death-witch-envy:

lunaesteria:

lunaesteria:

There’s been an uproar about this new product that Sephora will begin selling come October – a “starter witch kit” that includes perfume, a tarot deck, a sage stick, and a piece of tumbled rose quartz. 

I’ve been going through the hundreds of comments about this product and I feel the need to address the product, and these comments, myself. 

My two cents on some of the most common complaints and comments about this product:

• Don’t give Sephora any money, support small business owners!
• The folks shopping at Sephora who happen to stumble upon this and choose to buy it likely aren’t serious practitioners who care about buying legitimate products from brick and mortar shops.
• Sage is endangered!
• Sacred to some cultures? Yes. Protected in some areas? Yes. Overharvested? Yes. Actually endangered and on the endangered species list? No. 
• $42 for some crappy deck, sage, and quartz?! That’s a rip off.
• All of my tarot decks have been over $40, so that’s not too unrealistic. What you’re really paying for here is a box of travel sized perfumes, not the other stuff that comes with it. On Pinrose’s website, most of their full sized bottles of perfume are $42 and up, so a package of 9 travel sized perfumes plus some extra “goodies” for the same price isn’t that bad of a deal.
• Products like this make witchcraft look like a gimmick/fad.
• Sephora is not the first store to sell something like this. Spencer’s does it. Hot Topic does it. Zumiez does it. Nordstrom sells a ton of these types of products, from crystals to “smudge kits.” Dior came out with a “Tarot” collection. And, there’s probably a ton more that I’m not even aware of. The packaging and marketing for this kit is aesthetically pleasing and I am damn sure it will sell, and honestly that’s all they’re worried about. As a business, it makes sense to provide something that will sell and make a profit. 
• Stop to think about why a company like Pinrose would think that a “starter witch kit” would sell in a cosmetics store – hint, it’s because of the modern witchcraft movement, and not in a good way. The idea that you can do the bare minimum with some sage and rose quartz and call it “witchcraft” spawned the creation of this product. The aesthetics of being a witch in this day and age have trumped the actual practice of witchcraft. Pinrose picked up on this little tidbit, and now they’ll be able to make a profit off of it.
• Alternately, products like this will make witchcraft more accepted.
• Maybe, but probably not. We have to consider why one would think this product would make the idea of witchcraft and paganism more acceptable: maybe because you got it at a large chain store in the mall, maybe because the packaging has a bubbly appeal to it, maybe because it doesn’t look inherently “dangerous.” 
• So, who does this kit appeal to? It’s labeled as a “starter kit” which leads me to believe it caters to a younger inexperienced crowd, or maybe even an adult who has yet to discover the wonderful world of witchcraft.
• Alright, so a kid comes home with a box that says “starter witch kit” on it. Even in this day and age, most religious parents would flip shit. “But mom, I got it from Sephora!” Well, now they’ve got a reason to never let their kid go to Sephora again. In due time, we will see an influx of parents protesting against Sephora selling “satanic, demonic paraphernalia.” Just watch.
• Products like this will make witchcraft supplies more accessible.
• Not really. This is a poor excuse for a “starter kit” to begin with. Like I mentioned before, it takes a lot more than a tarot deck, a sage stick, and one crystal to sufficiently and effectively practice witchcraft. Even those who practice on the minimalistic side know that these items are not enough to “make magick go.” All the intent in the world won’t help you when you are limited to working with 3 items and some perfume. Even if someone purchases this with the intention of using it as what it’s labeled as, a “witch starter kit,” they will inevitably realize that they can only do so much with the items they’ve been given to work with. More on this in the next section. 

My complaints about the product itself: 

• Any actual witch knows that this “starter” kit isn’t really a starter kit at all. What the hell are you going to do with one crystal, a sage bundle, and a deck of cards? Realistically, nothing fruitful. You may be able to learn to read tarot, maybe use the sage stick to cleanse your deck and the one little crystal it comes with. Not to mention, there’s no variety to this kit – you get one crystal whose uses are limited. What if you think sage smells like trash? What if you crack open the tarot deck and realize the artwork is shoddy or you don’t vibe with it at all? Aside from that, this is a really poor representation of witchcraft as a whole, but we knew that. As an unreleased product, I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but I highly doubt it comes with any sort of instruction for how to use these items (I guess that’s what the internet is for). Again, it’s a pack of perfume with some other knicknacks to make it look aesthetically pleasing to the potential buyer.
• The deck – where does it come from? Who designed it? Are they being properly credited for it? Or, maybe it was created on the fly by someone who works for Pinrose. We won’t know until it is released. (Edit: it seems as though this deck is a direct copy of The Old Memories Tarot – whether or not they got permission to use and reprint it? Only time will tell.) 
• Also, it looks like they’ve used Prince’s trademarked “love symbol” on the front of the deck. Hmm….Let’s hope they didn’t straight up infringe upon this symbol and took the necessary and legal steps to use it.
• The sage – probably mass produced, probably unethically harvested. At least it’s labeled as “cleansing sage” on the package and not “for smudging” or something similar.
• The rose quartz – again, probably doesn’t come from the most ethical source, and for all we know, it’s a piece of pink, polished glass (although, on the surface, it does look like a real piece of rose quartz).

