A Chapterbook: *came With A Stitched In Ribbon Bookmark, Had A Cloth Spine, Had Those Rough Edged Finished

8 page short kids book class project on important/current/difficult topics! Covered the topics of change, sibling relationships and the subject of having a transgender family member (in this case an older brother!)

Was made with trans and non-binary art students!

This is the content I want.

This is getting out of control. (photos via ZookeeperRachel)

Sea turtles are my soul and this made my soul happy.

This will be the cutest video you will see today. My grandparents found baby sea turtles on their doorstep this morning so they released them one by one!

What Should I Teach my Children about Witchcraft?

I get this question surprisingly a lot and until today I’ve never had what I felt was a decent answer. Some people will be quick to say that you shouldn’t teach children witchcraft at all. I think they need to take a chill pill and realize that although there are definitely dangerous sects of witchcraft, it is ultimately what you make of it. A parent who is aware of this can steer their child in the right direction and make sure they are safe. How many of us claim that witchcraft is just a skill like any other? Plenty of skills have potential dangers for children yet we still teach them. Why not witchcraft?

At the end of the day I can’t dictate what you should and should not teach your own children, so consider this post more of a friendly suggestion from someone who was raised with witchcraft. Take what works for you, leave the rest behind.

Teach your child patience.

Teach them that results sometimes take a while to manifest. Teach them to keep living their lives, to not stop everything to watch a kettle boil.

Teach them that they may be tiny but they still have power and the ability to protect themselves.

Teach them that it’s okay to say no.

Teach them how to handle no when it comes from other people.

Teach them about grounding, visualization, meditation, but understand that some or all of these things might be hard for them to do. That’s okay. We’re all different and some of us can’t do these things, nor do we need to do them.

Teach them kitchen witchcraft. Instill a strong love and respect for food at a young age.

Teach them the basics of gardening, what plants are most commonly used in magical workings, what plants to not touch or consume. Let them tell you what certain plants make them think and feel and don’t discourage them if their answers differ from yours.

Teach them that if they grow up to hate cooking or gardening, it’s okay. They’ll find their niche in their own time.

Teach them compassion and control.

Teach them to forgive.

Teach them not to be ashamed if they’re unable to forgive certain actions or people.

Teach them that their emotions are valid, all of them. Teach them that anger, sadness, heartbreak, fear, discomfort, can all be used just as strongly as any positive emotion. Teach them that all of their emotions are important, not just the happy ones.

Teach them common sense: fire safety, environmental awareness, chemical safety, etc.

Teach them fairy tales about witches, mages, sorcerers, etc. Never underestimate the ability of these tales to do amazing things to a child’s imagination and to affect their practice in a positive way.

Teach them about science and how they can utilize it in magic.

Teach them how to respect the wishes of oppressed cultures so they don’t grow up to become one of the witches who actively harm closed cultures.

Teach them that they can always come to you if they’re uncertain about what they’re doing and expect nothing but love and support in return.

Teach them about music, art, writing; give them all the tools they need to express their creativity.

Teach them about life, because every aspect of life can be a magical experience if you let it be.

And that’s just the thing. I think whenever someone asks me “how do I teach my young child witchcraft?” they’re looking for a set list of practices and techniques, but there is no set list. There wasn’t when I was little; my mom taught me and my brothers about life and showed us that it can be as magical as we wanted it to be.

As I said, take it or leave it. It’s ultimately up to you how  and what you decide to teach your child about magic, but I hope you instill in them a level of trust and agency that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

people talk all the time about “primal instincts” and it’s usually about violence or sexual temptations or something, but your humanity comes with a lot of different stuff that we do without really thinking about, that we do without being told to or prompted to

your average human comes pre-installed with instincts to:

Befriend

Tell story

Make Thing

Investigate

Share knowledge

Laugh

Sing

Dance

Empathize with

Create

we are chalk full of survival instincts that revolve around connecting to others (dog-shaped others, robot-shaped, sometimes even plant-shaped) and making things with our hands

your primal instincts are not bathed in blood- they are layered in people telling stories to each other around a fire over and over and putting devices together through trial and error over and over and reaching for someone and something every moment of the way

talk street magic to me

drawing power from the metro lines

illusionists busking illegally, shimmering lights disintegrating as they run

plant mages tending tiny rooftop and windowbox gardens

elementary kids learning basic sigils on the playground

wixen taking a while to key into the magic in new cities when they move

alchemists dealing on the side to support their experiments

middleschoolers making friendship talismans and amulets for everyone

numerologists who’ll do your math homework for $5 or divine your fortune for $10

kids mass-texting luck and speed spells when their parties get broken up by the cops

A practice is something you built, it’s very organic like an ecosystem of rituals, knowledge, words, material objects, ressources. Like the branches of a tree it sometimes dies and sometimes branches out, you builds more in one direction or choose to work more in another one. Even if you feel like you are stagnating in your practice, or you don’t know what direction to choose, you have to start somewhere. And with time you build your practice like the gardener maintains their garden.

If you are American and use a period tracker app, download your data and delete it.

Consumer Reports

What Your Period Tracker App Knows About You

As period tracker apps grow in popularity, so do concerns about what happens to the very personal information they share. Consumer Reports e

Mother Jones

Meet abortion bans' new best friend: your phone

When it comes to reproductive rights, your digital trail matters more than you think.

"News coverage of digital forensics often celebrates its role in prosecuting serious felonies. But when it comes to reproductive rights, Conti-Cook says, the same tools “will be a powerful [asset] to police and prosecutors in a more criminalized landscape” for abortion seekers." [Mother Jones]

"Unlike medical records held by doctors and hospitals, the information collected by health-focused apps isn’t covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a 1996 federal law that limits where healthcare providers can share your health information.

That means health app makers are mostly free to do what they want with the data they collect. [...]

What’s more, even when your data is de-identified by removing identifiable information such as your name or email address, it can be combined with other information—such as your location, contacts, or unique identifiers in your phone—and traced back to you, research suggests." [Consumer Reports]

Twitter thread from user @nandoodles about men in adtech who want to sell your period app data to law enforcement:

If you don't think these people won't use your data against you, I advise you to reconsider in light of Texas's offering bounties. And that there's other states considering offering bounties and vigilantism as well.

I'm sorry, this is not fair and I know it's a pain in the ass to have to note all your info yourself in a journal, but it's better to NOT give these people another tool to exert control over the bodies of people possessing the potential (regardless of how remote) for pregnancy.

Also: support your local abortion funds. Cash is a more difficult trail to follow. https://abortionfunds.org/ways-to-give/

Persian Love Cookies | Buttermilk by Sam 

AND NOW I WILL TOO