Just finding my center

Ginger Rogers was a FUCKING BADASS. Ignore for a sec the rampant sexism in Hollywood (they once bleached  her hair blonde in wardrobe without telling her beforehand), the fact that she fought her whole career against typecasting and stereotyping from fellow actors (Katharine Hepburn famously said of the Astaire/Rogers partnership “she gave him sex. He gave her class” ) for starting out in musicals, and went on to have a career lasting over fifty years, winning a Best Actress Oscar (Kitty Foyle, 1940). But… JUST focusing on the Astaire movies…

Not only did she dance “backwards” in high heels, the dances were a task in themselves. Astaire was an absolute perfectionist and choreographed for himself, so as a younger, less experienced dancer Rogers came in at a disadvantage and worked her ass off to match him. 

Then there’s the filming complications… these numbers were filmed in ONE TAKE. So one thing goes wrong and you have to start over. Maybe you make a mistake or maybe your dress flies up because…

Ginger had to contend with her wardrobe. Dancing in heels is the norm at this time, but dancing in a dress designed for cinema cameras… not so much. They were heavy, embellished, uncomfortable, restrictive and cumbersome and essentially a third member of the dance, strapped to the body of one partner.Not only did she have to dance and look good, she had to control the dress too!

Take this routine from Swing Time… (it gets going proper at 1:30ish)

This dress has weights, YES WEIGHTS, sewn in to the hem to make it fly out and create a visual effect. So it’s heavy, it hurts if it hits you, and your partner gets mad if it hits him. So you gotta control it. 

Well it turns out all these factors on this set, this particular day aren’t going so well. So you’re doing take after take, here’s no labour laws, so at 4am after 18 hours you’re still going, even though part of the routine requires you to spin up those curved stairs with no rail at high speed….

Okay so now back to those high heels. In Ginger’s autobiography she vividly remembers this night as the night she bled though her shoes. They did so many takes, her feet blistered, bled, and the white satin high heels she was wearing finished he night pink because they were literally full of blood. And still they keep shooting. She keeps dancing.

The take they use in the film is the last. Early hours. Bloody feet. And she spins, acts and bosses out until that last second. Because she was that professional, talented and bloody minded. This is the last set of spins… 

So I say once again. Ginger Rogers was a badass.

these are dress weights:

often used by ordinary people to keep skirts from flying up in high wind. and, yes, to give the desired floating effect in some dance costumes

the ones in the Never Gonna Dance dress were apparently about half the size of an old half-dollar coin and made of clear plastic. they would absolutely not have made the dress weigh twenty pounds, especially inasmuch as it’s made of two layers of incredibly light silk georgette

(generally a bad example for talking about restrictive, heavily embellished Old Hollywood dance costumes.)

actually, looking up images of her costumes in general, it seems like most of them were fairly light and easy to move in. which makes sense, because like. the costume designers weren’t stupid. everyone knew she’d have to dance in whatever she was wearing, and studios may have treated actors like crap back then, but they still needed to get a good performance out of her.

that “third person in the dance” idea comes from Ginger Rogers’ recollection of another dress entirely, from Follow the Fleet. that dress was beaded, heavy, difficult to work with, painful when it whacked either dancer on turns- and designed by Rogers herself.

(Again, this was her idea. She seems to have regretted the design after the fact, but no director made her wear it.)

also, when her feet started bleeding during Never Gonna Dance, the choreographer told her to go home and that they could resume filming the next day. she insisted on continuing for several more hours. in some situations she was the victim of appalling treatment, but in this case, she was a freaking Dance Terminator who was GOING to get that perfect take no matter what

I agree with your points about her badassery, but could you please fact-check what you’re saying? I thought to question it because I know how dress weights actually work, but other people would have no reason to doubt the information. and then they’d repeat it, and the chain of urban legends would continue

source 1

source 2

Coffee Magic ☕✨

“Coffee is a kind of magic you can drink.”

― Catherynne M. Valente

Coffee magic is some of the most convenient type of magic since the beans are readily available at grocery stores and we can buy a brewed cup almost anywhere.

✨ Make a quick & easy potion by using flavorings that correspond to your needs (ex. Pumpkin for prosperity, Cinnamon for success, Vanilla for love, Hazelnut for luck, Nutmeg for hex breaking, etc.)

✨ When stirring your morning coffee, stir clockwise (deosil) and repeat your daily affirmations  

✨ Draw sigils on your cup according to your needs of the day

✨ People with redheads & brunettes can rinse their hair with strong black coffee to enhance their natural color

✨ Fresh coffee grounds can be mixed with a carrier oil and used as a gentle exfoliant, the tannins reduce puffiness

✨ For a simple banishing spell, mix coffee grounds with dirt from your target’s footprints, and cayenne pepper and sprinkle of the target’s front doorstep

✨ Burning coffee is said to ward off nightmares, bad spirits - and for sure mosquitoes. Place dry grounds (unused) on a charcoal disc as you would incense

✨ The aroma of strong coffee brewing is said to revive psychic depletion  

There's a lot of discourse around baneful magic, hexing, chaos magic, jinxing and curses.

It's not that I want to actively encourage those practices, but all witches should know what items are used for in spells, especially if they're using advanced magic. Here's a short list of items I see used in hexes and such (no herbs!)

As always, please do your research on all ingredients in a spell in order to source them ethically.

