Tag: environmental responsibility

composition of cosmetic bottle with pink rose petals and wooden plate Project Pan: What’s Worth It, and What Wasn’t.
life

Project Pan: What’s Worth It, and What Wasn’t.

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As I mentioned a bit ago, I’ve been doing a sort of Project Pan with my skincare supplies. (I am not a dude of makeup, so I don’t tend to accumulate enough of that to warrant one. When I do get fancy face colors, they’re usually sample sizes to begin with.) I’ve made quite a bit of progress, so I thought I might do a short breakdown of what proved to be worth re-buying, and what definitely wasn’t.

For full disclosure, I’ve got sensitive combination skin. Finding products that work for me is a challenge — even if I get samples first, it can take a bit for negative reactions to become apparent. That’s why I’ve accumulated skincare over time, as I try to find what actually does the job without too many downsides.

Also, absolutely nobody is paying me to do this and none of these are affiliate links. I’m just including them for convenience’s sake, so you can check out whatever piques your interest. All product photos belong to their respective brands.

composition of cosmetic bottle with pink rose petals and wooden plate
Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels.com

First, the stuff worth re-buying:

Cleanser: Trader Joe’s Nourish cleanser, about $7

This stuff just works for me. It’s also cheap and easy to get and if they ever discontinue it, I may have a fit of apoplexy. It doesn’t irritate or dry out my skin the way many other cleansers do, and it doesn’t leave any weird residues. It’s just nice and functional.

My only complaint is the plastic bottle (the efficacy of plastic recycling has been greatly overstated), but it’s a pretty basic one without any extraneous bells and whistles so at least it isn’t as wasteful as it otherwise could be.

Toner: Pyunkang Yul Essense Toner, $15.99

This toner is more like a serum. It’s inexpensive, it’s soothing, and it has astragalus extract in it which I guess does something. I’ve had days when all I’ve used is a cleanser, this, and moisturizer, and my skin has felt fabulous. I also notice a difference when I’ve run out of it.

I pat it on my skin immediately after washing, while my face is still damp. Then I either use a serum on top of it, or go right to moisturizer.

This is another product that comes in a plastic bottle, but, because of the way it’s dispensed, I’m not sure how well glass or aluminum would work. As with the TJ’s cleaner, at least it’s a pretty basic bottle.

Serum #1: The Ordinary Marine Hyaluronate, $9.20

This is a waterier version of The Ordinary’s other hyaluronic acid. It’s very light, but it does the job. It doesn’t make my skin feel tight or sticky, it’s just a gentle, soothing humectant. I use about five drops of it, so a bottle lasts me for a while. The very light, watery texture also means that it layers well with other serums — it absorbs right away, so there’s no pilling or other weirdness.

Like the PKY toner, I also notice a difference when I’ve run out of this one. It’s just so nice for some added moisture under a heavier serum or cream.

This one comes in a glass dropper bottle. I often end up reusing these for oil blends and other stuff.

Serum #2: The Ordinary Pycnogenol 5%, $11.50

This is an oil-like (but oil-free) serum containing maritime pine extract. It’s a potent antioxidant, and the consistency means that it’s moisturizing, too. The naturally reddish color also makes me look like I’m painting my cheeks with the blood of my foes, and that’s a neat concept!

It has a natural sort of piney, almost floral fragrance. It’s very nice. I like to use this during the day, or at night any time I’ve been in the sun, on the road, or otherwise exposed to conditions that would make me benefit from some help with skin recovery.

These come in little amber glass dropper bottles. As with the hyaluronic acid serum, I usually end up reusing them myself. It’s a tiny bottle, but a little bit goes a very long way.

Serum #3: The Ordinary Lactic Acid 5% + HA, $8.10

This is a gentle chemical exfoliant. I don’t respond super great to retinoids, but lactic acid leaves my skin plump and glowy. There’s also a 10% version, but I like the gentler 5% version more for my sensitive skin.

I use about three drops at night, and definitely notice a difference when I haven’t been using it. It’s nice, it doesn’t sting, smell terrible, or leave my face feeling tight or gunky.

These come in frosted glass bottles.

Day Cream: Pyunkang Yul Calming Moisture Barrier Cream, $16.99

This is a light day cream that’s almost between a cream and a gel. I use it in the mornings, and it doesn’t feel heavy, break me out, or leave my skin sticky. It’s just a nice, inexpensive moisturizer that works. No fragrances, nothing that makes my sensitive combination skin uncomfortable, it’s just good.

The jar is heavy plastic. I wish it was glass. I love it, but if I’m able to find a substitute in a glass jar then I wouldn’t mind switching.