Pinrose, as a company: 

• Their packaging is very aesthetically pleasing. I am a sucker for holography and iridescence like many others, and they’ve got that covered pretty well. 
• Their products are cruelty free and hypoallergenic, supposedly, so there’s that I guess.
• Pricing? Meh. I’ve seen more expensive perfumes. 

Sephora, as a company:

• Their house brand tests on animals. 
• Poor customer service from the few times I’ve been there.

Final words: 

• Ultimately, if you’re a legitimate magickal practitioner or witch, you know this “starter witch kit” is BS. 
• If you have the opportunity, of course you should buy your supplies from people who know what they’re doing, and aren’t just putting out a product to make a sale. 
• Don’t have any legit shops near you? The internet is a viable place to buy supplies, too. 
• As a newcomer to witchcraft, realize that this product is not going to help you advance your craft in any way. 
• If you agree that this product makes for a lousy “witch kit” but still want to buy it because it’s cute or you want the perfumes? Go for it. Personally, I would suggest buying straight from Pinrose and not Sephora because Sephora sucks.

Take what you will from this post, but I think I will be purchasing this “starter witch kit” to give a wholehearted review when it comes out this October. 

edited to add some info about the deck

For those who have been asking my opinions on this, this pretty much sums it up.

kitchenwitchupinthisbitch:

mrs-k-cottage-witch:

ergiinmiddleearth:

So, since corporate interests are still and maybe more so now are trying to sell an aesthetic to baby witches and the lie that (beginning) witchcraft supplies need to be specialised.  Participation is simple.

#myfirstwitchkitwas

All you do is list what your first supplies were. Even if they were “basic” household ones. And you don’t have to list everything you used. I know my memory is like a sieve XD. 

✉You can reply in reblogs or replies. Or if you to make your own post; link back to this one or @ me. I’m interested in people’s stories.

I’ll begin:

My first witchkit was…

🌟A deck of playing cards with Joe Camel on them.

🌟Library books/card.

🌟Sketchbook.

🌟Birthday candles.

🌟Gifts from my first Kindred.

🌟Spices from the kitchen.

🌟Pocket knife.

🌟Matches/lighter.

🌟A Bible.

🌟Some rocks I thought were pretty.

🌟Eye liner.

🌟Sidewalk chalk.

Am I throwing a little shade at current trending witch kits and other products that came before it?

Maybe a little.

But beginners shouldn’t be led to waste money by the uninformed/scam artists, and colonial/expoitative bullshit does not a solid practice foundation make. If you need help getting started, my inbox and many others’ is open. 💖

#myfirstwitchkit was –

✨dollar tree candles

✨ dollar tree candle holders

✨ dollar tree mirrored candle holder painted with symbols of my craft

✨ the same as above, I painted a triskele on a glass candle holder

✨ spices from my cupboard

✨ my altar cloth was a placemat from the dollar tree

✨ my athame (which I don’t use anymore) was a pairing knife from dollar tree

✨ my pentacle or pentagram was a star tea light holder from (you guessed it) the dollar tree

✨ my altar décor was from good will and the dollar tree, as well as homemade art and homemade signs

✨ I used a sewing kit and ribbons from the dollar tree as part of my first witch kit

✨a tarot deck and incense holder my hubby got for a dollar from a yard sale

✨matches from the dollar tree

Basically I was a “witchcraft on a budget” dollar tree queen! And I would recommend the book “Witchcraft on a Shoestring” for any other starting and thrifty witches out there!

