, you’re already on your way to the rail to get to your favorite grocery store. today, it’s buy one get one free bags of potatoes so you know you’ll be stocking up this time.

mindlessly, you pierce the top with your straw, careful to aim for the center. you give it a stir before taking a sip, the familiar creaminess filling your mouth.

although it’s... different, somehow.

sweeter, you think. did katsuki actually overload it with sugar this time? seemed like a weird prank to pull. perhaps he was teaching you a lesson but considering that he hasn’t been fired yet indicates that this was an infrequent occurrence. hopefully.

chewing the boba thoughtfully, you pull the cup away in order to squint at the dark text printed on the sticker. it’s the same as you always say it: a medium, iced, taro milk tea, with boba and 25% extra--

the word “sugar” is scrawled over with black ink, although not deliberately it seems. it’s just covered up with a slew of numbers and letters written unbelievably neat in spite of being on a cylindrical cup and you nearly hack up a black clump of sugary boba onto the concrete sidewalk.

but nevertheless, you force it down to look at the order again, more closely this time.

they’re numbers, and your heart stutters in your chest at the realization there’s just enough to be a phone number; followed by a name that you only ever saw emblazoned on a gold name tag.

you want to commit the numbers to memory, but it’s undeniably hard to concentrate. not when shoto’s gentle smile is on the forefront of your brain and when big, fat droplets of water are hitting your forehead with incredible force.

you glance up at the swirling, ashen clouds above you, bloated and expecting. an uncomfortable feeling crawls up your spine at the realization that you’ve forgotten your umbrella at home today too.

oh god. not again.

“i can’t believe you actually wrote your number on my cup today... very smooth, shoto.”

there’s a beat before shoto replies, his voice tinny and distant over the phone. “actually, i did that the first day you came in-- when it was raining. i figured you didn’t notice or you were rejecting me.”

“oh. so, wait-- you did it twice then? that day and today?”

“no,” says shoto. “just that day.”

“then who--” you stop yourself.

outside your window, a clap of thunder shakes the sky. and the epiphany that follows renders you both silent.

#shoto todoroki x reader #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki x reader #shouto todoroki x reader #bnha spring time #bnha x reader #bnha imagines #ok jojo actually though i nearly wrote u a tiger king au and then i was like hold on....aint nobody but me gonna want this.....

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spoonhacks · 5 years ago

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My Fibro Journey and How I Came Back from Rock Bottom

This not advice. But this is a true story, and it’s time I shared my Fibro journey. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia just as college was ending. This is not to say it began then, but it came to head enough to finally get an answer. This came about a year and a half after my Interstitial Cystitis diagnosis, and I was in BAD shape. I was 90 lbs, deteriorating, and everything winded me. The pain was constant and completely overwhelming. I had thrown every last drop of my energy into finishing my college thesis and graduating from a school I had worked SO hard at. When it finally commenced, I felt lost. I was depleted from the effort and it was 2011 and the economy was in shambles. Having nowhere else to go, I moved into my dad’s spare room in Massachusetts, miles away from the state I had always called home, my precious Florida warmth, and the love of my life. I was, unsurprisingly, miserable, and my health tanked immediately. I was cold all the time. No amount of blankets helped because I wasn’t generating my own heat. I remember spending Thanksgiving eve in the emergency room because an Interstitial Cystitis flare had caused a UTI to back up and give me yet another kidney infection and I had a soaring fever. Things were toxic with my dad. His cure for everything is to get up at 6am and be busy busy busy and I was in desperate need of rest. When it became obvious to me finding a job was not happening, I started an Etsy shop for my crafts with the limited energy I had. It pulled in maybe $200 a month but it felt good to be doing one small thing. A few months later the love of my life arranged to follow me to New England and secured a place for us in the apartment above his father’s house. We were together again but things were tense, his dad is occasionally a monster, and it wasn’t long before we were moving again. My health was awful and we were broke as a joke. I was sleeping 12 hours a day and spending the rest of my time trying to figure out what kind of life I was going to be able to have. I was severely depressed. We moved to an absolute shit-hole of a apartment in a bad neighborhood. Rent was $850/month for 280 square feet. We could barely afford it, and mostly lived off of my partner’s disability check and food stamps. My small savings was gone. We fought about money a lot. The Etsy shop brought in maybe $300 now, but it was clear this was not going to cover everything for a long time, if ever. My health only continued to decline and I felt utterly useless. Some days I was too sore to even get out of bed. The stress was unbearable as I watched everything in my life spiral. I honestly felt like if something didn’t change and soon, I was going to die. I thought back to the last thing I’d done right: my college thesis at art school. It took me forever to choose what medium to do the project in as there were a few I’d been practicing proficiently. I kept asking myself: “What am I the best at? What am I the best at?” and got nowhere. Finally I asked myself “What am I the worst at? What medium am I absolutely shit at that I would love to do but never learned how?” And the answer was pen and ink. A few months later I graduated with a pen and ink portfolio with one of two A’s in my professor’s senior class. So here I was, applying to design jobs and retail jobs and anything else I thought I might be good at with 0 responses for months on end. Then, instead, I asked myself what I was the worst at-- manual labor! After all, grocery shopping would knock me out until the next day. I realized this was insane to even consider and I might literally die. But I was so low it didn’t matter. If I continued wasting away like this I was going to die anyway. I knew this in my heart. Having cared for horses as a kid I started applying for barn jobs in the area. I remember straightening myself up and forcing myself to look energetic and animated for the interviews. I finally got a job. I was terrible at it. Shoveling for hours and pushing around a 300lb wheelbarrow, imagine! I could not lift a hay bale (they are about 65 lbs). But, I got up at 4:45 in the morning and drove to work in the snow before the plows came and always got to work on time. I worked only weekend days and by Sunday night I would have to make sure there was a crockpot meal going because I knew I would collapse at the end of the day. I cried in the car on the way home every single shift. My body was on fire. Mondays I could not get out of bed. The pain was immeasurable and I spent most of the day crying and had my partner help me to the bathroom. I spent the whole week recovering and patching myself up enough to get to my next shift on Saturday. But I promised myself something: that I would never complain, not to anyone at work, and not even to myself in my head. I imagined myself as a monk. Chop wood, carry water. I got fired. Then I got another barn job and got fired. Then I got another one and got fired again. The 4th job was still hard, but I did not get fired. I could now lift the hay bales. I gained 20 lbs (entirely muscle) and my body was completely different. Instead of being carried to the bathroom on Monday, I could transport myself to the couch and do basic self-care activities. I could do my crafts during the week again and between the two income streams I could afford my half of living expenses and was very slowly socking away a tiny, tiny nest egg that would eventually become the start up capital for my business. Two years had passed since mucking my first stall. My Fibro was not cured by any means but my IC was somewhat in remission and I was doing much better. Daily life got easier. After all, compared to hay bales, lifting the pasta pot while making dinner was less of a big deal. I eventually left the barn job and got a job doing landscaping and construction-- more manual labor! My new boss was disabled too and used a walker on the job site. He was also a Buddha in a blue collar. After having kept my illness a secret for 2 years of barn jobs I could finally tell a boss the truth and it was a relief. He understood me and always gave me the jobs I could flourish at. I learned a lot from him, did legitimately good work, made slightly better money, and moved out of the shit-hole apartment to an art community, which was an important step forward on the path toward opening my own business and doing art full time. During the second year of running my shop I realized I didn’t need a second job anymore and that it would be the first year in the last 5 where I wouldn’t have to dig any holes.

I’d risked it all, every last drop of my health. It could have killed me. And the agony was indescribable, but I would do it again. My body is changed forever and even years since I have last worked manual labor I am still improved for it and much more active than I was in those dark years right after college. Everything I have now I owe to that one, insane decision I made at rock bottom. This is not advice. Take what you will from my story. I still despise people who say “exercise will cure Fibro if you just tried harder :) :) :)” or some stupid shit like that. None of them know how dangerous this was or how much suffering I endured. It could have easily gone the other way. There were days my partner saw the condition I was in and begged me to stop. I told him with a roar in my voice if I didn’t keep going I was going to die. I don’t regret it. I have less pain now, consistently, than I did before I went through all that and I still try to keep up my fitness level so I never go back there. Thank you for reading my story. I can’t recommend my path, but if you come away with one thing from this, just know that there is a path forward, somewhere, and perhaps in the most unlikely of places.

