#tay's notes

"this herb is supports menstrual health!" Cool. what does it DO? Like physically, what? Be specific.

How do your bodily organs function? Could you identify the individual organs? Can you explain how they work? If that organ is ill or not functioning correctly, do you know exactly what's going wrong and what needs to happen to fix it?

What component of that plant is affecting the body and how? Does your body need extra support in that way? How do you know? What other effects can this plant have on other parts of the body? Will it have chemical responses to other medications, herbs, or foods you are putting in your body?

Some minerals can start sweating sulfuric acid in high humidity, did you know that? Other rocks and crystals can contain toxic elements and heavy metals like mercury that can poison you. Sometimes they will straightup just dissolve in water — that doesn't mean they disappear, that means the water is contaminated with whatever elements and chemicals were in that stone, and it is probably not safe to drink.

Look, I'm all for herbal medicine. Crystals and stones can have really interesting uses for magic. But you can't just start smoking random plants or throwing things in a tea based on correspondence lists, or you're going to poison yourself or your loved ones.

"The first draft is just you telling yourself the story." — Terry Pratchett

This was the first piece of writing advice that felt absolutely revolutionary to me on how I write. It's why this is my tag for first draft tips & encouragement.

I always really struggled with getting through a first draft. I'd come up with an idea, jot down some notes, write about three chapters and then get stuck. To this day, the first draft is always the hardest part to get through for me.

I know we hear the whole "the first draft doesn't have to be good" advice thrown around all the time, but I think a lot of people struggle to wrap their head around how to apply that, and this is where Pratchett's advice is so much more solid.

The first draft is just for you. No one else ever needs to look at it or even know it exists. It doesn't even need to have complete chapters or scenes or even sentences. Hell, I'm coming around to the idea that sometimes, the first draft doesn't even need to be much more than an outline. It's the underpainting, the pie crust, the foundation. Which brings me around to the second quote:

“I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” ― Shannon Hale

This sounds flowery and again, I think that can be hard to translate into actionable things. But it's similar to what Pratchett said. What they mean is, no writer just spits out golden perfect sentences from nowhere. Good writing doesn't exist in the void, and good writers aren't just plucking sentences out of the aether fully-formed.

You can't revise a blank page. Blank pages are scary, and you need to just start throwing words at them.

Ever seen Princess Diaries? Remember the painting scene, where they're throwing darts to burst paint-filled balloons? Pretty quick that canvas is covered in splashy, messy colors. That's your first draft.

Throw words at the page. Who is there? What are they doing? What are they thinking or talking about? Start with just the dialogue if you need to.

Don't think about making good sentences, just tell yourself what happens. Take the bullet points from your outline and slap them in there if you need to.

so that you can learn from my and others' misadventures

🔥DO NOT slather candles in oils — if you're anointing a candle, a single drop is plenty.

🔥DON'T cram candles full of flammable herbs. I almost set my altar on fire this way once, even when trying to be careful about it. The dried leaves I had crumbled up into the molten wax caught and suddenly I didn't just have a candle flame, I had a tiny fire on a plate!

🔥Keep candles clear of loose clothing, curtains, dishtowels, altarclothes, carpeting & rugs, bundles of dried herbs, besoms, etc. Anything that could catch should be at LEAST a few feet away, because...

🔥SPARKS CARRY. Candle wicks can and will produce tiny embers that pop and send hot debris through the air. They will go further than you think. The bigger the flame, the further they can go. This is why fireplaces are required to have hearths.

🔥DO NOT leave candles unattended ever. A small flame will become bigger very quickly if you are not there to handle it.

🔥IF A CANDLE IS LIT PAY ATTENTION TO HOW YOU ARE MOVING IT AROUND! (Once as a teen, I was holding a lit candle and, wondering if it had one of the metal wick-holder tabs, absentmindedly turned it over to look at the bottom. The flame thankfully went out, but I spilled molten wax all over my carpet. That was 20 years ago and there's still wax caked in there.)

🔥Keep pets away from candles! Their tails and fur and feathers will get too close, and they might not even notice at first if their fur is long because it's away from their skin. The smoke from burning herbs and stuff is often really bad for tiny lungs too, and can even be toxic depending on the herb!

🔥if you are burning anything you need a large, fire-safe surface to do it. I have found that metal or ceramic plates or ashtrays can work well for burning small things. A nonflammable tabletop or countertop (stone, tile, metal) is better. A real fireplace is best if you can.

🔥 Finally, HAVE A PLAN FOR WHAT TO DO IF A FIRE STARTS. Know your safe exit lines from the room and the building in case of a fire. HAVE FUNCTIONING SMOKE ALARMS. KEEP A FUNCTIONING FIRE EXTINGUISHER - THEY CAN EXPIRE. Learn basic fire safety.

Doorways, hallways. gates, and thresholds are liminal spaces - the momentary place in between one room and another, between the outside and inside of a building, the passage way across a border from one space to another.

When we go through a door, our brains sense this transition on a subconscious level. Simply moving into a room or building can help to signal to your mind and spirit that you are shifting tasks or modes. This can affect your mood and body rhythms, sometimes drastically. For example, coming home at the end of a long day, and feeling the relief the moment you set foot inside your home or room. Or heading to the kitchen or laundry and finding your focus for everyday chores settle in. Heading to work or school, and settling into work mode when you enter the building.