My first witch kit was…

• Some left over fresh herbs from a family dinner I cooked
• A tarot deck I found
• Many coloured candles
• Sage bundles
• Cedar branches
• Lots of salt
• So many books borrowed from the library
• An empty journal
• Incense my roommate left me
• Chalk
• Candle stick holders from the 2nd hand store
• A plate I decorated with a hexafoil

Most of this stuff I already had on hand or was in my back yard. I just happened to be cleaning and found the vintage tarot deck which was actually for playing the game but still usable for divination and suddenly I was a witch again. I’ve been practicing off and on since I was a child and recently got back into it when I found the old mysterious deck.

My first witchkit was:

• A used tarot deck
• Bottles of herbs I already had
• Box of Lipton black tea
• Miniture mortar and pestle from amazon
• 3 red dinner candles from the dollar store
• Cheap glass candle holder
• Black spiral notebook
• Bag of dyed quartz
• 1 piece of raw rose quarts
• Bag of sea salt from the grocery store

themanicnami:

I love guests who get mad at me when the printer jams so its going to take 4 extra minutes for me to unjam it before i can give them their receipt. I am so sorry ma’am that I am not a magical being who can wave my hand and fix the printer. I can happily email the receipt to you right now and you can be on your way but it will take a moment for me to get things printing again.

She then proceeded to get mad at me for not knowing her shipping number for something she shipped through our hotel. I am not the shipping department. i can offer you their direct phoneline but I cannot tell you information about shipping. That isn’t part of my job.

I love guests who get mad at me when the printer jams so its going to take 4 extra minutes for me to unjam it before i can give them their receipt. I am so sorry ma’am that I am not a magical being who can wave my hand and fix the printer. I can happily email the receipt to you right now and you can be on your way but it will take a moment for me to get things printing again.

Yeah you can interact with deities usually through prayer, meditation, pendulum or sometimes tarot. The method is up to you

Well I don’t personally know any spells like that other than my couple bonding spells though to not be too nsfw you could always ask her what her kinks are, see if she likes/is interested in oral and there are tons of websites made by women about how to give others advice on how to give good sex and oral sex to their girlfriends and wives.

cosmic-supplies:

If you see someone selling off a mineral under the trade name Chrysotile,Crocidolite, Tremolite, Actinolite, Anthophyllite, Amosite  or quartz with asbestos inclusion please don’t risk your health by buying it. It doesn’t matter what the company may claim, all forms of asbestos are equally harmful and can cause lung cancer. 

Lately I have seen asbestos under this trade name, tigerseye crocidolite is an exception to this as the fibers have been replaced by iron oxides. Tremolite in its fibrous form is literally asbestos so please be aware when buying. 

Well I have seen people all over this site giving out different information, some I agree with some I do not.

My personal opinions are:

-do your research, look into the deity, their lore, their legends, their history, modern and historical worship, etc. If they are from a semi-closed culture make sure you go through the right paths to properly be cosnidered apart of it, completely closed culture I would say isn’t something you should try to impede on

-You can worship several deities or one and they don’t have to be from the same culture, pantheon etc. I know some on here are sticklers about how you can “only worship one pantheon” but I don’t, and I haven’t had any issues.

-You don’t have to dedicate every part of your soul to deity work, yes you need to show them respect and not just ignore them, but you don’t have to spend every second of every day hailing to them (think over-religious christians or catholics who just can’t stop with it)

-You do not need to “swear” yourself to a deity, in fact I believe that unless you do believe that you are going to go full priesthood for them it is something that should be avoided

-Remember that historically, many of those who worshipped numerous deities would change about from time to time. A family may have had one or two ones that they ‘mained’ but often still honored the others during certain times of years or when certain parts of life came up. Its okay to do that. Switching (respectively) between deities or working with more than one isn’t a ‘shame of a thing’ to do.

I do not use many books personally since many of the ones I found tend to mix up Wicca and Witchcraft as the ‘same thing’ or tend to just have invalid information. What I do recommend as I have done before is

The Book of Stones: Who They Are and What They Teach

The New Encyclopedia of Herbs and Their Uses

Language of Flowers

Folklore and Symbolism of Plants, Flowers and Trees

those are the ones I use. I would say check out other books if they hold your interest just take them all with a grain salt so to say

Likely if you feel it is a trickster messing you then it very well could be. sometimes they just like bugging you or just making it difficult for you even if they aren’t be sneaky about it. try doing a cleansing on the cards and a good banishing, give it a day and try again

Well the Star does usually represent confusion, misunderstanding, lack of communication, fears and worries. So what this tells me (with the very little context in the matter I have) that you should make sure to keep communication strong because the chance of misunderstanding between you two is high.

Hahaha yeah I was told that before haha ironically its an old semi-self portrait and half character from the old rpg group I was part of her. Facially she’s based off of me and body wise, but hair wise I went wild with it!