#fibromyalgia #chronic pain #personal #chronically ill #disabled

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cherry-shot · 5 years ago

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Chilean riots | October 2019

Long story short, the subway service in Santiago, the capital city of Chile announced a rise in the travel fee of CLP $30, making this fee one of the highest in the region. (Around US$1,16 per travel at the peak hour)

I want to give some info because guys, it’s amazing how US media is biased

First off, the travel fee represents almost 15% of most salaries in Chile. A country with a freakin high cost of life. We have first world country prices, but third world country salaries.

Second, this is the second time in the year the fee for subway transportation has rised. Since 2007, the subway price has rised in an 80%

People is pissed off (for a lot of things, more on that later) so everyone expressed their desperation. Most of folks here earn less than CLP $400.000 monthly, you have to take the metro 2 times a day. And the transport minister said that is possible it will rise again to CLP $1.000... just-in-transportation...

And the economy minister said “well! this is a nice chance for all the working class to wake up earlier and enjoy a lower fee in the Metro!” (not kidding, he said that... keep in mind a lot of people here takes almost 1 hour travelling to reach their works or homes daily, so people ALREADY wakes up early)

I said people is pissed off, right? Some examples (just this year)

In Chile, there’s a (forced) previsional savings system (known as AFP) which takes a cut of your salary each month and uses your savings as investion. If the AFP wins with the investions, you win. BUT! If the AFP loses with the investions, YOU LOSE THE MONEY YOU EARNED WORKING HARD YOUR WHOLE LIFE. And when you retire, the AFP dosifies how money you get each month. So we end with our grandmas and grandpas getting as few as CLP $30.000 each month to survive. So is no strange to see people of 80 years or older working just to get enough to get by. This year, a professor from Calama asked her AFP (Cuprum) to retire all her savings to pay a debt, and they DENIED HER TO SEE HER OWN MONEY SHE EARNED THROUGH A LIFETIME OF WORKING. This is the fate for everyone who gets older in Chile (with the notable exceptions of the police and the milita who get an AMAZING previsional saving system, even if they retire earlier)

Earlier this year, Carabineros, the police from Chile, assasinated a young mapuche man, Camilo Catrillanca from a shot in the back of his head. The government tried to make it pass like Catrillanca was involved in the rob of a car. Later investigations revealed he wasn’t. He was going to have a barbecue and with a 17 year old boy went to get some cilantro or parsley for the salads, the Carabineros found them, secuestred them, and killed Camilo “for the lulz”

Tons of femicide cases in a year, even a lesbophobe crime against Nicole Saavedra, which the autorities didn’t even care about clearing the case, and the guilty was found due to the protests of the family. Most of the femicide cases are treated by the justice as “passional crimes” and the murderer is usually left with a minimal penalty

Companies steal the water from people to grow an insane amount of avocados. The autorities answers by giving “50 Liters of water to the affected families”. Like bitch, there are COMPANIES, STEALING, THE WATER TO GET MORE MONEY!! WATER. A FUCKING HUMAN RIGHT

Also, companies are polluting the sea of coastal towns, people is getting sick, school is cancelled due to pollution, the government doesn’t give a duck

And if that wasn’t sad enough, activists that are fighting to solve this mess are found “dead”. The medical services say “nah, they killed themselves” but some cases have been sent to foreign police studies, and they have found someone killed them, they didn’t killed themselves

I could go on, and on but this post is already huge. The thing is, people is angry. And began protesting by skipping the pay of the metro until the government lowers the price or gives some solution. The government answer? Let’s get the police! Keep in mind, chilean Carabineros are known for their savagery (oh, they are also involved in cases of corruption, the milita also has a similar scandal). They throw pepper gas (idk how it’s called) to trains filled with old people and kids, even babies. They hit you for carrying a flag or chanting.

AND NOW, the government decided to get the militia on the streets. Great.

A detail: chileans have been silent about this abuses, for years. We haven’t moved for a cause like this since Pinochet’s dictatorship.

People is pissed, and have the right to do so. Because the autorities aren’t willing to talk this shit out, their first action was to send force against it’s own people (fun fact: chilean militia hasn’t winned a war. Ever. Their only goals have been against the chilean people). And I’m angry. Everyone is angry of the abuse. People is dying in the floor of hospitals. Grandpas and grandmas are killing themselves because they can’t keep living without money. Water, electricity and other basic services are getting more and more expensive month after month. There’s a lot of people without a job, without a home. They are taking everything from us. And we’ve been silent. But no more. This changes now.

You can say “well, not paying is not the way” and you know, you are probably right, but keep in mind that there have been cases of tax evation from the richest/powerful people in this country (and there have been A LOT OF CASES, not 2 or 3, like everyone in the government, police, militia and church are involved in this shit). And they’ve been sentenced guilty. You know what that means to them? Ethic lessons. ETHIC. LESSONS. No punishment. Just ethic lessons. But for the people who works, there is gas bombs, punches, bullets and repression.

Sorry for the lame english, but I needed to do a quick post about this, because all the english-speaking media is not giving the right info. And you NEED to know the truth. If you have questions I will try to answer them as acurately as possible. I can send you photos and videos and give more info.

#chile #riot #protests and riots #chile riots #santiago

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ofcloudsandstars · 5 years ago

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Day 2

I feel like this was the most intense day because it was the day we went to explore the town center and I really cant describe every shop we went into.

The main street is lined with like older stone buildings, some painted vibrant colors and some just old stone. Something about the aesthetic of the town is very fairy-like and full of art everywhere. There were alleyways with murals of forests, the goddess, planets, mandalas, animals, mushrooms etc. Everywhere you looked there was art painted on to something and statues of gnomes, mushrooms, fairies and the goddess. If it wasn't colorful, then it was old stone and medieval-ish. Its a really small town so there was just one street of lots of shops but it was nothing but back to back magical stores some with specialty focus like a magic book store, a magic herb and aromatherapy store, a magic tool emporium store, a magic crystal store, a robe and cloak shop etc.

There was this BEAUTIFUL crystal shop with BIG fairy energy I went into. The shop owner was very fairy-like herself. Actually a lot of people in the town either had strong crone shamanic vibes or fairy vibes. There were so many magical old ladies in shawls, cloaks and sweaters of different vibrant colors with sparkling hair tinsel laced between their silver locks that would be tinted different pastel colors cause they no longer needed to bleach their hair. A lot of people wore hair tinsel actually and had lots of sparkly piercings and crystal jewelry. There were a lot of shoulder-cats, pentagrams, wooden STAFFS some with crystals on the top. It was the first magical town I've been to where people were just unapologetic about being a witch or pagan. I mostly loved all of the older women there who had such intense energy and were just free to be themselves.

Anyway back to the crystal shop (Named Elestial by the way) which I am sure throughout the week I dumped an embarrassing amount of money on, they color coordinated their crystal collection in a beautiful way that my libra self couldn't handle. I got so much stuff and some crystal planchette for my ouija board since my friend that's a medium suggested it could help use it since usual planchettes can be hard for the spirit to move. I got a smokey quartz one since it's protective but further in the week I got a cotton amethyst one that looks beautifully ghostly from another store. There was this gorgeous herb, candle and aromatherapy shop we went to called Starchild. You can smell it down the street and I took pictures I will post cause describing it won't do justice. They played the most FIRE sound tracks you'd imagine hearing if you went to a forest rave. They had oils for every sabbat, zodiac sign, druid tree, plant you could imagine. Their stuff smelled incredible. They had massage oils for every purpose even sexy ones that were like called things like Exctasy (that had st. johns wort in it) or Love Potion No. 9 which had herbs in it that I never heard of, except like Damiana of course lol. They had these INCREDIBLE hand made candles that literally looks like something out of a fanatasy movie. I bought many. They had candles for zodiac signs and planets too. Just imagine candles of many shapes, sizes, textures (I got frothy candles that look like some goblin shit lol) colors. They had a huge library wall of jars filled with herbs you could buy by the ounce. Also a wall of books on herbs and green magic as well. I'd highly recommend that shop!

(Not much more to read but I’d thought to add a read more out of consideration for people scrolling)

We went through this goddess corridor which has a walk way with crystals embedded into the walls of the corridor. There was a goddess temple which is free to go in and you can ask the priestess to smoke cleanse the hell out of you in her dark chamber. There was a MASSIVE tapestry dedicated to the goddess of Avalon which is the local goddess they honor as she is the personification of the land which Glastonbury resides on. In that courtyard there is a huge statue of a dragon outside of the library of avalon which I wasn't able to visit unfortunately.