Night Cream: Derma-E Ultra Hydrating Advanced Repair Night Cream, $31.50

This is the most expensive item in my routine, and it’s still really reasonable for what it does and how much I use. It’s a nice, rich cream that absorbs well but is still occlusive enough that I don’t feel like it’s all gone by morning. Layered over hyaluronic acid and pycnogenol, it’s lovely. The jar isn’t huge, but it lasts me for quite a while.

This one comes in a glass jar, which is rad.

Sunscreen: haruharu WONDER Black Rice Pure Mineral Relief Daily Sunscreen, $22.00

This stuff is really nice. It’s SPF 50+, made for sensitive skin, reef safe, and doesn’t leave me with a whitish case. (I have light skin with beige undertones. It is aggressively neutral and, even though my skin is light, a lot of mineral sunscreens make me look like I’m wearing corpse paint.) It’s also lightly hydrating and feels nice.

I wish it came in a glass pump bottle. Their other packaging materials are 100% recycled and Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper printed with soy-based inks, so that’s nice.

The stuff that I’m not re-buying:

Serum: The Ordinary Matrixyl 10% + HA, $10.90

I don’t know if this even did anything other than make my face sticky and give me an occasional pimple. Someone else may very well benefit from it, but I didn’t see any.

I ended up using it on the backs of my hands so it wouldn’t go to waste. My hands did look smoother and feel softer, but I feel like adding a serum step to an anti-aging hand care routine is a bridge too far for me.

The bottle is a nice glass dropper bottle, though.

Serum: The Inkey List Retinol Serum, $15.00

This one was just sort of fine. I probably would’ve repurchased it, but the plastic squeeze tube was a really annoying and inconvenient way to dispense it. I feel like I waste product by dispensing it into my hands first, so I really prefer to be able to drop a single drop where my skin needs it most. With this packaging, it almost invariably dispensed way more than I needed, which got annoying.

I used it all up on my face, but the inefficient application and plastic tube make it a no for me.

Moisturizer: The Inkey List Bakuchiol Moisturizer, $15.00

I’ve used products with bakuchiol in the past, but this moisturizer was a no-go for me. The squeeze tube, while not my favorite, was fine for applying a cream. However, the moisturizer itself was just kind of sticky and irritating. I don’t like feeling sticky, and I don’t like feeling itchy, and this did both.

I ended up using it on the backs of my hands, and now my hands are officially fancy.

Lip Balm: The Inkey List Tripeptide Plumping Lip Balm, $13.00

I wanted to love this. I did. It even seemed to work at first — my lips felt smoother and plumper, and it wasn’t sticky. The trouble here lies in one single ingredient: Castor oil.

For some people, castor oil is fine. For others, not so much. If you find that lip balm tends to make your lips flakier afterward, you might be sensitive to castor oil. (You may also find that you react badly to natural deodorants that contain zinc ricinoleate.)

This balm made my lips to dry and peely, it was almost like a chemical burn. Like, dead-of-winter, have-not-had-a-drop-of-moisture-even-half-of-a-time-in-months dry. Your mileage may vary, but, if you’ve had issues with products containing castor oil or zinc ricinoleate in the past, you probably want to skip this one.

I’m feeling pretty good. I’ve whittled things down to what works for me, and I don’t feel a need to try to continue to optimize my routine. A cleanser, a toner, serum, and moisturizer. One exfoliating serum, one moisturizing serum, and one antioxidant serum. I’m pretty much covered for whatever my skin goes through.

brown panel during nighttime What’s going down in Rock Creek (and why it’s a big deal)
life · Uncategorized

What’s going down in Rock Creek (and why it’s a big deal)

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This weekend, my Handsome Assistant and I attended an educational picnic to save Rock Creek, which is currently at risk from the continued expansion of a golf course. Construction has already begun, parts of the forest are being turned into mulch as we speak. Over 1,200 trees are slated to be cut down, including some that would otherwise be considered special or heritage trees under DC law.

This deforestation is part of an effort to expand multiple golf courses throughout the DC area.

Yeah, I know.

Even without further examination, I mean — who is building golf courses right now, of all things? The answer is the National Links Trust. While people worry about paying rent and getting their next meal, the National Links Trust apparently thinks that the public yearns for more golf courses. It’s something that sounds almost moustache-twirlingly villainous. Like the plot of an after school special where the heroes are a band of plucky cartoon kittens. Unfortunately, this is actually happening.

What’s the deal with the National Links Trust?

The NLT’s stated intention is “positively impacting our community and changing lives through affordable and accessible municipal golf.”