And awwww thank you 🙂

I do not, personally I don’t use flying ointment Maybe one of my followers have some suggestions?

The fact they have started to appear and started pushing things out of it like all you have to do now is google “Idaho Sinkhole” and girl, the stories that come up.

Cult’s Road is an old winding road or rather the nickname for it not far from the old Silver City where a lot of people find popular camping at. We have driven it a few times ourselves but Cult’s Road at least to a few locals is called that because of the unusual sight of randomly seeing a bunch of people dressed in while walking down it. I’m sure as an Idahoan you know about how many cults we have, well apparently they are believed to be members of one of the cults. Though sometimes they will take up the entire road and won’t let cars pass, usually at night. From what I heard there’s been cases of them trying to approach cars in the dead of night after stopping them and that just makes me want to ‘nope.’

Hahahaha right I could use some spare cash. Until payday tomorrow I’m not sitting too fantastically. But lets hope the check is big with all that overtime. But I am all for getting some good fast to-go food with this ten 😀

Yay! Good luck dear! But make sure you give yourself breaks, keep yourself hydrated and take a good rest afterwards. A lot of first timers get headaches after their first few readings, its completely normal! 

IM me if you need any assistance. Have fun!

Goodness so damn many to be honest. Though some of my personal favorites (even if a lot of them aren’t very popular while some are) would be:

• Jersey Devil Lore
• The Goatman/boy
• Skinwalkers (from my great grandmother)
• The Whale Fish (old family legend turned into a lullaby unique to my family)
• Story of the Angel (again family story passed down)
• The Swamp Hands
• Feet on the Shore (local thing that is still going on)
• Sinkholes (so many legends in Idaho about them)
• Mothman
• Who Put Bella Down the Witch Elm? (though not local)
• Cult’s Road (Idaho legend)

A guest who checked out dropped a twenty outside and we’ve waited 2 days and no one’s come back for it so my MOD just split it into two tens and gave it to me and my coworker. 

I got dinner money for a treat tonight 🙂

themanicnami:

That’s right all my wonderful followers, its time for some witchy asks! Send me your questions, your ideas, your thoughts and anything else that you may need some advice, guidance (within reason), knowledge and opinion on. I am having a rather slow day at work and I would love to get some asks again! I do miss getting them regularly.

I am also considering doing some spell requests (or rather inspiration for spells) if I have some time later this week but that is still up for personal debate.

But please send me some asks I love helping new and experienced witches or just giving my opinion on things! I miss socializing with all of you! I’ve been so busy!

Another day of slowness!!! Send me some more~~~

purgethebots:

September 4, 2018

Dear Tumblr, this is a special operation. We are going to purge the porn bots that follow us. 

Porn bots often have real looking usernames. The reason for this is because those usernames once belonged to real users. Bots hijack usernames as soon as it becomes available (Usernames become available if you change your username or delete your blog). They do this because the username (domain name) has more ‘authority’ than a complete new username. Porn bots rank higher in Google and other search engines because of this higher authority. It also makes them look more real.

But don’t be deceived. Let’s purge those bots! 

How to tell if a blog is a bot:

First go see who follows you on Tumblr. 

A blog is a porn bot when:

• their profile picture is ‘sexy’ (and sometimes their username and description are the same)
• They have links on their blog (if they follow you and have links: 10000% bot)

*Do not report empty blogs. There is nothing to report them for and chances are they are normal users that don’t use Tumblr after they created an account. 

How to purge a porn bot

Desktop

• Go to their blog
• Click on the pawn/human icon
• Click ‘Report’ –> ‘Report spam’ (do not report for sensitive content; porn is allowed on Tumblr)
• Click ‘Flag & Block’

Mobile App

• Go to their blog
• Tap the pawn/human icon
• Tap ‘report‘
• ‘Report spam‘

Please, report all the porn bots that follow you. Please reblog this post a few times until September 10! We need to act quickly, because chances are, bot owners will stumble upon this post and then start to mass unfollow or mass delete all the posts on their blog so we can’t identify them, only to start again when the coast is clear. Going through your followers and reporting the bots only takes five minutes and it’s going to have such a positive impact on the community. Your help is greatly appreciated! Let us all UNITE. 

LET THE PURGE COMMENCE!

qxessence:

meilintheempressofdreams:

Reblog for unexpected $$$ dropping into your Bank account.