The transition through a doorway can even affect your memory. Ever walk into a room only to find you've forgotten why you went there in the first place, or what you were saying? If this happens, try going back to the room you were just in — passing back into the previous space can help you to recall what you were thinking about.

Try incorporating doorways into spellwork for transitions, to welcome in new energies or wishes, or to close the door on things that no longer serve you. This might involve performing a spell on a threshold, walking through a doorway, or physically opening or closing a door. Or it could mean paying a little magical attention to the door itself - adding sigils or bindrunes to the doorframe and trim can offer protection or set other intentions. Hanging bells from the doorknob, or wreaths, or other door decor, can offer other opportunities to incorporate specific intentions to your space.

Maybe you can even get creative with specific kinds of doorways - open doorways without doors, double doors, dutch doors, louvered doors, screen doors, closet doors, pocket doors, the list goes on. Each kind of door might serve a different purpose - to shield and protect, to keep private, to block access but not visibility, to allow entrance... it depends on the door. It depends on if you are entering or leaving. While a closed door might represent safety and defense, an open door can be an invitation, or a vulnerability. Maybe you use double doors to encourage a sense of openness and making space for big things coming. Maybe you use storm doors in a spell to shield against turmoil. Maybe you're using a thick solid door as part of protective magic.

the whole concept of a desire path is predicated on the premise that there are sanctioned, official means of doing something. That we are supposed to follow directions and do as we are told. Desire paths allegedly show that we will break those rules if they interfere with where we want to go. Humans will do what works best for us, for what we need and want.

But a desire path is just simply... a path. The same kind of paths that humans have carved out with just our footsteps all over the world since before paved roads were even a thing.

The first roads were just desire paths. The first paved roads were desire paths that we evened out and laid stone or wood to make them lessy muddy, easier to walk on, easier to follow. But they were all desire paths nonetheless.

Paths appear in our footsteps, marking out where we go. The planned and formalized path is the anomaly — not the track worn by many feet over time.

Arcata, CA, 2018. Photo copyright held by @illusionsgrimoire

Source: @illusionsgrimoire

The path before you is a climb, and sometimes you may need a hand up... but we can make it somewhere beautiful if we help each other.

It's funny, the whole point of such buildings is that the people who commissioned them wanted to evoke and emulate the past. History was glamorized. It started with the grand estates of the wealthy in Europe, some of whom would have real ancient ruins from the Roman era or pre-Roman empire, and others who didn't who wanted to give the impression of that sense of history.

And I think now, as with that photo set, some people will look at such follies, not knowing what it is, and get very excited at the thought of it being some grand place loaded with ancient historical significance. Which is precisely the purpose they were built for, tbh. As an art piece, such things are effective. But I think a lot of people, realizing that they are actually recent structures, it can seem like a cheat, or a scam. It loses value specifically for the same reason that it was created - this glamorization and romanticization of the past, but also this disillusion and dismissal of the relevance of recent history, of the here and now.

But I look at the Druid's Temple Folly, and I think, someone carved those stones and moved them and took them here and placed them, and it may not be as old, but... is that not what happened when Stonehenge and other standing stones were set?

Someone builds a castle. 800 years pass, and we call that history. Someone builds a castle today, and we call that artificial. And you can argue about purpose, but if the purpose of the building is to be an artpiece, to provide a work opportunity for someone to build it, to evoke a feeling, to make someone happy about how their home or garden looks... and it succeeds in that purpose, well then it has no less served its intended purpose than the real ancient structure was.

My point, I guess, is that purpose and meaning comes from us. It comes from our intention, our feelings, our belief. It comes from what emotions we instill in a piece of work, and what emotions it stirs in other people.

And I think there's a lot of disdain out there for mimicry, for emulation, because we have always and continue to highly glamorize and value the concept of originality as well as historicity. Novelty is considered a virtue, over resonance, and I think that's a mistake. We are social creatures. Tradition and custom and, yes, emulation of things we admire, comes because we are a social species. We are geared towards the sharing and trying to match each other and to help each other.

And so, because this is my blog for yakking about magic - this too is how I often think about magic and pagan practice today. Knowing our real history IS important, and respecting the culture and history of various practices and peoples IS important and necessary.

But I think sometimes people look at new practices and forming traditions with that same disdain, thinking that it is somehow artificial or lacking meaning, when really what's happening is we have sometimes only scraps of historicity that is highly prized, and we're trying to fill in the gaps with what makes sense and is meaningful to us. And I think that's okay. Stressing the importance of historical weight over everything else both creates the desire to reconstruct or emulate previous culture but condemns it as a poor imitation. Modern-made traditions, meanwhile are denigrated for not having historic weight behind them.

But again, historicity is not what instills significance, be it in a practice or a building or a piece of art. We are. People are. What we believe in, what we do with it, what meaning and impact we try to create and convey to others. Historic buildings and practices matter because we try to retain the memory of people long gone, because that's what humans are. We are love and memory and meaning. But we, the living, are also worthy of that love and respect. It's why being respectful of living cultures and people is paramount, why we owe it to ourselves and each other to educate ourselves on history - not just for the sake of history itself, but out of respect for where we are today and what struggles people face, and to create a better future for everyone.

One day, we too will be ancient history. Do you think people then will look at us as charlatans, as artificial, because we were making things and instilling beliefs in those things?