This is something that doesn’t sound… terrible, barring the whole “people-can’t-afford-food-right-now-you-rich-weirdoes” aspect. However, here’s what the NLT isn’t saying:

Lem Smith, NLT board member, International & Federal Government Affairs Manager for Chevron, and Former VP, Federal Government Relations for the American Petroleum Institute.
  • One of the board members, Lem Smith, is the International and Federal Government Affairs Manager for Chevron. The Chevron responsible for dumping 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the Amazon basin. The Chevron currently denying millions in fossil fuel transit fees to the Palestinian people. The Chevron currently funding apartheid and war crimes. That Chevron.
  • While they claim that they’re attempting to mitigate the harm done by the deforestation of Rock Creek (harm that is, once again, completely unnecessary and unasked for), they are not adhering to the best practices for doing so. There are multiple ways to mitigate the damage of both removing old growth trees and the presence of invasive plants, but their policy seems to be to mulch everything and call it good.
  • They’re not actually accountable to anyone. They can make half-hearted promises to plant meadows and maintain the forest all they want, but there is no incentive for them to keep them and nothing to stop them from doing whatever they want.

They claim that they’re willing to dedicate unused golf courses to being replanted as meadows. This is not a suitable compromise for multiple reasons:

There’s also the fact that it doesn’t seem like anybody actually asked for this. When asked, local golfers appear to be ambivalent at best. The NLT was able to scrape together some who are in favor of it to make a public appearance, but these don’t appear to reflect the opinion of the majority of the new course’s ostensible user base. They are absolutely not reflective of the larger population of DC and the adjacent area.

Here’s why it matters (no matter where or who you are).

So the NLT is attempting to build a golf course. Like I said, this is a huge deal and will have far-reaching effects even if you don’t live anywhere near DC. Here’s why:

Old growth areas are carbon sinks.

It is generally thought that old forests cease to accumulate carbon, but this isn’t the case. Research shows that in forests between 15-800 years of age, “net ecosystem productivity (the net carbon balance of the forest including soils) is usually positive.” What’s more, carbon doesn’t cease to exist once it’s taken up. When these areas are disturbed, that carbon is liberated as plant matter decays or is burned. Rather than trees dying naturally over time, breaking down, and having their nutrients (including carbon) absorbed into the mature forest, deforestation disrupts this natural cycle.

Rock Creek is part of the Potomac watershed.

Trees support healthy watersheds. Rock Creek itself connects to the Potomac River, and eventually drains into the Atlantic Ocean via the Chesapeake Bay. Trees contribute to healthy waterways by anchoring soil in place, preventing erosion. Their root systems (including the mycorrhizae within the soil that surrounds their roots) help capture nutrients. Without these systems in place, they would otherwise flow into the water to encourage algal blooms and fish kills, a process known as eutrophication. Removing these trees and replacing them with grass that requires a regimen of fertilizers and treatments to maintain is a terrible idea.

The last thing anyone needs is golf course runoff oozing into our local waterways.

Golf courses need a lot of water.

I already mentioned supplemental irrigation, but I’ll say it again: Golf courses need a lot of water. They are generally watered with sprinkler systems that lead to a lot of waste and loss through evaporation. This also puts strain on existing systems, reducing the availability of water for other uses and increasing scarcity issues. Only about 12% of golf courses surveyed use recycled water, and even with more efficient irrigation methods, turf grass remains a very wasteful use of land and water.

We’ve already had droughts here. We’re already told not to use any more water than necessary during the summer because of scarcity issues. Why are they building a golf course?

This could increase the transmission of avian flu.

I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this. Destruction of wildlife habitats drive populations of wild animals into greater contact with humans. If old growth trees are destroyed, the thousands of birds that they house and feed get pushed elsewhere. That “elsewhere” is going to be people’s back yards.

How does that relate to the H5N1 virus? More displaced birds mean more contact between wild birds and flocks of backyard fowl. It means more indoor-outdoor cats that come in contact with potentially infected birds. It means more bird feces on cars, decks, and feeders. A higher overall population of birds congregating in the same feeding and shelter areas means a higher risk of potentially zoonotic H5N1 moving through that population.

Birds aren’t the only ones that’re going to be displaced, either. Look for more conflicts with foxes, raccoons, rodents, and coyotes, too.

If it was living in that part of Rock Creek, it’s gonna need a new place to go. In an area as densely populated as DC and the surrounding suburbs, there aren’t many other options.

This further undermines Washington, DC, as a political entity.

Washington, DC, has been pushing for statehood for some time now. (A significant part of the reason why it keeps getting struck down is that DC would be a majority blue state, so it benefits the Conservative party to avoid allowing it to have any more representation than it already does.) While it isn’t a state, DC does still have home rule in some aspects. For example, DC’s tree law provides numerous protections specifically for heritage trees. Removal of a tree that qualifies as a “special tree” requires a permit. Healthy heritage trees cannot be removed, period.