*IS OPEN ON ALL LEVELS*

enn-is-for-nak:

me: that’s it, today’s the day i finally sit down and draw. just gonna be a big ass lasagna of doodles and art, really gonna muscle a whole fuckin salad of sketches

me:

themori-witch:

It’s been quite a while since my last original post, and I profusely apologise for my absence.

What is liminality?

The word “liminal’ comes from a Latin word “līmen”, meaning “a threshold” and its Oxford Dictionary definition is:

1. Relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
2. Occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

[Source]

That is a brief etymological explanation of liminal/liminality, but,… what is it? What is it in relation to witches and witchcraft?

Keep reading

livebloggingmydescentintomadness:

(the series)

cityloving:

Pretty please 🙂 

winneganfake:

defilerwyrm:

sonneillonv:

imawriterhelp:

boogiewoogiebuglegal:

sweethoneysempai:

heywriters:

moonyinthesky:

thebibliosphere:

gallusrostromegalus:

jhaernyl:

ceruleancynic:

jumpingjacktrash:

kaasknot:

scottislate:

darkbookworm13:

sasstricbypass:

chromolume:

it’s all you americans talk about… liminal space this… cryptid that

america is big, we got.,.,.,. its a lot happening here

It’s at least 3,000 miles just from the East Coast to the West, depending on where you start.

If I try to drive from here in Maine to New Mexico, it’s 2,400 miles. 

From here to Oregon, 800 miles from my current residence to my relatives in NJ, then another 3,000 miles after that. 

A brisk 8 day drive that meanders through mountains, forests, corn fields, dry, flat, empty plains, more mountains, and then a temperate rain forest in Oregon.

The land has some seriously creepy stuff, even just right outside our doors. 

There is often barking sounds on the other side of our back door. 

At 3 am. 

When no one would let their dog out. 

It’s a consensus not to even look out the fucking windows at night. 

Especially during the winter months. 

Nothing chills your heart faster than sitting in front of a window and hearing footsteps breaking through the snow behind you, only to look and not see anything. 

I live in a tiny town whose distance from larger cities ranges from 30 miles, to 70 miles. What is in between?

Giant stretches of forests, swamps, pockets of civilization, more trees, farms, wildlife, and winding roads. All of which gives the feeling of nature merely tolerating humans, and that we are one frost heave away from our houses being destroyed, one stretch of undergrowth away from our roads being pulled back into the earth.

And almost every night, we have to convince ourselves that the popping, echoing gunshot sounds are really fireworks, because we have no idea what they might be shooting at.

There’s a reason Stephen King sets almost all his stories in Maine.

New Mexico, stuck under Colorado, next to Texas, and uncomfortably close to Arizona. I grew up there. The air is so dry your skin splits and doesn’t bleed. Coyotes sing at night. It starts off in the distance, but the response comes from all around. The sky, my gods, the sky. In the day it is vast and unfeeling. At night the stars show how little you truly are.

This is the gentle stuff. I’m not going to talk about the whispered tales from those that live on, or close, to the reservations. I’m not going to go on about the years of drought, or how the ground gives way once the rain falls. The frost in the winter stays in the shadows, you can see the line where the sun stops. It will stay there until spring. People don’t tell you about the elevation, or how thin the air truly is. The stretches of empty road with only husks of houses to dot the side of the horizon. There’s no one around for miles except those three houses. How do they live out here? The closest town is half an hour away and it’s just a gas station with a laundry attached.  

No one wants to be there. They’re just stuck. It has a talent for pulling people back to it. I’ve been across the country for years, but part of me is still there. The few that do get out don’t return. A visit to family turns into an extended stay. Car troubles, a missed flight, and then suddenly there’s a health scare. Can’t leave Aunt/Uncle/Grandparent alone in their time of need. It’s got you.

Roswell is a joke. A failed National Inquirer article slapped with bumperstickers and half-assed tourist junk. The places that really run that chill down the spine are in the spaces between the sprawling mesas and hidden arroyos. Stand at the top of the Carlsbad Caverns trail. Look a mile down into the darkness. Don’t step off the path. just don’t.

The Land of Entrapment

here in minnesota we’re making jokes about how bad is the limescale in your sink

pretending we don’t know we’re sitting on top of limestone caverns filled with icy water

pretending we don’t suspect something lives down there

dammit jesse now I want to read about the things that live down there

meanwhile in maryland the summer is killing-hot, the air made of wet flannel, white heat-haze glazing the horizon, and the endless cicadas shrilling in every single tree sound like a vast engine revving and falling off, revving and falling off, slow and repeated, and everything is so green, lush poison-green, and you could swear you can hear the things growing, hear the fibrous creak and swell of tendrils flexing

and sometimes in the old places, the oldest places, where the salt-odor of woodsmoke and tobacco never quite go away, there is unexplained music in the night, and you should not try to find out where it’s coming from.  

