☆ ♱:..flo flo..:♱ ☆

Collecting fallen pinecones, leaves, seeds, weird rocks, sun bleached sticks/branches. Vulture culture of animal remains is a lovely aesthetic but it can get costly!

Visiting memorials and graveyards for walks and meditation.

Watching death positive and education YouTube and docs on streaming services.

Reading local obituaries or local headstones and keeping a memento mori journal.

Creating an ancestor shrine with objects you already have and pictures/artwork printed from a computer. Add a couple items from a thrift shop or dollar store if you are able but not required.

Spirit work! That is always free!

Volunteer at a hospice or nursing home.

Light candles for souls that have passed; whether you know them or heard about them in the news.

Read up on your local Wills & Probate procedures or see if there is a local group offering a free workshop.

Visit natural history museums or art museums and practice energy sensing or just absorb the history and stories of the pieces.

Create a simple decorated candle/painted craft/box/space for The Forgotten Dead. Give regular simple offerings (water is a good one).

Talk to (trusted) friends and family about death and end of life desires.

Write a story or poem relating to death.

If you're an indigenous trans man, an indigenous transmasc, or just a queer indigenous person in general: I am so proud and happy to share a community with you.

Garlic is one of my favorite spices to cook with, and it's a staple in my household.

I've always loved how it appears so unassuming at first glance, but it packs such a punch when it comes to protective magic. It's an herbal household guardian that doesn't ask for permission; it just takes up the space it needs and fixes the energy. To me, it is the culinary equivalent of a warm blanket and locked door- keeping me grounded while also clearing out any lingering energy that's overstayed its welcome.

For me, garlic is a reminder that some of the most wonderful magic is found in the most humble of places. Like a delicious bulb that grows underground.

A few ways to incorporate it into your practice:

Place a clove on the windowsill to protect the home from negative energies.

As you sautée garlic in oil, say a prayer, charm, whatever fits your practice to banish illness and bad luck.

Include dried cloves in protection charm bags for an extra kick.

Place a clove under your pillow to help fight off nightmares.

Boil garlic skins and let the steam cleanse the air after arguments.

Hello! My recommendation (and the route I took) is to "think small" at first — pick a starting goal or focus and "baby step" into it. For me, I knew that I wanted to introduce more plant types, but I didn't know where to start. I took into account the area I was in, seeing that there was clover growing well in some nearby areas (and that there had once been a lot of clover on that property). I started researching integrating clover with the grass already there. Clover is (at least in my area, and this may differ in your own grow zone) quite easy to take (and doesn't require much work/maintenance), thankfully; but even something as simple as introducing more clover can make a big difference, as its popular with pollinators. Clover also helps the earth underneath hold moisture. Often turfgrasses require lots of watering while also not providing the best nutrients for the soil, which is another reason why having a predominantly or solely turfgrass yard is so environmentally damaging. In researching this, I'd found that clover, which I'd already learned would likely grow well, would also help the soil retain moisture.

So I started with clover, then started introducing wildflowers, which brought in even more pollinators. I also planted bushes and shrubs, which brought in more birds (I was fortunate to have trees already on the property, but the shrubs and bushes have attracted even more birds, even better when they're flowering shrubs). Birds tend to bring a lot of biodiversity with them, as they often have seeds in their poo. This is likely how I ended up with the Wild Spinach and Mustard I have lol.

Another crucial thing I learned early on is how to balance city/county regulations for lawncare vs preserving what growth I'd managed thus far and encouraging new growth. Where I live, I, unfortunately, do have to mow. It's a county requirement. But I don't mow as frequently as most people would think to. Mowing once a month or once every three weeks can make a huge difference. It gives a lot of plants time to see out a full bloom or growth cycle, to drop seeds to generate new plants, to feed pollinators, to give necessary nutrients back into the soil. I also only mow what must be mowed, and I never cut down low to the ground. Raising your mower blades to their highest possible setting really helps. For instance, my mower blades don't even touch the clover. Having the blade deck raised higher gibes growing plants time to flourish, to drop seeds, to feed wildlife.