We went to the Green Man shop which was owned by a really sweet pagan woman who told me all about her house she lives nearby where she can watch the barn owls swoop over the fields in the summer and family of deers in the winter that come to her window 😭 I got so much stuff in that shop. First of all its so cute inside like everything is green with ivy garland hanging from the ceiling so you feel like you're inside a bigass bush. And its very earth-witchy like I got a pentagram with a stag on it, a black notebook with a silver pentagram on it, tons of cards with beautiful pagan art like one with golden leaf with a crowned owl (probably stolas lol) and a few yule cards. They also sold lots of cauldrons and incense. Everything was SO CHEAP. Also every shop had an insane amount of rainbow-color coordinated walls of incense sticks. I never ran out of insense sticks.

Other shops that were note worthy that I visited throughout the week was this beautiful home store that sold indian furniture that was SO CHEAP and of INCREDIBLE quality. The nature of the community was so supportive of one another and not greedy that they don't see the point of upselling their stuff though they have incredible things to give out. The town and community is so small we kept seeing the same people over and over so I guess its also wise to not fuck people over lol. Anyway this store is beautiful when you pass it at night all the lanterns are lit up and it adds to the beauty of the main street.

There was also this CAMPY fucking witch shop called the wonky broomstick in this old building towards the end of the street that sold like spooky bar soups, had a huge smoke machine cauldron in it and sold silly incense like Pixies Dance (I bought it) Dragons Breath (I also bought it) Mermaid's Blessing (you already know..) and tons of other campy things like colorful grimoire journals and candies inside of cauldron pots. It was perpetual halloween in there and also had some harry potter merchandise. I think the English economy really benefitted from the harry potter years lol but you can tell though some tourist shops were still trying to market with it, its starting to die out. There's also this really great bookstore thats next to the haunted tavern which sold really great books on magic and spirituality for super cheap. I got a book about healing yourself when no one else can lol. 😢

After the shops we walked up to the Tor which was SO BEAUTIFUL like I was ASTOUNDED by the walk itself and how beautiful the countryside is. I felt like I was on some hobbit adventure as we walked through open fields with cows grazing around us or horses nearby (thankfully behind a fence cause they can sometimes have no chill) coming up for a pat, and the hills curved in a way that you can see forests rolling around you and the tor high up in the distance. I felt like I needed a cloak. There was a man nearby hiking with his puppy near us that spooked the cows around us so he had to carry his naughty puppy lol.

While climbing the hill I got this insane realization that I have been dreaming about the Tor and glastonbury for years. Its one of the towns along with London that I've been having dreams about since I was 15. Glastonbury came about later though like I was having dreams about it when I was probably 20?? I remember thinking of it as a sweet and peaceful escape and I remember the town my dream world cooked up being really small and in a way underdeveloped from the cities I was used to. I think if I were to live there I would be happy but be a bit isolated cause that’s what my dreams showed me. I have so many dreams of me climbing up on the steep hill of the tor and looking at the patchwork quilts of towns around me. When I was up there it was like something CLICKED like a place I kept visiting and didn't know what it meant, finally meant something. There's a town nearby in my dreams thats still very spiritual and earthy but a bit more down to earth and Expensive and snooty that I remember I was trying to find a way to move into. It has a lot of big houses and beautiful alleyways and cobbled streets so maybe I need to look at the towns around there and figure it out. I have a feeling its not Bristol though I feel like I need to check that place out too. (Actually it could be Bristol?) I just know now that the dreams I had are about real places I need to see and I thought those dreams were just fantastical since they were beautiful towns with magical people and castles But those beautiful towns with castles and magical people actually exist in real life.

The tor itself was beautiful. We took a lot of pictures and stared at the scenery. I felt like I was in my element cause I love air. There were birds all around us. We watched the sun set burn behind the clouds as we walked down the steeper way.

#magical shops #glastonbury #dreams #the tor #personal

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

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2021 Mercedes-AMG GLA45 packs big character in a small footprint

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/2021-mercedes-amg-gla45-packs-big-character-in-a-small-footprint/

2021 Mercedes-AMG GLA45 packs big character in a small footprint

Even with the large wheels, the GLA45 is pretty unassuming in daily operation.

Andrew Krok/Roadshow

The first-gen Mercedes GLA45 AMG sucked. It was an expensive heap that was perpetually uncomfortable and looked about as good as it drove. Thankfully, Mercedes-AMG learned some lessons over the years. Now, the new-for-2021 Mercedes-AMG GLA45 is a fully realized compact luxury crossover with a bonkers little powertrain tucked under the hood for good measure, making for one hell of a second act.

Gobs of power

Carlike handling

Well-appointed interior

Don’t Like

Rides a little stiff

Low-speed driveline wonkiness

Tiny trunk

The original GLA-Class looked like a surprised hatchback wearing tall shoes. The gist is the same this time around — the second-gen GLA-Class is still basically a hatchback with a lift kit — but I think the look is more cohesive. The wide-eyed countenance has been swapped out in favor of something a little more streamlined, but I think the GLA45 looks best from behind, where a short overhang and those ever-present quadruple AMG tailpipes make for some aggressive aesthetics.

The GLA’s interior no longer feels woefully cheap. There is no tiny little screen floating atop a menagerie of dated buttons; instead, everything is mounted nice and low, and borrowing many different design staples from larger, more expensive Mercedes models means the interior feels far more precious than before, even though the dashboard is still mottled vinyl and there’s still a fair few instances of hard plastic scattered around. Being an AMG, I’m not surprised to see carbon fiber making an appearance on the dash and door panels, but thankfully, there isn’t so much of it that I feel like I’m headed to Hot Import Nights. Pair it with some more premium touches like proper metal on the optional Nappa-leather-wrapped steering wheel ($400), and you’ve got quite the nice place to spend some time.

Small cars need to prioritize function, since there isn’t a whole lot of excess space floating around. The 2021 Mercedes-AMG GLA45 has some solid interior packaging in this case, with a sufficiently deep cubby under the armrest, large door pockets and a big storage tray ahead of the cup holders. The crossover’s roof is pretty flat, which means back-row occupants have plenty of space, and it feels much airier when the $1,500 panoramic glass roof is thrown into the mix. Rear-seat storage options are limited, as the middle seat doesn’t convert to a folding armrest (unless you pay $360 for the privilege) and the door pockets are a little small, but folks in the back do get cargo nets on the front seat backs along with two USB-C ports and a 115-volt two-prong outlet, which is nice. However, despite being a hatchback, cargo space is on the paltry side; the GLA45’s 15.4-cubic-foot trunk pales in comparison to that of the Volvo XC40 (20.7), Audi Q3 (23.7) and BMW X1 (27.1).

Under the GLA45’s hood lies one of my personal favorite automotive engineering marvels: the M139 engine. Capable of making in excess of 400 horsepower in some current European-only applications, this high-strung turbocharged 2.0-liter I4 is built in its own high-tech corner of Mercedes-AMG’s Affalterbach engine facility, and it deserves that royal treatment. While the noise wavers somewhere between “angry beehive” and “angry farm equipment,” the 382 hp and 354 pound-feet of torque this engine delivers in the GLA45 is pitch-perfect.

It’s a strange engine, too; sure, it’ll sit down low in the revs and spit out torque as needed, but there’s a little bit of old-school Honda VTEC action happening here, because the M139 loves to rev. It will sit between 4,000 and 7,000 rpm all day, generating more motive force than any Michigan backroad can tolerate. The GLA45’s eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission is hit or miss, though; while it delivers nearly instant shifts (and a little extra tailpipe theater) under heavy load, it’s not very smooth at lower speeds. If you feed it just a little more throttle than necessary, especially when the stop-start system is activated, it’ll lurch forward clunkily. Some sharp stabs of the throttle are met with a “hurry up and wait” attitude, too, as the transmission hunts for the gear it wants and then takes its sweet time bringing it up.

The rest of the GLA45’s driving experience is largely mode-dependent. The car is surprisingly chill in its default Comfort setting. The standard adaptive suspension is still sports-car stiff in this mode, but it’s smooth enough on nice roads to where I could envision long trips being more than manageable. Flip the switch to Sport and the GLA45 is ready to party; body roll disappears underfoot, the steering weight increases to nearly comical proportions and the transmission finally knows what gear it wants to be in ahead of time. It’s far too aggressive for any road that wasn’t paved yesterday, especially in post-snow Michigan where thaw cycles put smaller potholes inside of last year’s still-not-fixed large potholes, but it’s still a dang hoot.

Even the fuel economy isn’t the absolute pits. The EPA rates the 2021 Mercedes-AMG GLA45 at 20 miles per gallon city, 27 mpg highway and 23 mpg combined. For a nearly 400-hp performance car, that’s not bad at all, and in real-world driving I’m able to get surprisingly close to 30 mpg on the highway. A light foot will get you far.