@gallusrostromegalus

The intense and permanent haunting of a land upon which countess horrors have been visited, and that is too large and wild for us to really comprehend is probably the most intense and universal American feeling.

here in minnesota

We’re fucking what now

colorado is a strange sort of place, a passing-through kind of place, a place that holds just as many people who stay as leave. the highways stretch like ley-lines or the lines of old palms; 25 north and south, 70 east and west, 76 and 470 and 285 curling all around and tangling in the middle like loose thread

the mountains are their own place, the plains their own, too, with the hogback and the foothills in between like a strangely-comforting barrier, “this far, and that’s enough. this far, and you’re still close to home. this far, and no further.” the people in the mountains rarely make the plains; the people in the plains rarely make the hills, and the people in the middle rarely leave the developments which spread outward every year like creeping moss.

Summertime in California, when it’s 110 and you wake up in a sweat at 7am and can’t fall back asleep regardless of how much sleep you actually got. You open a door or a window and smell smoke. The air is hazy, the sky is orange, the sun bright red. You go back inside. You stay inside. You don’t worry about the fire, it’s probably miles away. The smoke lasts for days and even after a shower you can’t get the smell out of your nostrils, can’t get the taste off your tongue. You hope your neighbor doesn’t mow his lawn, you hope no one throws a cigarette out a window on your road, or lets a loose chain drag behind their truck. 

The wind picks up, you get nervous. a helicopter passes low overhead, you get anxious. You wait for sirens. You watch more helicopters carrying heavy sacks of retardant, tanks of water, and keep testing the way the wind blows. Somehow, the fire misses you this summer.

Wintertime in California. The yellowed, crackling grass that looks like miles of sand dunes turns gray and falls loose from the baked earth.

You pray for rain but you beg that it doesn’t come with lightning. Still, you don’t expect rain because every winter is “dry.” Snow falls somewhere in the mountains where someone skis then comes back and tells you it wasn’t much. No rain means more fire in the summer.

Then, after New Year’s, it rains. And rains. And gushes. The ground is baked stiff and won’t absorb water after an hour of moderate rain. The water rises. It fills streets, houses, threatens levees and dams. After days of this the ground finally softens. The plants, their root systems shriveled and mostly washed away by the flooding, can’t hold the dirt in place. Where it has no choice,the earth gives way to landslides.

The Sierra Nevadas, riddled with abandoned gold mines and in some place stripped by hydraulic mining. The water is always tainted with mercury and alkali. Occasionally a mine collapses and a sinkhole appears. If the house shakes you ask your friends and neighbors if they felt it too, but then you forget it happened. You actually sleep through most tremors.

Everyone knows at least one old mining song. School projects and field trips are to Fort Sumter and the missions. Cracking adobe that predates the country. You can tell vultures apart from other birds of prey easy because they’re the ones you see most often. Orchards that go on for miles and towns built on top of old olive orchards—occasionally a business or private home has kept a few to remind you. They don’t plant them. Those are the original trees.

You’re hiking and you find a massive flat rock with fist-sized holes bored into it. Trees and fenceposts that look like they were used for target practice with a machine gun. You hear what sounds like a lawn sprinkler go off and you get as far away from the rocks as you can, watching where you step.

Sacramento is a concrete jungle of one way streets and sky-blocking towers before endless miles of ugly industrial wasteland. San Francisco is a twisting maze of clogged overpasses where you drive three miles an hour and watch a dense blanket of bonechilling fog climb over the hills and obscure everything before you enter the city and keep your foot pressed flat to the brake at the steepest intersections. LA is a fever dream, a knotted nightmare of traffic you can never escape, air you can’t breathe even when there’s no fire, and someone’s always playing Norteño, which sounds exactly like polka but with melancholy Spanish lyrics.

The Central Valley gets funnel clouds that touch down even less often than snow falls, but you remember once as a kid getting sleet in the Valley and thinking that’s what snow was then later hudding in the school cafeteria because of a tornado warning. You remember visiting the ocean and bringing home kelp and colored glass. In the mountains you found a sticky pinecone the size of your head and a snake with miniscule legs. An owl with a broken wing was brought to your classroom, there are giant statues of golden bears at the state fair, and someone’s always going missing from Modesto.

