Ambiance o' Forests

You've come to the right place sweetness. For clarity's sake I want to specify that I am not a professional. This is simply what I did to make the incense that I use. Always research your herbs and herbal mixtures, be aware of your allergies, and remember to use herbs from high quality sources to protect your health. And remember, the best witchcraft is safely practiced witchcraft.

What you'll need: Herb of choice (no correlations listed here, otherwise we will be here all night)

Coffee grinder (or a mortar and pestel, but baby we are in the 21st century work smarter not harder)

Tap water (charge it if you want for extra pizzazz)

Optional: oven, preheat to 190 degrees Fahrenheit

Step one: grind up your herbs in the coffee grinder, the finer the better. My herb was food grade lavender.

Step two: Divide the ground herb into two separate bowls, a wet bowl and a dry bowl. Into the wet bowl, mix into the herb with some water so the consistency is a modable clay. Sacred water is great for this.

Step three: Form the clay into a cone shape in any way that makes the most sense for your body. For me, that involves using my thumbs and middle fingers, but whatever way works best.

Roll the wet cone into the dry bowl, coating the cone in a layer of powdered lavender.

You can either leave the cone to dry over night, alternatively---

Place in oven for 40 minutes to an hour to dehydrate the cones!

Ta-da! I hope these directions inspire you to give this a shot yourself. I know I had a lot of fun making this lavendar incense, and I know I'm excited to make more in the future. Don't stop creating lovelies.

I felt the need to share here as well—

Say no to AI art. Please read before commenting. Fan art is cute, putting my art into a parasite machine, without my consent, and throwing up horrifying monsters back at me is not.

We are not fighting technology in this AI fight. We are fighting for ethics. How do I say this clearer? Our stuff gets stolen all the time, we get it, but it is not an excuse to normalize the current conditions of AI art.

These datasets have >>EXACT<< copies of artists’ works and these parasites just profit off the work of others with zero repercussion. No one cares how “careful” you are with your text prompts when the data can still output blatant copies of artists’ work without their permission. And people will do this unknowingly since these programs are so highly accessible now. There are even independent datasets that take from just a handful of artists, that don’t share what artists’ works they use, and create blatant copies of existing work. There’s even private medical records being leaked. Why do you think music is still hard to just fully recreate with AI in comparison? It’s because organizations like the RIAA protect music artists. Visual artists just want similar protection. So, wonderfully for us, Concept Art Association has started working towards the steps of protecting artists and making this an ethical practice. I highly suggest if you care about art, please support. Link to their gofundme here. One small step at a time will make living as an artist today less jarring. Artists will not just sit and cope while we continue to get walked on. For those who apparently do not get it, it is about CONSENT. Again, the datasets contain EXACT copies of artist work without our permission. Even if you use it “correctly” there’s still a chance it’s going to create blatant rip offs. This fight is about not letting these techbros take and take and take for profit just because they can while ignoring the possible harm and consequences of it. This is just ol’ fashioned imperialist behavior with a new hat and WE SEE IT. Thanks for reading!!! Much love!

…

Little Owl and Scops Owl. Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935)

Oh, good you’re here. I’m sorry, the title is a bit misleading. 

See, what I want to talk about is how delineating romantic godspouse versus platonic godspouse is not only unhelpful but actively confusing and borderline harmful. 

Lets talk about it. 

If you take the most traditional definition of godspousing, it’s the marriage of a god and a human. You become the spouse of a god. Becoming a spouse of anyone requires intimacy, and usually that kind of relationship goes hand-in-hand with romance and/or s*x. 

Therefore godspouse as a word, and the derivative terms – godspousing, godspousery, and my beloathed godspousal – all inherently imply romance or s*xual intent, or at the very least intimacy. 

If you take a broader, more modern concept of godspousing (one that I embrace), is that godspousing is an intimate (romantic or s*xual) relationship with a non-corporeal being, such as a god, spirit, fae, angel, demon, hero, etc. 

Intimacy is inherent to godspousing, regardless of traditional versus modern definitions of the practice. 

Therefore romantic godspouse is redundant. Just say godspouse. Or godpartner. You don’t have to be married to date and be romantic or have some fun. 

Now, what if your relationship isn’t intimate in those ways? What if it is, in fact, platonic? 

Okay, platonic godspouse still isn’t the right term for you to use. It’s still implying the -spouse part of godspouse, which is that intimacy of romance or s*x. And no one wants that when platonic godspouse is most popularly assigned to being family or besties with a god.

Godfamily is a community-built term that explains that you’re family to a god! It parallels godspouse in the god + [TERM]. You can also substitute spirit + [TERM] if you’re not in a relationship with a god. There’s a lot of wiggle room here! 

If you’re not family but you’re really close, like you’d live together forever just not marry or be intimate with your godly friend if they were on the same plane as you, congrats! You’re describing a Queer Platonic Relationship or Queer Platonic Partnership. (That’s QPR or QPP, for short.) It’s an intimate relationship that isn’t romantic or s*xual.