Rock Creek is part of the National Park System. As such, even though a significant portion is within DC, DC isn’t able to enforce its tree laws to protect it. This inability to protect trees within its area further undermines DC as a legal and political entity.

The National Park Service is part of the problem.

Rock Creek is a national park, but it hasn’t been maintained as one. Invasive plants are a significant issue, and one that the National Park Service hasn’t adequately remedied. There are local people who are trained as Weed Warriors, who are able to legally remove invasive plants. However, there’s only so much they can do.

Part of the inception of the National Park Service was to push Indigenous Americans off of their ancestral land, with the claim that the land must be “preserved.” (Madison Grant helped launch the national parks movement — he also wrote The Passing of the Great Race, which gave a very detailed account of his negative views of Indigenous people, Black people, and immigrants.) In reality, the land in the National Park System was being preserved just fine while its original stewards were living there.

The neglect of Rock Creek shows that this land is not being protected or preserved. Furthermore, its current state has incentivized the NPS to sell part of Rock Creek in order to have it cut down and turned into a golf course. The idea is, I guess, that the National Links Trust would do the preserving instead, by… cutting the trees down and turning the land into a putting green.

It’s all so, so ridiculous, and it’s a terrible omen of things to come. Nothing good will come of the NPS being allowed to neglect public lands, then sell them off.

Light pollution is going to be a problem, too.

In addition to the loss of exceptionally old trees, biodiversity, and wildlife habitat, the presence of a golf course will increase light pollution in the area. The plans call for a driving range that will be lit through the night hours. This will disrupt nocturnal animals, including (especially) insects. We’re already experiencing a dramatic drop in insect populations. We don’t need a @#$%ing driving range that nobody asked for to begin with.

The land is removed from public use.

Right now, you can just go to Rock Creek. You can walk around. Picnic. Bird watch. Have a grand old time.

Already, the area of the forest that is earmarked for cutting has been removed from public use. You can’t just go there — people who have have been told to leave.

Meadows aren’t forests.

Even if the NTL carries out their plan to turn unused golf courses into meadows, meadows do not provide the same benefits as forests. I’ve been very vocal here about my efforts to remediate the immature, hard clay soil and turn it into mature soil. Cultivating turf grass is terrible for soil and doesn’t allow it to mature.

So here’s a bunch of immature soil that’ll be used to grow some (one can hope, but certainly not assume) native flowers and grasses. This will take over a hundred years become anything like the area that’s currently being cut down, in a process known as forest succession. While meadows are certainly better than the sterile monoculture of a putting green, they do not play the same role or have the same benefits as a century old forest.

Here’s what you can do.

Right now, the easiest thing to do is to boycott Chevron and its associated companies. People across the US and around the world are rejecting Chevron. Coupled with lower sales of jet fuel and other factors, Chevron recently reported a loss for the first time since 2020.

This effort to turn part of Rock Creek into a golf course is just a continuation of Chevron’s ongoing pattern of land acquisition and destruction. They are promoting this destruction via the National Links Trust. If you are interested in helping to put a stop to this, please visit Defend Rock Creek’s Linktree for further steps that you can take.

Park Cleanup!
Environment

Park Cleanup!

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There are a lot of small, local waterways in this area. Creeks feed into streams, streams into rivers, rivers into the sea, like a vast circulatory system. All of the trash that ends up in parks and little groves around these creeks doesn’t just stay locally, it eventually moves along, causing more damage as it goes. That’s why it’s so important not to litter in the first place. But, since people are gonna people, it also helps to go actively engage in a park cleanup.

This past Saturday, five of us (from the Neodruidry group I’m part of) went to a park that’s part of the local watershed. Armed with grabbers, bags, and gloves, we started along the trail and kept going for about an hour and a half, filling bags with a speed that was honestly pretty surprising. Old clothes, broken dishes, water bottles (mostly water bottles), liquor bottles, diapers, shopping bags, takeout containers, plastic wrap, aluminum foil… There was a surprising variety of grossness.

At one point, I was just following along from one bit of trash to the next like I was pursuing some kind of very disturbed Hansel and/or Gretel. Next thing I know, I’m on a steep, rocky bank with no easy way to climb up and a bag that’s too heavy to let me even if there was.

A rocky creek winding between trees in yellow and orange autumn color. This park cleanup helped keep trash from ending up in here and being carried to the river, then to the sea.

Oh well. That’s one fun thing about a park cleanup — you sometimes end up in interesting places you didn’t expect to be.

I continue along the creek, fishing trash out and stuffing it into the bag. I eventually find a spot that looks easier to climb, right beside a bridge. I conk my head in the process, but I do eventually emerge, crashing through the undergrowth like Sasquatch, to run into my Handsome Assistant.

“Oh. There you are! I was looking for you.”

“Ha ha, yep!” I laugh, trying my best not to look like someone who’d just climbed out of a creek with a sack of trash and sticks in their hair, arms studded with fresh scabs and thorns. “Look!” I pull an object out of my pocket. “I found a cool thing!” It is an abandoned wasp nest.

An abandoned wasp nest in the palm of a dusty, black gloved hand.

He is very understanding about all of this.
We join the others and continue bagging trash.

By the end of the park cleanup, we’ve got nine bags (nine!) of garbage. No scale, but most of them were pretty heavy (I’d say they ranged from 15-35 pounds). Some people thanked us as we worked, which was really nice — I just feel a little bad because I wasn’t expecting it and thought they were talking to someone else at the time, so I didn’t think to acknowledge it.

Nine black trash bags, beside a small table, some gloves, and some metal grabber sticks.

I’m tired and sore now, but it’s totally worth it. It’s the good kind of tired. The park was beautiful even before cleaning it up, but it’s great to know that none of those metals or plastics will end up in our waterways now.

Mabon 2024
life · Neodruidry · Witchcraft

Mabon 2024

J.1 Comment

This past weekend was the Mabon camping trip! My Handsome Assistant and I are part of a local Druidry group, and that group teams up with another Pagan group to go have a fantastic time in the woods.

(If you aren’t sure what Mabon is, here is a brief rundown.)

There’s food (lots of food), singing, stories, rituals, and catching up with friends, all set in a beautiful forest. Last year, things got a bit cold and damp. This year, the weather was better, and my Assistant and I knew what to expect. We were more thoroughly prepared (air mattress, extra blankets and sleeping bags, extra dishes, a solar powered fan), so it made for a much more comfortable trip.

The rain also stayed away just long enough for the weekend’s rituals, which was very important.

A close-up of some very pretty lichen, growing in a bed of moss.
Fortunately, there was just enough rain to make the mosses and lichens really pop.

Earlier, during the Midsummer goods and gear swap, a couple of us floated the idea of having a masquerade party. It wasn’t a serious plan at the time — mainly a “this would be really cool” kind of thing. Later, during a planning Zoom call, I mentioned that some of us thought a masquerade would be really neat. Maybe for Samhain?

One of the group’s Stewards knew of a ritual that involved masking — the Council of All Beings. Another person found chants that suited the occasion. Another wrote the transitions and spoken parts of the ritual structure. By the end, it was a beautiful, adaptable, and powerfully creative work.

Some people came to the trip prepared, already knowing which being they’d embody, having a mask or costume, and knowing exactly what they wanted to say. Others took time in the woods or labyrinth, waiting to see what reached out to them and asked to be represented. I’d gotten some inspiration a while before Mabon, so I was all set to go.

A photo of a labyrinth in a forest. The labyrinth is made up of stones, set in a spiraling pattern in a clearing.

The ritual itself was wonderful. The masks were gorgeous, and seeing what kind of entities inspired/spoke through people was fascinating. Some represented a specific organism — like the critically endangered regent honeyeater. Others represented a genus or type of being, like moths, small snakes, or coral. Others represented something broader, like smoke or the sun. Some were natural features, like the bedrock or an underground spring. There were representations from a variety of cultures and cosmologies, all brought together to express themselves through us. I loved it.

(I was the necrobiome, aka all of the little guys that dispose of trash and dead things. I had some trouble figuring out how to express “a tiny ecosystem of various bacteria, fungi, insects, and scavengers” through a mask, so I ended up settling on a skeletal deer mask instead. The presence of decomposition bacteria and fungi was somewhat implied.)

A humanoid figure in a forest. The figure is standing with their arms at their sides, staring directly at the camera. They are wearing gray boots, bandages around both hands, and a black shroud that covers them from their head down to their knees. They are also wearing a deer's skull as a mask, over the shroud. The photo also appears to be glitchy, with smeared areas and light leaks.
My Handsome Assistant took some photos of me all dressed up. I used them for some little analog horror-style photo manips, and I’ll be honest… this one really makes me want to go ominously photobomb strangers.

We also had an icebreaking and learning exercise called Birds of a Feather, where we wore small tags labeled with subjects we wanted to talk about — either things we found interesting and were well versed in already, or stuff we wanted to learn. It sparked a lot of very interesting conversations!