But in the springtime, the hills are orange and purple and you realize that oak trees are actually green once a year. The heavy wind makes the grasses sway in waves and it sounds like waves and you’re nowhere near the ocean anymore, but it’s right there, endlessly green and almost sentient. The hills are moving. 

Meanwhile, on the East Coast…

New Jersey: there’s literally a demon living in the long stretch of woods that runs up and down the state. we’ve befriended it.

San Diego. The ocean is blue, except where it isn’t, where it’s just a touch of dark green, in exactly the place your eye tries to focus. Go inland fifteen minutes and it’s scrub-land, irrigated enough that you’re not supposed to see the desert and the cactus waiting, always waiting their turn. The hawks are there too, and they don’t give a damn. They’re waiting and they don’t care if you know it. 

There are mountains with giant boulders cleaved in half—to make a path for the freeway, they say. But maybe, at night, the boulders move. 

West Virginia: Almost like a crib rolling mountains that time has whittled into looking like hills trap you in. You’re boxed in and they control everything. You don’t see the sky upon the horizon until they decide to show it to you.

The people here are just like the mountains, quiet, and selective about what they tell. And none of us asks any more questions than we need to. We know better than to follow the haggard people walking down the road with two shovels in hands. We know better than to stare at a man and a woman handing each other, something, in front of a graveyard behind the stop sign.

In Ohio, something walks behind the corn.  Possibly multiple somethings.  Possibly many, MANY multiple somethings.

They have shiny eyes that reflect your headlights.  When you see them, you look away as fast as you can.  DO NOT MEET THE GAZE OF THE THINGS IN THE CORN.

Corn is planted in neat rows.  It should be child’s play to find your way through a corn-field.  Just pick a row and walk down it until you hit the end.  And yet, people get lost in cornfields all the time.  Sometimes people even DIE lost in cornfields, though this is less common in the age of cell phones.  And if your cell phone just happens to lose signal at the place where you are CERTAIN you have walked the rows at least twice as far as the cornfield should logically stretch… keep walking, friend.  Just keep walking.

If you find a scarecrow in the field, treat it with respect.  Then walk away.  Straight away.  Don’t look back.  DON’T LOOK BACK.  Do not look down at the corn fields at night.  Do not look for the scarecrows while you are sitting on your bed in the small hours, looking out your bedroom window.  If you see them, they will know it.  If you see them, you may see things that you cannot forget.

Texas is a land of ghosts and lies. Foreigners imagine a vast, flat desert when there’s no desert in the state: the prickly pear cactus sprawls between oak trees and mesquite, and the climate swings from tropical to arid in the course of a year. They imagine horses instead of traffic worse than Manhattan; they imagine vast blue skies instead of all this smog. They imagine a Stetson on every head and yeah, sure, maybe once you’re out in the steppes, but most of the time that one’s a lie, too.

Everywhere is haunted. We touch the visor and lift our feet off the floorboard and pedal as we roll across a railroad track. We drive out to the crossroads in the dead of night with flour on the trunk’s lip to see the tiny handprints of dead children trying to push us out of the way. We see things in the shimmering curtains of heat that aren’t there when we blink. I’ve seen things moving in the fields in the dark. There are so many churches, dead and living, because frightened people will pray to one ghost to keep the rest of them at bay.

People know which way to hang horseshoes around here. It’s a U-shape, so the luck doesn’t spill out. I think I must have hung one upside-down once.

The stars at night are big and bright and so are the eyes reflecting the porch light out among the trees.

And if you think that’s scary, try living here when you’re Black and/or queer.

Pacific Northwest- more people just plain disappear here. The trees and mountains eat sound and attempts at civilization at an almost violent rate, lone feet still wearing sneakers wash up on the beaches.

And I’ll just repeat what @gallusrostromegalus said:

The intense and permanent haunting of a land upon which countess horrors have been visited, and that is too large and wild for us to really comprehend is probably the most intense and universal American feeling.

Let me tell you about the two states I grew up in.

Firstly, Iowa. Most outside of the country have never heard of it, it is a simple state in the middle of the country with some hills and rivers farmland as far as you can see. Cities, ha! There’s a scarce handful but you can drive for hours and not see a single soul, not see another car on the road just everlasting corn on both sides so tall you can see over it, so thick you can’t see threw it. At night, sometimes you see eyes glittering through the tall stalks. Sure it could be coyotes, it could be deer, but do you really know? You don’t get out of your car to see. And if you went into this corn, yes some of the rows are neat and perfect, but sometimes you’ll find yourself in a field where there are no rows, corn just grows wild, so thick you can’t see through it and pushing through it is like trying to make your way through a dense forest. You can jump all you like but you’re not seeing over it. Have you ever been lost in a corn field? There’s no landmarks, there’s no foot trails. Just never ending tall thick plants all around you.