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Poppets ~ This is an item used to signify a person in a spell. You can make them out of just about anything, but I most commonly see people stitching their own dolls or using paper cut in the shape of a person.

Taglocks ~ I feel like people get Taglocks and Poppets confused. Taglocks are actually items, sometimes personal, that create a link to a certain person in a spell. This can be as simple as a photo of them, an item they left behind, or even something from their body, like hair or nails.

Graveyard Dirt ~ This is dirt obtained from, you guessed it, graves and cemeteries. Inserting my own opinion here, it's difficult to obtain Graveyard Dirt from the source ethically. In fact, prancing into a graveyard with a shovel can probably get you in a lot of trouble. Some alternatives here can be taking sticks or rocks from a gravesite (NOT anything on someone's grave) or even taking the soil from beneath a dead plant. Always leave an offering for the spirits.

Iron ~ Typically you won't see straight-up Iron listed as a spell item, but you may see rusty nails and other sharp, rusted items. Iron is used to attract and repel, so it can be used to attract negative energy to someone while repelling it from you.

Broken Glass ~ If you're able to safely collect glass after breaking an object, see if you can save it! Broken glass is great for protection in spells. A good example: if you cast a binding spell on someone, it can help prevent them from retaliating.

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By no means is this the only use for these objects. In fact, many items used in baneful magic have uses in protection spells as well. Always do your research, especially to ensure you are not impeding on a closed practice of another culture, before attempting to cast ANY spells.

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Just as you found this post, may you find money flowing effortlessly into your life from henceforward.

Blessed are you who read this. Manifest the receiving an abundance of money now. As the universe has been good to you, be good to another. Bless a friend and bless a stranger.

Reblog to cast and pass the blessing!

Experience is one of the best teaches we can have. Books are great, but they can only teach us so much.

Don’t be afraid to try things! Yes, you’ll get things wrong, but that’s how we learn and grow! Don’t be afraid to do things wrong because no one is perfect 😊

Hecate is both mysterious and severe. Her face is hidden behind her torches, or on the dark side of the moon, however her presence is a constant. She is life, death, and rebirth. She is both light and dark magic. She was beloved in her association with rites of passage like childbirth, and feared in her role as Queen of Shades, present at the final rite of passage, death.

We continue our coverage of the Domestic At-Home Non-Sporting Community Event today with the highly anticipated discipline of Clearing of Spaces to Mom-Standards.

Now, there's been much debate in the lead-up to this event, because standards do vary. As do Moms. Who are sometimes Dads. Or Auncles. Or older siblings. Or, if you're lucky, guardians of more or less magical inclination and talents. I digress. Terry, what's the score over there?

Well, Barry, the tension is palpable over here. We’ve all seen cleaned and cleared spaces, we’ve seen the old standards. Today, we're seeing much more versatility than in previous years: We're seeing bedroom floors. We're seeing IRL desktops and workspaces. And, of course, we're seeing a lot of digital desktops and workspaces.

Female youth is only prized in modern culture because it doesn’t represent as much of a threat spiritually to anyone who is frightened of divine feminine power.

As women grow and mature, they call in stronger forces of sacred feminine wisdom. They vibrate with the creative power of their stories.

They are more of a force to be reckoned with.

They see more, know more, feel more. They put up with a lot less bullshit.

When women are trained into thinking there is something fundamentally wrong with getting older, and are coerced into spending money, energy and power investing in ‘slowing the signs of ageing’, an enormous vault of divine love is lost.

Just think what would happen if all the women in the world started loving themselves even more with every year that passed.

Perhaps a total revolution would occur.

1. Fist: Make a fist around the epi-pen, don’t place your thumb/fingers over either end

2. Flick the blue cap off

3. Fire. Press down into the outer thigh (the big muscle in there), hold for 10 seconds before removing (the orange cap will cover the needle). Bare skin is best but the epi-pen will go through clothing. Avoid pockets and seams. 

It doesn’t hurt much at all to use this needle. The first time I used mine, I didn’t even feel it. But be sure to stab it IN THE OUTER THIGH. Do not stick it anywhere else or you could seriously hurt or kill someone. Just right to the outside of the thigh and then call the ambulance - even if your friend starts doing better, they could have a biphasic reaction, meaning a reaction that comes back (or they may need a second dose, be on the look out). If your friend has an epipen, then they have an epipen trainer that doesn’t have a needle and you can try it out just to be sure you know how to use the real thing if you have to. I’d also advise holding it a few more seconds then 10, maybe go for 14 just to be sure all the medicine is administered and that you didn’t count too fast - that’s what I did.

Here’s a graphic of where to stick it:

•Does the needle stick out automatically when you press it against the thigh, or how does that work?

- No, don’t need to press down anything after it’s in the thigh. When putting it in the thigh you will hear a click. Then you just need to hold the EpiPen in the thigh for 10 seconds.

- When the EpiPen is pressed against the thigh, and you heard a click, the needle has come out already. You don’t need to do anything else to make that happen. When taking it out, the orange end will come out automatically, covering the needle. (So you will never see a needle)

- I am not sure if there is a way to tell if it’s empty. I believe you are just supposed to hold it in the thigh for 10 seconds and then all the adrenaline should be injected. If you didn’t hear a click, the needle didn’t come out and you probably should press the EpiPen harder against the thigh.

My witch ass during October: