The Enchanted Spinner

Just a daily reminder that Witchcraft and Wicca/Paganism are not one in the same.

Wicca and Paganism and the like are religions. Witchcraft is a spiritual tradition of using magic.

You can be a devote Pagan and not believe in or utilize magic.

You can practice witchcraft and not believe in or worship any higher beings.

You can be a Christian witch or a Buddhist witch or a Wiccan witch.

Do paganism and witchcraft often go hand and hand? Yes.

Must they? No!

One weekend i spent with my dad and when I came back she had repainted my room. A beautiful deep blue on three walls (my favourite colour), lovely sky blue on the ceiling,and one wall was black. The black wall had been sanded smooth and painted with several coats of chalkboard paint. She gave me a couple boxes of chalk and told me to have at it. I LOVED that black wall and wrote on it every day. I drew on it, I doodled, I wrote out my favourite emo song lyrics, wrote reminders for myself, anything I wanted. It was my favourite part of my room and was something that it would have never occurred to me to ask for. It was something only my very creative and clever mom could have come up with and I’m still grateful to her for it.

*******PLEASE DON’T LEAVE DISHES OF SUGAR WATER OUT*******

Post from a beekeeper

Oh dear - I keep hearing tips about leaving bowls of sugar water out to “help” keep bees hydrated. Please, please, please DON’T. Bees are really good at finding what they need and there are so many reasons not to do this. The MOST IMPORTANT reason is that if you within 3 miles of some hives (and most people are) if the bees find the sugar water they’re going to think its a great source of easy food, go back to the hive and recruit more bees to come and collect the “food” and before you know it you’ll have 1.000s and 1,000s of bees descending on your garden/balcony - a very scary sight. This is known as robbing and as beekeeper I’ve seen this a couple of times - once started it is impossible to stop until the source of the “food” has gone.

Other reasons not to do this are - sugar water is essentially “junk” food for bees. Its full of carbohydrates which will give them an energy burst, but has no other nutritional value unlike the food they should be having i.e. nectar.

Honey bees will store this as honey in the hive. The beekeeper unknowingly may end up extracting and selling this as honey later in the year. You don’t want to buy sugar syrup and the beekeeper doesn’t want to be prosecuted for selling a product which isn’t honey.

This is also an easy food source for social wasps.

By all means give a tired bee a drink of sugar water on a spoon, but please don’t leave it out for them.

If you want to help bees there are lots of ways you can do this from planting nectar rich plants or leaving out bowls of water with gravel/small pebbles in so they can access the water which they would be very grateful for.

PLEASE SHARE THIS AND TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS

Edited - It appears that a lot of the advice I have seen about leaving out sugar water stems from advice from DAVID ATTENBOROUGH. He was absolutely right in his advice, but his advice was if you see a struggling bee to put some sugar water where the bee could reach it - not to leave out bowls of sugar water. Unfortunately it seems like, as usual, media publications have misquoted advice and not done their research

Also please don’t feed bees honey. Surprisingly they don’t eat honey - they eat nectar. Honey bees make honey for their own use during the winter months, but bumble bees collect and use nectar as and when they need it.

NO MOVING!

You don’t have to stay completely still to meditate! Wiggling is often fairly essential to getting comfy, and if a position is getting uncomfortable after a while, of course you’ll want to move! Allow yourself little twitches and involuntary movements, and if you’re experiencing discomfort, of course move! Discomfort distracts from your meditation more than making a minor adjustment to get comfortable! Your goal is to be comfortable enough that you’re able to let go of your physical senses, NOT to stay still for ages!

NO THINKING!

You’re totally allowed to have thoughts! If you have a thought, you’re not “meditating wrong”! The real skill comes with redirecting your consiousness away from thoughts after acknowledging them. Feel free to acknowledge your thought, greet it, and recognize it! It’s a thing! But then tell that thought that you’ll come back to it later, and gently send it on its way. Instead of focusing on the things floating in our stream of consiousness, we want to learn more about the stream itself!

SPIRITUAL MEDITATION ONLY!