The GLA’s cabin is properly upscale, and if you’ve been in any other modern Benz, it should feel pretty familiar, too.

Andrew Krok/Roadshow

Whereas the first-gen GLA-Class felt like more of a technological punishment, the opposite is the case with the 2021 GLA45. MBUX, the automaker’s latest and greatest infotainment system, is standard, residing on a 10.3-inch touchscreen with redundant physical controls on the steering wheel and center console. It’s a fabulous system, with a menu layout that doesn’t take long to master, responsiveness even shortly after a cold start and all the usual embedded frippery like a 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The “Hey, Mercedes” natural-language voice recognition works brilliantly, as well. Charging comes by way of four USB ports total — a USB-C by the cup holders, a USB-A in the center armrest and a pair of USB-C ports in the back. Make sure your cords are up to date, though, because the USB-A port up front doesn’t support smartphone mirroring. Embedded navigation is a $1,295 option, and while it includes the neat augmented-reality turn-by-turn display, it may not be worth the scratch if you’re a smartphone fanatic.

While safety tech might not be at the front of your mind in a performance car, Mercedes-Benz makes sure it’s there — provided you feel like paying for it. Standard driver assists are limited to blind-spot monitoring, forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking. Plunk down $1,090 to add a surround-view camera and parking sensors, or drop $1,700 for full-speed adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, active blind-spot monitoring and route-based speed adaptation.

Don’t like the touchpad? Great! With MBUX, you can basically ignore it.

Andrew Krok/Roadshow

Despite all the fresh stuff plucked from higher branches on the Mercedes-Benz tree, the 2021 AMG GLA45 isn’t all that expensive. It’ll cost $55,550 including destination to get your foot in the door, and most of the available options are contained in inexpensive upgrade packages. My tester piles it on, including uprated leather, metallic paint, larger 20-inch alloy wheels, a panoramic sunroof and the navigation package, leaving the factory with a $62,150 window sticker. Not too shabby.

The 2021 Mercedes-AMG GLA45 doesn’t really have much true competition. Its diminutive footprint puts it a class below other higher-powered luxury utes like the BMW X3 M40i and the Audi SQ5, and there are no analogous variants of the BMW X1/X2 or Audi Q3 — the BMW X2 M35i could be close, I guess, but it’s closer to the slightly less peppy GLA35. That’s probably for the best, though, because any automaker would have a hard time topping the GLA45’s equal doses of entry-level luxury and flat-out powertrain insanity.

Climb in the driver’s seat for the latest car news and reviews, delivered to your inbox twice weekly.

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smokeybrand · 4 years ago

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Sober Truths

I was talking to my mom about this the other day. I'm 36. I've never known the US she grew up in. Her first president was Eisenhower. Mine was Reagan. Sh*t was, by no means, easy for her growing up. She grew up during Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement. I don't know about that. That's stuff I learned in history books. I do know about Reaganomics, the Crack epidemic, and that whole 90s war on Black people perpetuated by grossly prejudiced legislation championed by the Clintons and Biden. I do know about three recessions and being at war for eight percent of my life. I do know about how college for me at a State school would have cost about thirteen grand and, seven years later, was closer to twenty-six thousand, when my kid brother was attending. I do know that, in my lifetime, the US has been slowly becoming a dumpster fire culminating in a goddamn racist reality star and real estate crook becoming president of this entire sh*t show. When i said to her that i don't understand a US outside of Reagan the blood left her face. She understood immediately why i dislike this country so much and how i, as a black dude in America, have so much disdain for the "American dream." Everything i have ever experienced about the US, has been a violent oppression upon the working class, using race and religion as a distraction, in service to the mass accumulation of wealth for the bourgeoisie. Everything. The US is inherently racist but, to the people at the top, we are all n*ggas in the fields and that insidious notion is perpetuated by these same people to make sure they can steal our labor for themselves. And it's working.

There's a reason why MAGA cultists are almost always poorer, uneducated, Boomers. It's because they remember a US where there was socialized schooling and strong unions which forced business to be honest. They remember a time where bread didn't cost six dollars and gas was less than a buck. They remember a time where money was worth what it was supposed to be, inflation wasn't out of control, you got to work for a livable wage, and the richest paid the highest percentage in Marginal Income Tax rates this country has ever seen. They lived during a time where we were the wealthiest and strongest as a nation. They lived during such a prosperous time that, the Frugal Four, the Nordic countries with the strongest Socialist programs in the world and systematically polled as the happiest nations on earth, cribbed their entire system from that US blueprint. Went to he f*cking moon and lead in technological innovation, man. We once championed science and education. My mom was able to mail away for radioactive isotopes for her baby's first chemistry set. Boomers have no idea what it's like for us, the kids who experienced none of that, because they remember what it was like when they had all of that. They have a point of reference for a country that wasn't overwhelmed by this wave of anti-intellectualism and caustic individualism. Their nostalgia for a time where you can live as a nomadic hippie is as strong as our Millennial nostalgia for 80s Saturday morning cartoons and it's that discrepancy that keeps us at odds.

I don't know what its like not to spend at least ten grand a year on State college. I don't know what its like to have a reasonable, affordable, mortgage I can pay on a gas station attendant or janitor salary. I don't know what it's like to go to the doctor when I'm sick and not dread the million dollar bill after or pay a reasonable amount for my medication without having to sell my actual f*cking kidneys for them or have an entire third of my check go to healthcare under penalty of a tax that is half of what I pay to avoid it. I don't know what it's like to have forgivable student loans or paid internships or a salary that allows me to afford both rent and groceries in the same month. I don't know what it's like to have sh*t made in the US as a way of life and not some novelty corporations use to manipulate commerce. I don't know hat it's like not to have our jobs outsourced to other countries so billionaires can make an extra few hundred thousand or having CEO received seven figure salaries for effectively persecuting their entire workforce in an effort to squeeze every ounce of their profit potential with no regard for their health and well being. And that's not me getting into all of the f*cking racial bullsh*t I have to endure as a black man in the US. I don't know this country the way a Boomer knows this country. Everything my Mom grew up with, during, experienced, is history for me. I learned it secondhand. I learned it in school. It's literally academic for me.

Reagan dropped that marginal tax to, like, nothing and then opened up all sorts of tax loopholes for the richest to hide their money. Dude single-handedly gimped the US economy for years to come because he bought into what Gordon Gecko was selling. Between that, and the consistent deregulation of sh*t like banks, unions, and labor laws, we, the people, were quietly f*cked off for decades, by the representatives we put into power to keep our interests at heart. You don't have to look far to see the consequences of these anti-labor, anti-worker policies. 45 didn't pay taxes for decades while being one of the largest slum lords in all of New York. The loophole he used to avoid paying literally billions wasn't closed until 2016, after he took office. It was legal for him to effectively steal more than his fair share, for decades, after Reagan put the fix in for his cohorts and that sh*t crippled the working class in the US ever since. Because of those sh*tty, Reagan Era policies and a racist ass, unwinnable, War on Drugs, the One Percent robbed America blind for years. Today, the concentration of wealth at the top is insane, man, and that money had to come from somewhere. Because of that unprecedented greed and transparent neutering of what protected the working people for so long, we lost all of the sh*t Boomers hold dear. This isn't the America they know and they're upset about it. They look back on what they had and get angry about it, manifesting is vitriol for our complaints about their obvious advantages. They act out in aggression for what was lost but installing Trump, because, even if it's subconsciously, they know that “the Swamp” as it's called, robbed them of the US they remember from their childhood.

The cognitive dissonance between their perception of what is lost, and the responsibility they have for allowing it to be lost, is staggering. My first president was Reagan. He is the turning point for all of the maladies that ail the US. Reagan was the first president a lot of these Boomers could vote for. They swept the snake into office and, years later, want to complain about the venom that has infected our legislature. They really believe the country was great once but refuse to take responsibility for their complicity in allowing it to fall from grace. I don't know their version of this country. I can't. I was born decades after the fall began, during the decade where it really started to accelerate. The America i grew up in is the one where corporate greed was fueled by corrupt politicians in service to the cruel gods of capitalism, with the populace used as labor sacrifice for their gaudy profit margins. The America I know is the one where I watched my mom work for thirty years at one place, only to be forced out when the stress from her job afflicted her with a congestive heart condition, weeks before she would have received a massive raise that would have bumped up her monthly retirement by hundreds a month. The America I know is the one that found three trillion dollars in two days, to bail out the stock market while hundreds of thousands of us died from a pandemic that is so much worse than it should have been, because the government refused to push through fiscal legislation that would allow the citizenry to stay home while we figured this sh*t out. It too expensive to just stop the economy for three months while giving the people enough money to live in isolation to flatten that curve. The America I know is one that is forcing the notion of “herd immunity” upon the populace, knowing that millions will die and that's the best case scenario. This is the America i know. How the f*ck can i even begin to understand what it means to be great when all i know is awful? How the f*ck can they begin to understand awful when all they remember is great?

