Welcome to my Den

alright, so this is something i’ve struggled with myself for years before finally finding a method that worked for me. and since this post is mainly aimed at my fellow ADHD peeps, i’m not gonna drone on for too long because i hate walls of text just as much as you, so let’s get right to it

here’s tips based on how i, after 5 years of meditative failure, finally reached the astral with my ADHD brain:

put on some wordless music, on headphones if you can. it doesn’t have to be special meditation music, anything you can loop seamlessly works. this will help to narrow your focus even just a little bit. (although, it works best if it’s not music you really love, bc then you might focus on that instead)

don’t try to quiet your mind. don’t try to think of nothing. don’t aim for the silence. it doesn’t work for us, and it’s not even the correct way of meditation but that’s another post entirely.

don’t stress over trying to imagine yourself going “down”, or floating, or whatever else guided meditations and astralling help posts might say. or i mean, do, but if you’re reading this post i assume that didn’t work for you already. it didn’t work for me. it never has.

now here’s the hot tip: actively think about the astral. let yourself have these thoughts. be excited. steer your excitement for reaching the astral and all the things you will do once you get there.

it’s fine. think about it! see it!! my personal stream of consciousness tends to be “omg the astral yass let’s do it let’s dive for it boys im READY here it comesss woot woot beep beep ASTRAL TIMEEEE” and the like. just keep that shit going for as long as you can.

the essence of this method is consciously hyperfocusing on the astral, until you basically eject yourself into it.

that’s it. that’s the post. you can stop reading here if you want.

believe it or not, for us with easily distractible restless ADHD brains, an active stream of consciousness is how we can find focus. it’s how we can “dive deep”. i don’t even worry about my breathing either bc i get excited super easily and my heart’s always going a million miles a minute, ESPECIALLY when i’m in the astral bc that shit is just exciting, period.

for me, the first time i tried this, i suddenly saw a key. i didn’t think of it, it just appeared, floating before me. i imagined myself picking it up and it… didn’t work. suddenly just imagining things wasn’t enough. i had to put conscious effort into reaching for it before i felt that i had it in my hands (and yes, the entire time my brain was going “oh shit, we pickin up the key oh damnn oh it’s in me hands now oh heck!!!” lmao).

once i did, just as before, completely unprompted, a door appeared before me, and boy oh boy did i fucking lunge for that shit, breathing totally out of whack, heart pounding, my mind screaming in excitement, but did i do it? did i get to the astral, finally, after so many years of thinking it was unreachable for me?

yeah, i fucking did. and you can as well. hyperfocus on it, let your wandering brain do all the wandering it wants, ENCOURAGE it to do so.

A selection of bird feather closeups. From left to right:

This Cat

“I FOUND A SPECIAL CATTO TODAY AND HER NAME WAS TIMINE (PRONOUNCED TEE-MEE-NE)”

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But still interested in feeding yourself? What if I told you that there’s a woman with a blog who had to feed both herself and her young son…on 10 British pounds ($15/14 Euro) per week?

Let me tell you a thing.

This woman saved my life last year. Actually saved my life. I had a piggy bank full of change and that’s it. Many people in my fandom might remember that dark time as when I had to hock my writing skills in exchange for donations. I cried a lot then. 

This is real talk, people: I marked down exactly what I needed to buy, totaled it, counted out that exact change, and then went to three different stores to buy what I needed so I didn’t have to dump a load of change on just one person. I was already embarrassed, but to feel people staring? Utter shame suffused me. The reasons behind that are another post all together. 

AgirlcalledJack.com is run by a British woman who was on benefits for years. Things got desperate. She had to find a way to feed herself and her son using just the basics that could be found at the supermarket. But the recipes she came up with are amazing. 

You have to consider the differing costs of things between countries, but if you just have three ingredients in your cupboard, this woman will tell you what to do with it. Check what you already have. Chances are you have the basics of a filling meal already. 

Here’s her list of kitchen basics. 

Bake your own bread. It’s easier than you think. Here’s a list of many recipes, each using some variation of just plain flour, yeast, some oil, maybe water or lemon juice. And kneading bread is therapeutic. 

Make your own pasta–gluten free. 

She gets it. She really does. This is the article that started it all. It’s called “Hunger Hurts”.