Then there’s the underground rivers. You see there use to be so many streams and rivers in Iowa but to make the fields possible they had to be buried or covered. So now, randomly, you’ll see these winding trails of pure green grass out in the middle of no where sometimes with mushrooms poking through on them or flowers, but you will never see people walking on them. These aren’t fun happy trails, you know how people are with fairy circles and rings? Especially in Northern Europe? That’s how it was where I grew up. If you saw one of those paths and it wasn’t on your own farm you stayed the hell away from it. 

Then there’s Idaho, the very northern part of the country where the Rocky Mountains are vast and tall, so tall that the air gets so thin that people pass out while walking. I have watched hikers nearly collapse because they weren’t prepared for the elevation. Cities here? EVEN LESS THAN IOWA! You have Boise and a few other valley towns that are decently big but if you head north, into the Rockies, no there is no cities. There are towns, but most of them are abandoned. Utter ghost towns, with nothing but empty buildings. Ever see a cave? One that wasn’t just a tourist spot? The kind that when you peer into them they just suddenly drop off into blackness? Those are all over those mountains. I nearly fell into one that was just barely to the side of a walking path. 

Then there are the mines: silver and gold, long abandoned, boarded up if you’re lucky others, well they are taunting shafts or big buildings that are falling apart with nothing but a dark cave beside it. People vanish here in the mountains, all the time, without a trace. And sometimes, they have been found, long dead in these mines or caves. There have been people just walking who suddenly vanish into a sink hole caused by these mines, one second they’re there the next people are desperately trying to dig them out of something they are not going to ever get the person out of. The ground just swallows them whole and they’re gone.

And the nights here, they are cold and black, not a single light to be seen. The trees here aren’t the same as the forests in other places. They are far apart but they tower tall and without branches but this doesn’t make finding your way easier. What it does mean is that there is no way to mark your trail, no landmarks and that no matter what, you are always out in the open.

blueannawriting:

wlwsharoncarter:

wlwsharoncarter:

my professor spent our entire seminar whining about how there’s too many girls in our group and not enough boys. he was like “i’m not saying women can’t be good surgeons but we need more men” no, we don’t. men suck. deal with it.

CRY ALL YOU FUCKING WANT YOUR TEARS DON’T MEAN SHIT TO ME. YOUR TEARS MEAN DICK TO ME JUST SO YOU KNOW

Okay so not to be that person who adds on to a post with their own story but my mom is a doctor and when I was eleven she took me to these all-female seminar led by a woman who was the head of a hospital because my mom is an empowered and independent woman who wanted her daughter to be the same way and so there’s like thirty females surgeons in the room, all sitting around his huge circlular confrenece table and talking about their experiences in becoming surgeons

most of them were like “everyone told me I should become a nurse or a pediatrician” and “people assume that I don’t know what I’m doing” you know, your average sexist bs

one of the women’s last name was starboard (yeah I know great name) and she was talking about how even though now she was one of the most accomplished surgeons at the hospital, the male scrub techs (read: guys who didn’t go to fucking medical school) and some of the male doctors call her starbitch in the OR because they (scrub techs mostly, strangely enough) try to suggest different ways to care for the patient and she always tells them no you didn’t go to med school and I did and so they would go out of their way to get the male doctors to treat the patient differently and then she would have to argue with him to prove what she was doing es right but sometimes the male doctor would come and take over the case anyway and this went on for a while

but then the hospital statistics changed bc this woman was literally being prevented from treating her patients bc the men were interfering and so the administrative head heard about this (she was female) and she was like y’all better stop or y’all better start looking for new jobs and then starboard was allowed to work on her patients and got the scrub techs replaced and all of the sudden, the patients were suddenly doing much better during and after surgery.

when she told this story she was like “people still call me a bitch, and maybe I am because I won’t let them walk all over me, but when you’ve got something to do, when you’ve got a life to save, you have to ignore their bullshit so that you can save someone’s fuckin life. Sexism should never stop you from accomplishing that”

and little eleven-year-old me still remembers that bc I was insecure and awkward and here was this woman who just did what she had to do and ignored all the people trying to stop here and she really was better than all the male doctors (like her patient stats were better) and I thought I should share with you this inspiring woman with the cool last name