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uk-news-talking-politics · 5 years ago

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Brexit 2020: Everything you need to know about Boris Johnson's trade deal nightmare

By Ian Dunt

Cool, so everything's sorted right? Brexit is getting done, everything's going back to normal and I never have to talk about trade again.

Oh yeah, no sorry. That's all a lie. We are about to enter the most perilous system-level recalibration of an advanced economy in trading history.

What.

Yeah, all that nightmare of the last four years was the easy part. Now we have to figure out our future trading relationship with the EU.

I saw Boris Johnson on the telly the other day.

Really? That never happens anymore.

No, it was crazy. He just popped up. It was like a Big Foot sighting. Anyway, he seemed to suggest it was all really easy. We'd get it done in a year and then be free to do whatever we want.

Yeah, that's the official narrative. But the reality is very different.

Are you suggesting that the government is making a sustained attempt to deceive the public in order to hide the fact that they have an impossible set of negotiating goals and no competence to deliver them?

Yes, I know. It's hard to believe.

I know what happens now. You start talking about fisheries and regulatory alignment and customs procedures and then I gradually lose the will to live and have to order extremely expensive whisky.

That's right, that's how this works. So here's the thing. The government wants to get the Brexit deal negotiated, ratified and implemented in eleven months, before December 31st. They were entitled to an extension but have decided not to take it. That means the deal is going to have to be proper bare-bones - a completely stripped-down set of negotiating goals.

Like what?

Tariffs, basically. Nothing else. Just eliminate the tariffs.

What are tariffs again?

They're taxes on goods crossing borders. The thing is, most tariffs are already very low. Decades of worldwide tariff-reduction rounds have hammered them down in pretty much every area but agriculture. So it's a very modest bar to set. It also means that services - which are kind of key to our economy - are completely forgotten about. And it does nothing about the real problem areas of trade - alignment, customs checks and rules of origin.

Yeah, that's it. That's where I switch off. I swear these words are like hypnotic suggestions to close down brain function.

Bear with me, they're all pretty simple when you break them down. And the implications of them can smash local economies, which then has a massive political impact. Will people blame Brexit? The government? Or the EU? Remainers? Immigrants? The knock-on effect of these decisions will define our politics for years to come. Which is troubling, because it's not clear the government has any idea what it's doing.

How so?

Take the distinction between goods and services. Sounds simple right? Goods are things and services are, well, services - legal, financial, hairdressing, whatever. But actually that's a crude distinction that doesn't reflect the reality of how businesses work. Car companies, for instance, sell cars. But many of them also often offer the financing for the car, which allows the person buying it to pay in monthly installments. So in that capacity they're actually functioning as a mini-bank. And banking is…

A service.

Exactly. The same is true for loads of companies, like IBM, say, or Hewlett Packard. They sell things. But they also sell services. So even at this very basic level, going for a goods-only deal already has a massive knock-on effect on businesses. If they want to keep on selling the services in Europe, they have to internally restructure to get into the right regulatory regime. Sometimes that'll be big news - they'll close an office or factory. Sometimes it'll be a case of moving staff around or bulking up whatever office they have on the continent to get recognition there, and it'll slip under the radar. But the long-term danger is that all the high-knowledge, proper value-added activity goes to Europe.

Grim.

Yep. And things get uglier when you look at regulations.

Yeah I heard about this. What are they exactly?

Regulations are one of the key aspects of international trade. Countries have different regulatory regimes. So when they trade, people have to show that they are satisfying the requirements of the country the good ends up in. That entails a lot of time and paperwork. Until now, Britain has been part of Europe's regulations regime. Now it wants to completely detach itself. But we're so deeply ingrained in continental trading networks that we can't afford either time or paperwork.

How come?

Basically because of our reliance on a manufacturing system called Just-In-Time. Manufacturing depends on this to keep costs down. It means that you avoid holding a lot of stock. Instead, you get the parts you need, literally, just in time. And we are absolutely locked into this. So for instance BMW makes the engines for its Mini model at Hams Hall just outside Birmingham. But the engine blocks come from France to the UK, where they're drilled and processed, then go to Cologne in Germany for more engineering, then back to the UK for final assembly. GKN in Birmingham also makes the drive line for many cars - this is what transmits power from the engine to the wheels. But it uses components from Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Millions of components come across the Channel every day to arrive just as they're needed.

Is this primarily a car thing?

No, it goes across the board, in Britain's most successful manufacturing sectors. Take aviation. Nearly 80% of aerospace components manufactured in the UK are exported. And the important part there is in the word 'components'. That's what we do. We don't make the whole plane. As a country, we specialise in wings, landing gear, engines and avionic systems - the electrical equipment in the cockpit. All of that is regulated by the European Aviation Safety Authority (Easa). Everything you see on a plane in Europe, numbering over 5,000 different parts, has been vouched for by them, down to the little trolley serving you drinks when you ask for your fourth rum and Coke and the air steward starts to look at you suspiciously. Oh, and his training is overseen by them too, as is the pilot's, and that of the engineers.

It's the godfather of aviation regulation.

That's right. The industry is clear: it needs to hold Easa tight. And not just Easa. It also wants a close relationship with Reach - Europe's chemical safety regulation system - because they use those chemicals in the manufacturing process. There is zero reason to deviate from this regulatory framework. There are literally no upsides. The UK is not going to start setting international standards for aviation on its own. The trend in the global industry is towards alignment, because everyone wants the same things - a safe product, with fuel efficiency, which is clean and quiet and cheap to run, and which can be traded in a complex supply chain with a minimum of friction.

Can you stay in Easa from outside the EU though?

Sure. It's an EU body, but it has various agreements with non-EU countries. Or you can just align and basically mimic whatever it does. And why not? The industry will make products to those specifications anyway, simply to trade them easily.

So surely that's what we'd do. It sounds insane to do anything else.

Yes it would be insane, wouldn't it? But apparently that's what's going to happen.

You're not serious.

Who knows. Theresa May's administration had pretty much decided to stay in the system. The political declaration for the future relationship she signed with the EU said the UK would "explore the possibility of cooperation" with Easa and then added: "In this context, the United Kingdom will consider aligning with Union rules in relevant areas." But then things got a bit weird. Johnson updated the political declaration when he got his deal and he made some small but quite striking changes.

Like?

Well the line on 'exploring possibilities' stayed, but the following sentence, on alignment, was deleted. That raised a lot of alarm. And then the chancellor, Sajid Javid, told the Financial Times this weekend that "there will not be alignment, we will not be a ruletaker". So right now, if we're to take the government's word for it, no - we're going to pull away, for no reason at all, and at enormous cost. Or they could be lying to sound tough and Brexity. Or they could think it's a negotiating gambit with the EU. Who knows?

OK. So you've now been talking about regulations for what feels like several days. Is that it?

No I'm afraid not. The government also wants out of the customs union. That means it's also a customs problem. Manufacturers will have to fill out two sets of forms - one for regulations, one for customs. In the case of agriculture, they'll also have to satisfy health checks - these are called sanitary and phytosanitary measures. And that takes place on or near the border.

Please tell me this section is over. Hell, please tell me it's all over and the final days are upon us. Anything to escape this relentless carnival of doom.

The worst bit is yet to come, I'm afraid. It's called rules of origin and it is horrible. It's a kind of bureaucracy that kicks in when you have a trade agreement.

How does that make sense? Surely trade agreements are suppose to reduce bureaucracy.

Yep, but they need an insurance policy. So imagine the UK and EU do a trade agreement eliminating tariffs. And then the UK does a separate agreement with the US eliminating tariffs.

Sounds ideal.

Quite. But the EU and US don't have a trade deal eliminating tariffs. So now there is an incentive for the US to ship goods to the UK for entry into the EU as a way of sidestepping the taxes on their exports to Europe, but without having to make any of the concessions a trade deal would involve. Rules of origin checks are how you get around that problem.

How do they work?

The purpose of the rules is to find out where something was made. But the way of doing that changes depending on what kind of good it is. There's different rules in different sectors. Sometimes they measure a country's economic contribution to the product, such as its capital or the labour or intellectual input. There's also different grades of change in the product. You often have to show that the product has transformed from one customs category to another in a substantial way.

Did something terrible happen to you when you were a child?