When it came to bringing in more native grasses (particularly taller types), that's when I started planning ahead more and "thinking bigger." I tried to introduce them in various areas, particularly areas that weren't along the property lines and were already harder to mow (borders, corners, hills, etc.), so that I wouldn't have to mow them by my county's requirements. Doing it this way gave the grass proper time to take, whereas if I'd been mowing them down as the county would have wanted, it would have been a waste to even try to plant them. I basically made something similar to "hedgerows" of taller grass types, specifically those that seed and feed birds. After a couple of years, they didn't require any tending really, and come back in each year on their own beautifully. Also, once their consistently seeding, the grass will start to spread on its own.

I also recommend researching if there are "loopholes" to city/county regulations when it comes to native plants. In my town, there are some, but not as many as in other place. Some towns even have it to where if you're trying to cultivate a native lawn, mowing regulations don't apply or have different rules. This is usually in county codes under something to do with native flora preservation (or something similar).

Colonial America, maybe.

The way Europeans talk about North America when they say it reveals everything about the way they think.

To them, history here didn’t start until they arrived. Not until the so called real people with real culture and real architecture and real timelines stepped off a boat.

Everything before that gets treated like fog, like background noise, like a blank landscape waiting to be drawn on.

Like the Europeans arrived here and just found a land untouched by human hands ready for them to Manifest (European) Destiny in, instead of, like, a continent full of nations older than most European countries, with civilizations, trade routes, astronomy, agriculture, laws, stories, cities, innovations, relationships to the land that go further back than many of the languages used to belittle them.

When Europeans say “America is big,” they don’t even mean the actual land full of over 500 nations of distinct peoples.

They mean the unmarked page they imagine they wrote on. When they say “Europe is old,” they mean “ours is the old that matters.” The implication is always that Indigenous history doesn’t count as history at all, that Indigenous people were somehow outside the timeline until colonialism kicked the clock into motion.

I’m tired of watching it walk by unchallenged and seeing it drift by unchallenged.

North America wasn’t waiting to be discovered.

It wasn’t empty wilderness.

It wasn’t without time or culture or memory.

It was already ancient when the Europeans arrived.

Treating Indigenous people like footnotes or shadows just makes it embarrassingly obvious that a lot of Europeans still don’t see them as real people with real history, real innovation, and real presence.

1: Homicide is roughly the third leading cause of death among Indigenous women ages 10-24.

2: 56.1% of indigenous women have experienced sexual violence, 55.5% have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner, and 48.8% have experienced stalking.

3: The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that there were 10,248 missing Indigenous persons reports in 2024. 5,614 were women, and 4,626 were men. Most women reported missing were under the age of 18.

4: The 10 states with the highest rates of American Indian/Alaska Native missing persons cases in 2025 were AK, AZ, OK, WA, NM, CA, MT, NC, SD, and TX.

5: Because of limited data, there is no reliable nationwide count of how many Native women go missing or are murdered each year.

And finally:

Indigenous women are murdered at 10x the national average in the United States alone.

All of these facts and more can be found at

Article text:

Long before there was Jeffrey Epstein and his repulsive rape ring, there was the terror of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.

The MMIW crisis spans decades, arguably centuries, and involves 1000s of cases in the US and Canada, and yet, even as the Epstein story captures mass media attention and builds pressure for more prosecutions, Indigenous women and girls and women-identified people continue to turn up dead, or simply don’t turn up at all – and only native activists seem to care.

I felt the ice of that terror freeze a new friend once, in a Holiday Inn parking lot off a flat highway in Minnesota. We’d pulled in, just before dark, after a hot, dusty pipeline protest followed by some earnest pleading from two happy, helpful, just-barely teenage girls. Brave before cops and mobs, I saw the skin around the eyes of their mother, my new friend, tighten. An experienced native organizer, her smile squeezed to a clench as she saw white men with trucks milling about. One swim. In my eyesight. No leaving your room – for any reason. We left early. I got it: terror. Happy indigenous girls are an endangered species in America.

In 2022, the National Crime Information Center reported 5,487 cases of missing Native American and Alaska Native women and girls in the United States, where the majority of missing persons cases involved girls aged 0-17 years old. It is estimated that Indigenous women are murdered at a rate at least ten times higher than the national average in some counties, but the data is hard to nail down and record-keeping has always been weak.

Not long ago, a record four Indigenous women managed to get themselves elected to Congress where they did something historic. They passed the Not Invisible Act, authored by then-Rep. Deb Haaland, and signed by President Trump, which created a Commission to study the problem and lay out an action plan.

“The federal government must act now; not tomorrow; not next week; not next month; and not next year. Once and for all, the federal government must end its systematic failure to address this crisis, and react, redress, and resolve this,” declared the Not Invisible Act Commissioners.

In one virtual, and seven in-person hearings in places including Billings, MO, Tulsa, OK, and Anchorage, AK , Commission members heard testimony from tribal leaders, law enforcement officers, service providers, and family members. Motivated by the same righteous rage that moves the relatives of Epstein’s trafficked girls, the family members of murdered and missing Indigenous people made often arduous journeys to testify.

With heroic nerve, Indigenous survivors of human trafficking stood in front of strangers and recalled the worst horrors of their lives. America’s indigenous survivors shared their warnings with the same mix of gratitude and skepticism that we’ve heard from the victims of Epstein. (Someone is finally listening, but will anything, ever, be done? )

Commissioners heard several versions of the same witness sentiment: “I don’t want anyone else to have to live through this nightmare.”

After 260 witnesses and hours of testimony, the Not Invisible Act Commission produced a report. It described in damning detail the many sources of the problem: longstanding white racism, a limited tribal justice system, jurisdictional cracks – more like chasms — into which most MMIW cases fall. Above all, they expressed the urgent need for adequate funding for investigation, prosecution, prevention and care.

The Not Invisible Act Commission Report was posted on the Justice Department’s website in November of 2023.

By February of this year, that link was dead. The report disappeared soon after Donald Trump resumed office, along with nearly half of all federal funding allocated to federally recognized Native American and Alaska Native nations, and massive cuts to hundreds of safety and justice-related grants. Today, the website of the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (a primary source of support for MMIW- and MMIP-related resources) features a warning to applicants about falling “out of scope”. Under the administration’s new “anti-DEI” and “anti-woke” regulations, it’s a violation, for example, to “frame domestic violence or sexual assault as systemic social justice issues rather than criminal offenses” or “addressing missing or murdered indigenous persons (MMIP) unrelated to domestic violence or sexual assault.” ) As of November, 21, the site reads “There are no FY 2025 open notices of funding opportunity at this time.”

Where’s the outcry? A bi-partisan Congress has voted to force Trump’s DOJ to release the full Epstein files. Now, how about making the Not Invisible Commission Report visible once again, and implementing its recommendations? Funding for prosecution, prevention and healing in Indigenous communities was never sufficient. It’s in tragically short supply now.

Blaming and shaming the elite and the powerful people around Epstein is necessary and satisfying, but justice for victims of gender-and-race-based violence requires much more than a few high-profile perp-walks. When it comes to the use and abuse of women, we as a nation need a fundamental culture shift, and that demands turning our collective conscience to the colonial cruelty at the heart of so much of our story.

In the U.S., Native people are victimized by violence at 2.5 times the rate of all other racial demographics, and are 2 times more likely to be victimized by rape and sexual assault. This violence has an even greater disproportionate impact on Native women, girls, Two-Spirit people, and other trans and gender-diverse people. Native women on some reservations face a murder rate 10 times that of the national average, and over half of Native women have experienced sexual violence.

You can dress in red and/or wear a red handprint on May 5 to honor the missing and murdered, discuss the epidemic of violence against Native people and particularly Native people of marginalized genders, and consider donating to organizations supporting Native Peoples, people, and rights.

MMIWG2S Alaska [link]

Alaska Native Women's Resource Center [link]

Alaska Native Justice Center [link]

Data For Indigenous Justice [link]

Native Movement [link]

Southcentral Foundation [link]

National Indigenous Women's Resource Center [link]

StrongHearts Native Helpline [link]

And they haven't even gathered significant information on native women living in URBAN areas. It could be much higher.

Hello! Hello! I am a hobbyist and amateur perfumer that delights in selling Occult and Fandom Themed Roll-On Perfumes! I sell fragrances themed around various principles, deities, or fandoms such as the Silmarillion and the Legend of Zelda or even One Piece!

My Etsy Link is Here for Perfumes! 🪻💜

With every perfume, you also get a charming little "Sprite" that comes along with it. These are small samplers of other perfumes!

The "Sprite" is totally random (though if you really wish, I am more than happy to select a sampler of a scent you're too nervous to buy)

You also can make special requests for Perfumes and purchase through my ko-fi if you do not wish to buy through etsy!