There was also a chants workshop, where a group of us got together to try various chanting techniques and see how they felt both through our own voices and hearing them in a group. (Some of the non-verbal chants, I thought, felt especially powerful. I love exploring and working with different sonic frequencies, so feeling and participating in chants that ran the gamut from “results in full-body tingles” to “surprisingly like the drone of a titanic beehive” was particularly fascinating.)

One group member also gave a talk about spiritual experiences at various megaliths in Ireland. Both my Assistant and I found it really interesting — enough to where he’s sincerely trying to figure out how to create some form of mobile hyperbaric compression chamber so I can get on a plane without Problems.

And then there was food.
(So much food.)
Every meal was a potluck, and there was something for everyone. Vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, gluten-free, nut-free. There was fresh fruit, Koren barbecue ribs, vegan fennel and garlic sausages, fresh bread, pudding made from foraged pawpaws, homebrewed peach mead, vegetable soup made from home-grown vegetables, curried chickpea salad, and a ton of other things I’m probably forgetting.
I ate like a combination of a Redwall character and some kind of Roman emperor all weekend, and it was delightful.
(My Handsome Assistant jokes that he puts on five pounds over Mabon, then spends the rest of the year losing it.)

I also stayed up way too late every night, mostly sitting around the fire hearing/telling stories, talking about things, and having the occasional smoke. This came back to bite me on Saturday, when I set an alarm to wake up, realized I had a terrible headache, and decided to sleep in. This would have meant that I’d miss the Equinox ritual Saturday morning, fortunately my Assistant and I had accidentally set up our tent right next to the ritual area.
I heard the drums going, bolted upright, wrapped myself in a blanket, and poked my head through the tent flap to watch.
It worked out okay until the calling of the quarters got to the South, which meant that everyone turned to face me, who was currently sitting due south and staring out of my tent like some kind of small cryptid. (I kind of slowly retreated behind my tent flap again until that part was over, Homer-Simpson-backing-into-a-bush style.)

So, while I am glad to be home again, I’m sad Mabon’s over. I’ll see (almost) everyone soon, but man do I miss that vibe.

Grassassination, a Year and a Half Later.
life · Plants and Herbs

Grassassination, a Year and a Half Later.

J.3 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve written about my ongoing battle against the lawn. It started with a tarp, then went on to solarizing, then sheet mulching, then replacing the unwanted turf grass with native groundcovers, to discovering some kind of gigantic alien mystery plant we didn’t plant that accidentally ended up being delicious.

So, since it’s been about a year and a half, how’s it going?

The grass hasn’t come back. Instead, the area is made up of (mostly) mulch, interspersed with some slow-growing moss phlox (Phlox subulata), bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), violets (Viola sororia), and echinacea (Echinacea purpurea) plants. Occasionally, I’ll find a patch of native wild onion (Allium canadense). The border closest to the house is made up of non-native strawberries, which the birds, squirrels, carpenter bees, and also I seem to enjoy. Along the front path, there’s thread leaf coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata). In the center, there’s the little redbud tree (Cercis canadensis).

A white Phlox subulata flower.
A flower from one of the white Phlox subulata plants. These guys actually flowered pretty much all through winter!

There are also small mats of non-native “weeds,” like chickweed, purple deadnettle, and speedwell. These aren’t exactly what I was going for, but they do have several advantages over grass:

  1. I’m not allergic to them. Flowering plants like these are typically pollinated by insects. Grasses are wind pollinated. Wind pollinated plants are much more likely to be responsible for allergies, because their pollen ends up in the air (and eventually your eyes, nose, and lungs). This is also why bee pollen is generally not a great way to desensitize oneself to hay fever — it’s primarily made up of sticky, heavier flower pollens, rather than the wind-carried pollens that people with hay fever most commonly react to.
  2. They’re edible. Chickweed is actually pretty nutritious, and so is purple deadnettle. I’m not up on all of the nutrition facts and medicinal uses of speedwell, but I am assured that it is also edible.
  3. They’re not invasive enough to be restricted. While these three plants aren’t native species, they typically have pretty shallow root systems and aren’t super competitive.
  4. They require no effort. Unlike lawn grasses, they don’t need fertilizing, pesticide, weed treatment, or supplemental irrigation. While they’re not as beneficial as native groundcovers, they’re at least not a net negative like turf grass.
  5. They’re an early food source for pollinators and small herbivores. Since they’re not native to the US, they haven’t evolved alongside our native pollinators and thus aren’t really an ideal source of nectar. They do, however, provide more food that a mowed monoculture lawn does.
  6. Honestly, it looks better. I’m not a fan of the manicured look of suburban lawns. This spot has a ways to go still, but tiny blue, purple, and white flowers and multi-hued foliage beat grass any day.

Tiny blue speedwell flowers.
Itty bitty speedwell.

Should anyone run out and sow a speedwell, deadnettle, or chickweed lawn? No, not in the US. (Non-native clover lawns aren’t really a great idea, either.) Nonetheless, I’m in less of a hurry to eradicate these plants than I was to get rid of the grass. It’s reassuring to see other plants moving into an area that was once a mowed, lifeless monoculture.

And, if you’re an invasivore, you can always eat them.

Bright purple Phlox subulata flowers.
Some of the purple moss phlox. Oddly, these guys didn’t flower as resiliently as the white did. They’re putting out more flowers now, though!

This year, the plan is to plant more moss phlox and bee balm, and maybe another coreopsis or two. I’d also like to find a source for native strawberries. These grow in slightly different conditions to the cultivated strawberries you usually see in garden stores and groceries and are a good addition to “edible landscaping” plans. For now, I’m pretty happy with the progress this little patch of dirt has made!

Rosehip Folklore & Magical Properties
Plants and Herbs

Rosehip Folklore & Magical Properties

J.2 Comments

Roses (t least in their wild form) are fruit-bearing plants. These fruits, called rosehips or rose haws, are bright red, berrylike fruits that serve as a source of food for wildlife and people alike through the autumn and winter months. They’re high in vitamin C, and are frequently used in everything from supplements, to teas, to jellies, to skincare products.

They’re best harvested right after the first frost, when the fruits are bright red and slightly soft. That’s actually what prompted me to write this post — see, our first frost date is supposed to be in the middle of October. As of this writing, next weekend is supposed to be in the 80s. According to the National Weather Service, we’re not actually going to get frosty temperatures until the middle of freaking November. I could harvest the fruits anyhow and mimic the action of a frost by popping them in the freezer for a few hours, but still. 80 degrees.

Some bright red, round rosehips on the plant.

(Side note, my Handsome Assistant and I were planning on taking a very off-season vacation on the beach. We weren’t planning on trying to swim or anything, but we decided to cancel anyway since it’d likely be too chilly to do much but hole up. Go figure!)

Rosehip Magical Uses and Folklore

Medicinally, rosehips are used for anything that benefits from more vitamin C. They’re boiled into syrup and given for colds, and used in tea over winter (when fresh fruit is in short supply). The fruit is also a mild diuretic that can help with certain urinary disorders, while the seeds, when boiled, may be helpful for symptoms of gout.

The fruit portion of a rosehip forms a kind of capsule around the seeds. These seeds are covered in irritating hairs, which is why it’s important to clean rosehips before using them. These hairs are so irritating, in fact, that they can be used to make itching powder!

Not all roses will form hips. Flat blooms, as opposed to cup or globular blooms, generally have the easiest time doing so. The reason for this is simple: cup and globular blooms are bred for show, and have masses of petals that cover their stamens and pistils. Since pollination is necessary for fruit production, bees need to be able to get in there to pollinate. This is easy for them with flat blooms, and next to impossible with more complex shapes. Deadheaded roses also won’t produce hips, since the portion that would become the hip gets cut off in the process.

Rosehips are useful for all of the same things that roses are. They shine in love and beauty magic (due, in part, to their vitamin C content). Used in ritual baths or to infuse oils, they can have a brightening effect on the skin.

Some more rosehips. These are still very green and not yet ripe.

Rosehips are also used in spells for good luck and prosperity.

To banish nightmares, place some rosehips under your pillow. You might want to use dried hips for this, since fresh ones could end up leaving you with a sticky, squishy, unpleasant surprise in the morning!

Since rosehips house rose seeds, they’re a good general addition to spells to increase anything. All seeds have immense potential and are used in magic for growth, so you can include rosehips in any spell to increase love (including self-love), money, luck, you name it.

Using Rosehips

To use fresh rosehips, wash them well, slice them open, and remove the seeds and hairs with a spoon. You can then dry them, make them into jelly, or eat them fresh. Dried hips from the store are good to go as they are.

Add fresh or dried hips to magical teas or other recipes. They have a tart flavor that pairs well with lots of drinks and dishes. Stir with your dominant hand as you cook, and intentionally infuse the mixture with the energy that you want to attract or increase.

To keep nightmares at bay, include dried hips in a dream pillow. Lavender, lemon balm, and rosemary also work very well here.

Dried rosehips (and rose seeds) are great additions to spell jars. As I mentioned above, they bring extra energy to increase whatever it is you’re looking to grow or attract.

On the other hand, the irritating hairs around rose seeds are good for protection or banishing spells. Add them to powders to keep unwanted people or spirits at bay. Sprinkle them under your doormat and instruct them to annoy anything and anyone who shouldn’t be at your door.