Hey I didn't make the rules. But they do make sense. And this, arguably more than regulations or customs, is going to be one of the defining issues impacting on Britain in the years to come. Actually, it's already happening.

How so?

The EU and South Africa, for instance, have a deal on rules of origin allowing components from the other side to count towards the 'local content' tally. But when the UK leaves, its components will automatically be excluded from the total. So last July BMW redirected engine production from the UK to Germany for South African production. That could be the start of a trend.

How big a problem is this?

Very big. British car production leans heavily on parts and processes in the EU and Turkey. If those are excluded from the calculations, they wouldn't satisfy the rules of origin requirements. And even working it out is a nightmare - a horrible tangled web of multiple supply chains, with their own separate supply chains for component parts, and then multiple layers of subcontractors and goods going back and forth. And it's not just goods like cars and planes either. The same goes for food. Chickens reared in the UK often go off to the Netherlands for slaughter then come back and are turned into ready meals. So how much work went into the chicken to make it British? And what happens when it's put on a frozen supermarket pizza?

Civilised people don't put chicken on pizza.

That's where you're wrong. Chicken is a perfectly respectable pizza topping. But even if the chicken is British, what about the dough, the tomato sauce and all the other stuff? It's a nightmare. Just working this stuff out will put a massive new burden on British producers, who never had to do any of it before. And that assumes they can even pass the test and get the product to a level where it has enough domestic components to satisfy the rules.

Is there any way out of this?

In terms of the faff of it, no. But there is a way to make the test easier to pass. We need the rules of origin to have something called a cumulation provision.That means some inputs from outside the UK count towards domestic content. There are two main ways to do that: bilateral or diagonal. Bilateral would mean stuff done in the EU and UK would count. Diagonal includes the UK and EU and extends it to other countries who have trade deals with both of us. That would fix the South Africa problem BMW had. But even there they have different levels. We would want something called 'full cumulation', meaning that no matter how small the work done in different countries, it counts.

So it's a no-brainer, right? You go for full cumulation diagonal rules of origin. Oh and look at that. You have made the most unspeakable words come out of my mouth.

Yep, you totally would. But that's in the EU's gift. It gives them significant leverage over us. And honestly, listening to the weirdly bullying rhetoric coming from the UK government, it's not clear Downing Street realises that.

Election went to their head.

There's a lot that's gone to their head.

OK so I think I get this. It's ultimately pretty simple right? The Brits want the Brexit talks done in one year so they've reduced their negotiating goal to tariff elimination and that is going to hurt us.

Not all of us equally. Small firms will be hit harder than large firms and poorer areas will be hit harder than richer areas.

But of course, because the reality of the world is inversely proportional to any sense of moral justice.

Pretty much. Small firms selling less than £250,000 of merchandise to the EU, of which there are tens of thousands, will be forced into filling out all sorts of forms they've never had any contact with before. That'll be a much bigger burden on them than it will the big firms selling over that amount, or who already trade with the rest of the world. And the cost of adopting the new system might outweigh the benefit of exporting the goods in the first place.

Why does this mostly affect poorer areas?

Well there's a cruel irony to the effects of a hard Brexit: It won't really hurt Remain-voting areas but it's likely to seriously damage Brexit-supporting areas.

This is insane.

Yes, it is. The kinds of industries which could get really pummelled - automobile, aerospace and that - are mainly based in the Midlands and the North. Remain-voting London, on the other hand, is less exposed to European markets. It's economy is already hyper-globalised, arguably more so than any other city in the world. Decision-makers in the capital are often on the phone to Namibia, Honduras or Belize. But the decision-makers in Hull are more likely to be on the phone to Denmark and Germany.

Gotcha.

There's another problem too.

Oh cool, another one, yeah why not.

Tariffs aren't the only ask. Britain has also got a negotiating goal on fishing.

Fishing? Really? Surely that's a tiny dot in the economy. And given that they've given up services you wouldn't expect them to get too het up about.

True. But it matters to the communities who do it and it has a political importance that far exceeds its economic impact. Britain also has a watertight legal case for its demand. Basically, sovereign coastal states have a 200 mile limit out to sea in which they can fish, under the UN Law of the Sea Convention.

Cool name for an international convention.

Isn't it. The whole thing is very Aquaman.

I always preferred Namor.

Everyone sensible does. He has those little wings on his ankles which let him fly. That is so preposterous and wonderful at the same time. Imagine what it looks like to see him fly with the little wing thingies on his ankles.

You were talking about fisheries policy.

Ah yes. So the British position is simple. We are now going to be a sovereign coastal state. We want our 200 mile limit. We'll decide what goes on there. The EU position is very different. It wants everything to stay the same as it is right now.

And what is the status quo for fishing exactly?

Basically anything outside of 12 miles from a member state is a common area. The stocks of individual fish species are then divided up between countries in set quotas to prevent overfishing. So Britain might have a 15% share of a particular stock, for instance. Those quotas are set. They do not change. But each year scientists provide advice on the total allowable catch. If it was 100,000 tonnes, Britain would get 15,000 tonnes that year. And that's how they divide up the stock.

So they want that to stick.

Yeah. But Britain, on the other hand, will probably want something like what Norway has. Each year, in the autumn, Norway gets together with the Europeans and sorts out some annual fish arrangements. It's fraught and tense, but it has a lot of power in the talks. They haggle over how much of a quota it gets on certain stocks. And unlike in the EU, that quota can change. Sometimes, if no agreement can be reached, Norway just says you can't fish in their waters at all. Britain would love to operate just like that.

Why can't it? You said the law is on the UK side.

It is, but the leverage isn't.

Recurring theme.

Quite. We can take control of our waters and block anyone fishing within 200 miles of them if we want, but there's a problem: we don't eat our own fish. Eighty per cent of what we catch goes to the EU. The fish we actually eat - good old British fish and chips - mostly comes from Norway and Iceland.

Ok, but so what?

So the European threat is simple. If we don't do what they want they'll put tariffs on fish. That would absolutely hammer our fishing industry. The tariffs are high in this area and it would apply on almost everything it sells.

OK so what about some sort of compromise? Maybe the UK could stay in the EU system but they agree to rejig the quotas a bit to placate us.

Tempting, but the trouble is that would involve opening up the whole quota debate across the EU again. It would be like opening Pandora's Fish Box. They won't do that.

So we're faced with two sides with really quite distant goals in a highly emotional area of trade.

Yep. Which is why it's instructive to look at how they plan to talk about this. Britain wants to talk about fish separately to everything else. But the Europeans aren't having any of that. They want to bring the issue into the general trade discussion. And that'll be the attitude throughout - the British trying to silo off individual topics so they can't be used as leverage against each other and the Europeans making it more comprehensive.

What is it the Europeans actually want?

I thought you'd never ask. It's quite simple. They don't want Britain to undercut them. And that's not just about price - it's about regulations, subsidies and taxes.

What do you mean?

Well take Ireland. It basically functions as a kind of tax haven. This distorts the market and leads a bunch of major international companies to set up base there, where they pay hardly any tax. Countries like France hate that. Now, they might not be able to fully control tax policy, but they will want to make damn sure the same thing doesn't happen with Britain.

This is the Singapore of Europe thing right?

Right. Britain will be experiencing two things simultaneously after the end of the transition period. First, a degree of damage to its trading status, the exact extent of which depends on how the trade talks go. And second, some freedom it did not have before. So where does that lead you? Well you're still a big country which can encourage companies to set up with you because of your infrastructure, language, culture and all that. So why not slash corporate taxes to the bone, lower regulations and subsidise business? Make yourself as low standard and attractive as possible. The Europeans want firm commitments to stop this happening.

How do you know?

When the new European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen came to London recently her priorities were clear: "Zero tariffs, zero quotas, zero dumping." That's an interesting set of priorities. Used in this context, 'zero dumping' sounds like code for UK firms undercutting European ones.

Like how?

Well environmental regulations for one. The EU is about to bring in a massive new green initiative, including carbon tax and carbon VAT tax. It doesn't want that undermined by Britain basically exporting lots of dirty carbon to the EU. Same with what's called 'social dumping' - unfair labour practices like easy firing laws. And the same with subsidies - throwing cash at an industry so it can outperform its competitors overseas. This is disciplined at the WTO, but China does very well operating in the grey area of the rules. Britain could try and do the same.

This is really their main priority?

Pretty much. Britain isn't their biggest concern globally - the US and China are - but it is a big meaty economy, which can heavily undercut them, right on their doorstep. Lowering environmental or labour or subsidy standards would allow this, and might tempt firms over from the rest of the world to invest in the UK rather than the EU - or, hell, even get firms in the EU to move. Taken together, this is called the 'level playing field' debate. And it is central to the European negotiating aim.