Meditation is incredibly useful for many things! And many of those things have nothing to do with spirituality or magic or religion! Meditation helps us learn more about ourselves and how our brains work. It teaches us to relax and free ourselves from the vice grip reality and its stressors have on us. Through meditation, we can release unhelpful thoughts, and stress in the body and mind. You don’t have to be a witch, monk, or celestial being to meditate!

IF YOU DON’T HAVE A MAGICAL, TRANSCENDING EXPERIENCE, YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!

Again, meditation is more than transcending and magic! If you learn anything about yourself, find peace, de stress, ease discomfort, or really get any sort of benefit at all, you’re doing it right! It takes time to easily shift into meditative states, and even more time to easily get into trance/vision states, so not getting there immediately doesn’t mean you’re a failure! NEVER getting there doesn’t mean you’re a failure! So long as you’re improving your state of mind or body in some way, you win!

MEDITATION IS A RITUAL!

Uh, no. Meditation can take place in a temple, with incense and candles and all that fancy stuff, sure… But it can also take place in your pajamas while chillin’ in bed. Or in the back seat on a long, boring road trip. Or in a hot tub. Or on the bus. All you need to meditate is you, your brain, and a want to meditate. You CAN do a ritual before/after/during meditation if you like, but it’s by no means required!

SIT UP, YOU MUST BE IN THE FANCY LOTUS POSITION!

You don’t need to make a leg pretzel to meditate. You can meditate laying down (if you feel you won’t fall asleep), you can be sprawled out in a beanbag, you can be lounging in a recliner… Whatever you want! Again; getting comfortable enough to let go of your senses is the goal. If a sitting, fancy position isn’t comfy for you, don’t do it!

WHAT’S YOUR MANTRA?

Having a mantra or affirmation to repeat is helpful to some, but it’s not for others. You don’t have to have a mantra, and you certainly don’t have to use it out loud!

BEADS, BALLS, SHAPES, OH MY!

You don’t need mala beads to meditate! Mala beads or prayer beads are used to keep track of how many times you’ve said your mantra or prayer, and are more for specific eastern religions. You don’t need those metal ringy balls, though they can be helpful to have a feeling and motion and weight to focus on. Really, all of these things help to provide a focal point. Any skin-safe stone can provide weight or sensation to focus on, or you can even use a stim (cube, spinner, texture, chew, etc) to help. If you’re a fidgeter, or need stim to relax, stim away! But none of these things are required.

IF IT’S NOT EFFORTLESS, YOU CAN’T MEDITATE!

If you have a hard time meditating, problem solve! What was hard about it? Why? How can you improve the situation for your next try? Meditation isn’t instant, and it’s not effortless and easy for everyone! Take your time, move at your own pace, and find what works best for you.

HOW TO: (this is just one method, the one I use!)

1. Get comfy! If you’re able to change into comfy clothes, do it. If you’re able to get comfortable in bed, or a favorite chair, do it. Of course, things don’t always go our way, and sometimes we’re stuck with less than desirable situations, but do your best with what you have!

2. Get EXTRA comfy and relax. Slowly start relaxing your body. Wiggle around and get your torso and central body comfy, then wiggle and get your shoulders comfy, and then your hips, and then your legs and arms, and then your head, and then your hands and feet. Unclench your jaw, let yourself breathe slowly and comfortably (if you’re like me, counting doesn’t help; just get into a comfy, natural breathing pattern.)

3. REALLY relax. Go back through your body, head to toes, toes to head, bit by bit, and relax your muscles and body as much as possible. If you’re struggling, tense, hold, and then slowly relax each part, bit by bit. Let go of your physical sensation. Work to not feel your body at all. Breathe naturally, and slowly, slowly let your body fade away on its own.

4. Inward we go! Breathe naturally and slowly turn your mind inward, and watch your stream of consiousness. A thought may float along, and that’s okay! You can acknowledge it. Say hello to your thought! But then tell it you’ll focus on it later, and let it go. Gently free it from your focus, and let it float away. Do this again and again until you no longer really need to try on it. Once you’re to the point you can watch your thoughts float by without touching them… Congrats! You’ve reached a meditative state!

5. If you struggle to let your thoughts go, or find yourself worrying you won’t be able to think on it later, or you’ll forget, it’s okay. It’s natural! Instead of stopping and moving your body to pick up a pen and paper to write things down, consider getting a recording device of some sort, and simply give your thought a few keywords out loud, to remind you later, before letting it go. You can keep your focus internal, and just dictate absently if you need to!

I started my shop in March of 2013. When I started it, I never dreamed it would grow as big as it did. In April of 2016, I, still in my early 20s, had to take on the task of financially supporting my mom and my 4 teenage sisters. We were dealing with so much.. so much darkness. But the shop quite literally saved us, and it allowed me to support my family in a way I would never have dreamed possible. I have never for a second taken that for granted. I am so thankful.. it leaves me speechless. 

For the past 2 years, this shop has been run by me, my mom, my husband, and also the help of one of my little sisters. We have grown and expanded, and this shop gave us the chance to make a great life for ourselves that we had only dreamed about pre-2016. It helped us heal in a lot of ways. For the first time in our lives we got to feel security. 

Sadly, though, for the past 2 months, things have quite honestly tanked. I am still struggling to understand what exactly happened. Basically, almost over night, the shop’s sales so dramatically reduced. Earlier this year, and last year, we would get something like 50 - 80 sales the first day our weekly shop update posted. As of right now, we are lucky if we get 25. I know that sales usually slow down in the summer, but this is the worst it has ever been. I don’t really think seasonality is to blame. I have been losing sleep over this, honestly. I am trying so hard to figure out what went wrong. I want nothing more than for my family to be taken care of. 

I have always had very strong core beliefs and one of those beliefs is that every business should be transparent and operated with honesty and openness. This is why I’m talking to you all today. If things don’t improve within the next 2 months, we will not be able to afford to stay open. As much as it breaks my heart to say that, that is the truth. 

Running this shop is my life’s greatest joy. I am so grateful to have the chance to do this.. It brings me so much joy to know how many lovely, amazing people this busniess has touched! I am so hopeful that we have positively impacted at least a few people. 

I just wanted to be able to have this honest talk with you guys because I don’t want to be quite when things go this way and then one day just vanish without an explanation. I just want you all to know what’s going on. 

I know things are so hard right now for everyone, given the state of things, both in the world entirely and in America specifically. I know so many are being hit hard with all the bad things going on all the time.. so I understand. I just hope that if you have supported us in the past, if you like what we do, and if you’d like to see us keep doing what we’re doing for years to come, please spread the word. We want to be able to spread the joy of crystals for many years to come, to people all over the world. 

I appreciate all of you so much. My life (and the lives of family) would look so different if it wasn’t for you guys. I can’t even express it. 

These are Safe Shorts. They were made by Sandra Seilz after someone attempted to rape her. If the fabric is torn, an alarm will be sounded.

This is the Rape-aXe, invented by a South African doctor by the name of  Sonnet Ehlers. After interviewing a rape victim who wished she had teeth down there, she made this. If someone’s penis is inserted and pulled back out, the teeth will sink in, and can only be removed by a doctor.

The Killer Tampon (couldn’t find a site for it), made by retired anaesthetist Jaap Haumann. When penetration takes place, the sharp end will slice the offending appendage.

The Anti-Rape Belt (also couldn’t find a site), made by a group of Swedish teenagers led by Nadja Björk. It requires two hands to undo.

Anti-Rape Underwear/Bra (once again), as made by a group of Indian students. Will deliver an electric shock when met with unwanted advances, as well as sounding an alarm.

Undercover Colours. Made by 4 male undergraduates at North Carolina U, they change colours when in contact with chemicals or drugs that cause unconsciousness. Used in case you’re wary that your drink has been roofied.

These are just tools to help, but in addition to being mindful of your situations and staying safe, they can help when the worst happens.