She has vegan recipes.

A carrot, a can of kidney beans, and some cumin will get you a really filling soup…or throw in some flour for binding and you’ve got yourself a burger. 

Don’t have an oven or the stove isn’t available? She covers that in her Microwave Cooking section. 

She has a book, but many recipes can be found on her blog for free. She prices her recipes down to the cent, and every year she participates in a project called “Living Below the Line” where she has to live on 1 BP per day of food for five days. 

Things improved for me a little, but her website is my go to. I learned how to bake bread (using my crockpot, but that was my own twist), and I have a little cart full of things that saved me back then, just in case I need them again. She gives you the tools to feed yourself, for very little money, and that’s a fabulous feeling. 

Tip: Whenever you have a little extra money, buy a 10 dollar/pound/euro giftcard from your discount grocer. Stash it. That’s your super emergency money. Make sure they don’t charge by the month for lack of use, though.

I don’t care if it sounds like an advertisement–you won’t be buying anything from the site. What I DO care about is your mental, emotional, and physical health–and dammit, food’s right in the center of that. 

highlight quotes;

“… she returned to eating meat after learning that the soybean and corn monocultures that accounted for much of her vegan diet were wreaking havoc on the environment.“

“When we first opened, people were surprised at the prices,” he said. “But our costs are much higher than what a giant company pays. We are paying to have control over the quality of our animals, what they are being fed, how they are being treated, transported, slaughtered and cut up. Once people understood that, the business took off.”

“As soon as I started eating meat, my health improved,” she said. “My mental acuity stepped up, I lost weight, my acne cleared up, my hair got better. I felt like a fog lifted.”

“You can’t be healthy unless the animals you eat are healthy,”

Instead of trying to poise this as “haha vegans look even y’all can’t do it” express it for what it truly is.

Fixing it means not fighting about who’s identity is better, but fighting against the business practices that allow companies to torture animals and produce unethically grown and unsustainably harvested foods.

And as a reminder of the past, the US meat packing industry and food production industry have often tried to cut corners and serve filth in order to make a profit. That changed after the release of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle, which portrayed the conditions in the Chicago meat packing industry in such stark relief that it lead directly to the creation of the FDA and the wide scale adoption of food safety regulations.

So much this. This is why I post so much about food. We’re so dependent on a massively destructive and wasteful food production system, no matter our dietary choices or needs. Our very lives are tangled up with food miles, monoculture, deforestation, food waste, pesticides, exploitation, slavery, and the reality is not everyone has a choice of what to eat or where to shop, and frankly most people don’t have the option not to participate. Any amount of food that you can produce for yourself is a piece of your own liberation.

Any amount.

Dissolution of unions and rise of gig economy means working class people don’t take regular holidays and vacations anymore they just work continuously until they have a nervous breakdown or have random short term gigs interspersed with random intervals of under/un-employment.

And these are just two ways in which late stage capitalism is eroding our sense of time.

Buzzfeed did an article on the effect of non-linear social media on our sense of time: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katherinemiller/the-2010s-have-broken-our-sense-of-time

And what many people don’t realize is that this subculture was born as a way for young girls to express themselves in their own way. And it was also used as something against the adult life and the traditional culture, often seen as dull and boring and oppressive. By embracing cuteness, these young girls (and adult women, after a while) were showing non-conformation with the current standards.

NO OK THIS IS SO IMPORTANT!

This is also how the kawaii fashions started! Girls began dressing in cute and off beat styles for themsleves, they were criticized by adult figures telling them “you’ll never find a husband if you dress that way!” to which they began to reply “Good!”

All the japanese subcultures and fashions that evolved out of this became a rebellion to tradition and the starch gender roles and expectations the adults were forcing on the younger generations. As early as the 70s and still to this day you’ll see an emphasis on child-like fashion and themes in more kawaii styles and the dismissal of the male gaze with styles like lolita (a lot of western people assume lolita is somehow sexual due to the name of the fashion, but ask any japanese lolita and they will tell you that men hate the style and find it unattractive which is sometimes a large reason they gravitate towards the style - they can express their femininity and individuality while remaining independent and without the pressure to appeal to men)

Tara Jane Art on Instagram