So this is where one of the main battles will be?

Yep. And it has a knock-on effect on the timetable. Johnson is desperate to get this all done in eleven months. But the level playing field issue has a procedural impact which could make that impossible.

How so?

It's because of how the EU works. It's split up into different competencies. Some things member states have pretty much to themselves, like criminal justice. Some things are mixed competencies, like the environment. And some things are exclusive competencies of the EU, like trade. If the talks with the UK were completely focused on trade, the European Commission could insist that it has exclusive competence. That would be great news for the UK. It would mean that only the Council, where national leaders meet, and the parliament, where MEPs vote, needed to sign off on the deal. But if the deal expands to include things like the environment - and the level playing field issue does exactly that - then it becomes a mixed agreement. And that means you need each and every member state to ratify it according to their domestic political arrangements.

Christ alive. So every national parliament would need to OK it?

Yeah and not just them. In some cases, their constitutional arrangements mean even regional parliaments, like the one in Wallonia in Belgium, would also need to ratify. When Canada did a trade deal with the EU, Wallonia actually refused and for a brief moment it looked like the whole thing would fall down.

Damn.

And actually it goes further than that. A non-mixed agreement would be decided by a qualified vote in the Council. That's important, because it means you don't have to keep them all on board - just most of them. But if it has to be decided by every individual state, you need something for everyone in there, and nothing too terrible for anyone either. The whole thing becomes a lot more complicated and hard to negotiate.

Can the UK prevent this?

It's unlikely. Nearly everyone believes this is a mixed agreement. Member states want to maintain EU unity, but they all have different interests with the UK. They'll want to be able to have an impact on negotiations.

So that it then? There's no way Johnson can get his deal ratified in time?

Yes and no. There is still a get-out clause. The UK and EU can take the trade aspects and provisionally apply them in areas where the EU has exclusive competence. Then the deal goes out for ratification to national parliaments, for however long that takes. And then when they've agreed, it's all put back together and gets properly ratified. There's a bit of wriggle room, basically.

OK.

The trouble is what happens if a member state says no. That happens. The Netherlands rejected the EU's association agreement with Ukraine after a referendum. Greece decided it wanted protection for Ouzo in the South African talks. And if that happens, you have to reopen the agreement and work it all through again to try and find a compromise. Basically, you are sucked into the domestic and regional politics of 27 other member states. And there's no predicting which way that will go.

God.

Yeah. And then there's the thing we haven't mentioned, which is an absolute monster of administrative confusion and grim political consequences.

I can't believe this isn't over yet and you are still talking. Have I died and gone to the Bad Place?

We're all in the Bad Place. You must surely know that now.

Yeah, good point. OK, hit me.

Northern Ireland.

Christ, I'd forgotten about that.

So has the British government. This week, the Stormont Assembly voted unanimously - all parties and not a single vote against - to withhold consent from Johnson's Brexit deal. But even without their consent, it is going to be imposed on them. And it is an absolute godawful mess.

Why?

The deal Johnson did with the EU on Northern Ireland says that it stays in the UK customs territory but follows EU customs rules. It's not clear that he understood the implications of this. It means that a British trader selling into Northern Ireland would need to prove the goods are going to stay there, or pay the EU tariff.

Doesn't sound so bad.

But think about how weird it is. All around the world, goods arriving at a customs border are asked questions about the past - what is it, where was it made, how was it made? But now they are going to be asked questions about their future - where will it end up? And that is fundamentally unknowable. How do you prove it stayed in Northern Ireland? Let's say it's by a receipt on sale. How do you prove that the person you sold it to isn't then selling it into the EU? And this isn't just for final goods. It's also for goods for processing. So you need to know about the supply chain of the people you sell to as well.

I see the problem.

We don't even really have much data to prepare us for this because we don't track British trade to Northern Ireland, for the simple reason that it was always treated as domestic. The kind of information you'd usually have to prepare for a free trade agreement simply doesn't exist.

This is horrible.

It gets much worse. How is Northern Ireland supposed to prepare for this? If the British government succeeds in securing zero tariffs across the board, then life gets marginally easier, although you'd still need to deal with regulatory checks. But if it doesn't, we won't know what the outstanding tariffs will be until close to the deadline. And the Northern Irish system needs to be up and running at the end of transition on December 31st, with all the infrastructure and monitoring that entails. Put simply: It can't be done.

What's Johnson's plan?

He doesn't have one, or at least he hasn't revealed it. Probably the former. He still insist trade will be frictionless, even though this simply cannot be true by virtue of the deal he himself signed. The government also insists that "largely electronic" processes - the high-tech-solutions band back together again for a reunion tour - will solve everything. And then, even if everything works out in the best possible way and all the highest aspirations of the high-tech solutions come to pass, there is still a ghastly problem we have to face.

Alright, I'm strapped in. What is it?

Rules of origin.

No, come on. Not again man. Don't do this to me. We've done that.

Yeah, but it applies here too. The Northern Ireland arrangement is permanent. It stays in place even if the UK and EU have a trade agreement. And that means it has to function as if it's in the EU customs union. And that means…

Rules of origin between Britain and Northern Ireland.

Exactly. Those laborious, nightmarish requirements, carved right into UK territory.

Do they have to do these checks at the border?

No. You can do it away from the border. But the impact on businesses will be huge. Exporters from Britain, who are used to sending things to Northern Ireland as if it were the same country, will suddenly face the full bureaucratic horror show of rules of origin. They will need to decide if they want to go to all the work of figuring out where all their inputs come from, and where their suppliers source their inputs, and where their supplier's suppliers source their inputs. Or whether it is cheaper to simply stop exporting to Northern Ireland. Which many of them are very likely to do.

What's the political consequence of this?

It shows that Johnson's promise of frictionless trade between Britain and Northern Ireland is an outright lie. In fact, his deal creates a permanent border within the UK. It will never go away. It is set in stone. And the worst part, the really immoral part, is that this is happening without the consent of the people it is being imposed on. How that plays out, against the background of Irish politics and the prospect of sudden infrastructure and monitoring arrangements, and impossible timetables, is anyone's guess. But one thing is clear: No responsible person would have done this.

OK. Please tell me this is over now.

Yes. But also, it's only just beginning.

Just on the off chance that I fell asleep through any of that, can you give me a quick executive summary.

Sure. Johnson has set himself an arbitrary one-year deadline for a trade talk with the EU. The consequence of this is that the deal is bare bones, excluding services or - probably, if they're not lying - alignment on goods. Unless he changes course, this will be highly damaging to UK industry, especially those based in the Midlands and the North. He also wants control of fisheries. The EU want fisheries to stay as they were and a set of level playing field provisions to stop the UK undercutting them in future. They will try to secure these outcomes by keeping all the issues in play at the same time, so they can leverage them against each other. Whatever happens, the UK must deal with rules of origin requirements, which are extremely painful and will have potentially ruinous results between Britain and Northern Ireland.

Can you make it shorter than that?

The government either does not know what it is doing or is not prepared to reveal what it is doing. We are heading towards a truly disastrous set of outcomes unless that changes.

Thank you. And also please never talk to me again.

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tipsycad147 · 5 years ago

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Stop Using These 6 Plants In Your Witchcraft Immediately

Avery Hart

How much time do you spend thinking about nature in your craft? For most witches, it’s probably a significant amount of time. Much of modern witchcraft is earth-centric. Even if you’re not a super eco-conscious green witch, your craft includes plants, stones, dirt, water, etc. that all impact our planet. I mean, there’s no escaping it. We live here.

While many witches are solitary, this doesn’t exempt us from considering our impact on the collective whole of the planet and society. In fact, with so many of us holding beliefs like animism, polytheism, and working with the energetic forces of the world around us, it would be insane for us to NOT consider the implications of our craft on the world at large. Can you imagine how off kilter you would get if you focused only on your own energy and never thought about how the energies of people and places around you could impact your wellbeing and magic? It would be bad!

In the same way, it doesn’t make sense for us to ignore the impact of our practices on the world. Each of us impacts the world and that impact collectively shapes the world we live in. If we want a better world, we’ve got to help create it! The plants we’re going to talk about today are heavily consumed in modern witchcraft and for a variety of reasons, we need to reconsider our use of them. Our planet, our spirituality, and the people we share our home with rely on us to be conscious in our craft!

1. Palo Santo

Most witches are familiar with palo santo; at this point, it’s become one of the most common cleansing agents in the Western world. This South American wood is said to have many spiritual benefits and its name literally translates to holy wood. But did you know that palo santo is critically endangered?

Yep, there are fewer than 250 mature palo santo trees left in the wild and their numbers are diminishing at an alarming rate according to the United Plant Savers Medicinal Plant Conservation. While it is illegal to cut these trees down, companies still do so in order to sell the wood for profit.

On top of this, according to the beliefs of the people that this tree is actually sacred to, cutting down the trees rids the wood of any benefit. The indigenous people who use this wood wait for the tree to die of natural causes and rest on the forest floor for years before harvesting it for sacred use. In purchasing this wood from predatory sellers, you are essentially paying for a useless tool that has been stripped of all of its sacred properties by those who have no respect for the culture or the environments they’re stealing it from. That will not do you or your magic any favours and it certainly isn’t respectful of the indigenous people who hold this tree sacred.

2. Frankincense

Frankincense, or boswellia, has been used in religious ceremonies for thousands of years but it, too, has found itself in perilously short numbers. As demand has increased worldwide, these trees are seeing a decline in population as reckless producers overtax trees, killing them faster than they can be replaced. Ecologists are now saying that these forests could be gone within 50 years, destroying centuries of religious tradition and the environment and economy of Somalia at the same time. As consumers, it’s vital that we don’t support this destruction simply to make ourselves feel like we’re doing magic “right”. Just because a plant was commonly used by magicians and witches of the past doesn’t mean that it’s the only plant that we can use!

3. Myrrh

Myrrh, like frankincense, is a plant that has also found use in spiritual traditions tracing back thousands of years, often used in purification and cleansing, banishing, hex breaking, and protecting oneself psychically. Unfortunately, it’s also another critically endangered species with fewer than 250 mature adult trees remaining globally. There’s a 50% chance of myrrh becoming extinct within 10 years!

It is absolutely insane for us to continue using this plant without regard for its continued existence. How can we view something as sacred while destroying its chance of survival? How can we claim to work with the spirits of these plants while destroying their populations? Even if we personally decided that we didn’t care about the environmental impact of our use of these plants, there still remains the fact that this is hugely disrespectful of these plants! Would you help someone who was burning your house to the ground and murdering your family? I don’t think so. Why should you expect any different from the spirits and energies that you’re calling on by using these plants?

4. Dragons Blood

While the dragons blood tree is not yet endangered, it is considered vulnerable at this point. The good news is that it’s incredibly unlikely that you’ve actually been using real dragons blood resin at all. True dragons blood resin is incredibly rare and quite expensive, there’s also no genuine form of dragons blood essential oil in existence. What you’ve been using is, in all likelihood, fake. Many incenses, resins, and oils are marketed as dragons blood when they are actually just perfumed knock offs. This is actually a good thing though! Dragons blood tree populations aren’t regenerating quickly enough due to the global warming crisis and further taxation on the species could drive it firmly into the endangered category in no time. This is a product that you should largely avoid simply because you’re being lied to. What you’re purchasing isn’t dragons blood at all, it’s simply a concoction of synthetic scents and dyes.

5. Sandalwood

If you’ve made it this far, you won’t be surprised when I say that sandalwood is critically endangered. Again, this means there are fewer than 250 trees, with a strong chance of complete extinction within 10 years. At this point, you should be alarmed and disgusted at how we’ve all been sold these “sacred” plants with no regard for their wellbeing. You should be pissed at how you’ve been used by capitalism and colonialism alike to fuel the destruction of so many plants that we hold spiritually important.

6. White Sage

White sage is actually not endangered, as many people now claim that it is. The issue with white sage is that it is being destroyed and over-harvested in the wild which is making the plant scarce and hard to find for the native people who hold this plant sacred. This is problematic for completely different reasons.

The native people who hold this plant sacred have nothing to do with witchcraft. Do you know why they consider white sage sacred? No? Neither do I, because I’m not from that culture. And yet, somehow, modern pagans have widely accepted that white sage is the go-to for cleansing. There is nothing about our own traditions that says that this plant is sacred. White sage was not used in traditional witchcraft, we didn’t start using it widely until the 70s when hippies and white feminists looking for a less restrictive spirituality began to cobble together whatever they could find out of eastern and indigenous spiritual practices. While I can understand their desire for a more grounded, freeing spiritual practice, the methods they used and the practices they stole weren’t for them, and they’re not for us either.

Native peoples have had the practice of their spirituality banned and made illegal by colonisers throughout history. Their languages, their homes, and the things they consider sacred have all been stolen from them and they are still struggling with inhumane treatment today. By using white sage that is being harvested unsustainably, we are in fact directly participating in their destruction. Our consumption of their cultures should be on their terms, in ways that benefit them and allow them to reclaim their lives and spiritualities from those who would seek to profit off of them.

What To Use Instead

Are you pissed off? You should be pissed off. We’re having our planet destroyed and sold to us under the guise of something “sacred”. Our spirituality is being capitalised upon and we are becoming numb to the true impact of our lives and practices. Magic is and always has been a practice of the underprivileged. Magic has always been an act of radical resistance against people and systems who would control us. It has always been used by the poor, by slaves, by those with no other recourse to grasp power for themselves. There is a reason that the word “witch” has such a long and unflattering history. The people in charge are terrified of us having any kind of power. They have done everything to stop us from demonising us, to killing us, to making our religions illegal.

What many don’t realise is that the sterilisation of our spirituality is just as much an attempt to quell our rebellious spirits as any show of force or legal limitation. By turning us into consumers, they strip us of our power. They plug us back into the system of powerlessness and subjugation where they decide what kind of power we are allowed to have. They turn us back into quiet, complacent consumers.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t come to witchcraft to fill the pockets of some planet destroying capitalist scumbag. I came to the craft to take back my power. I came to the craft to take control of my life. I came to the craft because I was sick of feeling like a pawn in someone else’s game. It’s time to take our spirituality and our power back from those who would sterilise it.

You might be wondering how the hell you’re supposed to do that and what you should use if you’re not supposed to use any of these plants.

There are TONS of alternative plants that you can use to cleanse, banish, purify, hex, protect, and whatever else you need to do but the absolute best plant for you to use, hands down, is the one you grow yourself. It doesn’t matter if that plant is on this list, if you’re growing it yourself, use it! This is an amazing way to get in touch with the spirits and nature around you. What you can grow, what thrives near you, and what you are personally good at taking care of can inform your magic hugely.

Now, I know not everyone has the ability or the space to grow tons of plants so I don’t present this as a complete solution. Heck, I can’t grow much more than rosemary because my cats will eat anything green they can get their paws on. But if you CAN grow your own plants, you SHOULD. If you can’t think of how you would possibly get by without white sage in your practice, then grow it yourself.

The next best kind of plant to use is the one that grows locally and can be wild harvested without negatively impacting local populations. For example, when I lived in Austin I was regularly using mountain juniper (known locally as cedar) in my practice. In Austin, cedar is abundant, universally hated for the heinous allergies they cause, and incredibly invasive, sucking up water and choking out native species. I could harvest all the cedar I wanted without worrying that I was damaging the environment. Research plants that grow near you and figure out what you can use them for in your craft. Learn to harvest sustainably and have fun.

Obviously, preventing witchcraft from becoming reliant on capitalism is important. We should never be beholden to these power structures for our own power. If you must be granted your power by an outside source, then you don’t actually have any power. We cannot be truly independent while existing within a capitalist society, nor do I think we should try to be. Rather, we should seek to be conscious consumers. If you cannot produce your materials yourself, and you cannot wild harvest the things you need from nature, then the next best thing is learning to use our consumption in a way that disrupts the power structures that keep us at a disadvantage.

Stop buying from Amazon. Stop buying from huge monolith companies that don’t give a rats ass about you beyond your wallet. Start supporting local producers, indigenous producers, and ethical producers. If you must use a particular plant, find a way to source it that helps the culture that considers it sacred, that helps repopulate the species of plant, etc. Use your consumption as a weapon against the people who would strip you of your power.

For those of you who would like easy recommendations for replacing these plants, I do have some suggestions. White sage, palo santo, and all of the other cleansing herbs I’ve mentioned can be replaced with literally any other variety of sage, lavender, thyme, mountain juniper, or my favourite, rosemary.

These plants are not unique in their ability to affect us magically. Many plants can be used to purify, protect, hex, attract prosperity, and so on. I guarantee you have useful and magical plants growing near you that you never would have considered. Everything from dandelions growing in cracks in the concrete, to the bindweed creeping up your fence, to the herbs growing in your windowsill can be used in your craft.

It’s time for us to take our power back and reclaim our spirituality as sacred!

https://thetravelingwitch.com/blog/stop-using-these-6-plants-in-your-witchcraft-immediately

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