Rosehips are as useful as they are beautiful. If you have garden space, I highly recommend planting some wild type roses to help feed birds and other animals (and provide you with lots of powerful magical ingredients). If you don’t, keep your eyes peeled when you’re out and about — you may just find some wild roses with plenty of hips to share.

The beauties are berrying!
Plants and Herbs

The beauties are berrying!

J.3 Comments

Thank you for being patient with me while I slept for essentially a week straight. It may have “just” been a vintage cold, but that coupled with the rainy weather was enough to put me out. If there’s one nice thing to come out of that, though, it’s emerging from my tiny, forced hibernation to see the ways the garden is changing as the days shorten and temperatures drop.

Earlier this year, I planted an American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) bush. By “planted a bush,” I primarily mean “stuck a stick in the ground.”

The original sapling was a tiny, nearly leafless thing with just a few roots. This year alone, it’s managed to grow into a roughly three-foot-tall bush with tons of leaves, tiny flowers, and — eventually — fruits.

Tiny clusters of bright pink beautyberries hidden among serrated green leaves.

The fruits are all starting to really ripen, which has been incredible to see. While the flowers of beautyberry are rather indistinct and unremarkable, the berries are absolutely gorgeous: tight clusters of tiny, round, bright magenta berries that can persist through the cold months. While they aren’t a first choice for birds and other animals, this actually makes them even more valuable to wildlife once winter really hits. When other, more palatable sources of food are used up, beautyberry’s there to help keep everyone going.

What do beautyberries taste like?

The berries are bright, attention-grabbing, and non-toxic, so why aren’t they more popular among wildlife? It’s purely a matter of taste — literally. I’ve eaten a few ripe beautyberries straight off of the bush, and the opening flavor is sweet and very unique. It’s hard to describe, but, if I had to, I’d say it’s a combination of lemon, grape, and cucumber, perhaps with very subtle notes of raspberry and bergamot.

A close-up of a cluster of beautyberries, held in the palm of my hand.

Unfortunately, this is followed by a rather bitter aftertaste. I don’t think it’s a dealbreaker when it comes to snacking on a few here and there, but I can absolutely see how an animal with an abundance of other food sources might. If I had to describe the bitterness, I’d say it’s about on the level of grapefruit.

What else is beautyberry helpful for?

Medicinally, beautyberries are really interesting. The leaves contain aromatic compounds that have been said to repel mosquitoes comparatively to DEET. People indigenous to its range have used it as a natural bug repellent, and researchers have extracted some unique compounds that “showed significant repellent activity against [Aedes egypti] and Anopheles stephensi.” Anecdotally, some people claim it’s also effective against ticks, but other users have found it to be of little use. There are loads of DIY mosquito repellent recipes using C. americana available on the internet, but those that macerate the leaves in alcohol (ethanol or isopropanol) are likely to be more effective than those that use water.

Other than making mosquito repellent, the leaves and roots are traditionally used to treat colic, edema, dysentery, stomach pain, rheumatism, and symptoms of malaria.

Researchers have also found an aromatic compound, 12(S),16ξ-dihydroxycleroda-3,13-dien-15,16-olide, that can help treat antibiotic-resistant staph infections. MRSA is a big deal because it can be very difficult to treat. Beta-lactam antibiotics are some of the safest ones we’ve got, but don’t work very well against resistant bacteria. The compound found in beautyberry helps to restore drug-resistant staph’s sensitivity to oxacillin, a beta-lactam antibiotic.

Are there any beautyberry lookalikes?

C. americana is only one species of beautyberry. There are also C. japonica from Japan, and C. dichotoma and C. bodinieri from China. Beautyberries all look alike, but there are some key differences to look for if you’re not sure which bush you’ve got.

C. americana has magenta berries that grow very closely around the stems of the bush. There’s basically no airspace between the bark and the berries, which gives these plants a rather unusual appearance. One cultivar, C. americana var. lactea, produces white berries.

A close-up of C. americana, showing the berries closely packed around the stems.
Another shot of “my” beautyberry, showing the lack of space between the berries and the stem.

Asian species of beautyberry look very similar to C. americana but produce berries in clusters on short stems. Instead of closely circling the branches of the bush, there’s a little bit of air space between them.

An image of C. bodinieri, showing the fruits on short stems.
C. bodinieri, showing its slightly different fruit distribution.

How do you grow American beautyberry?

If you’re me, you get a little sapling, find a place with lots of sun, stick it in the ground, and wish it the best of luck. Wild beautyberry is found in meadows, woods, and the edges of ponds and streams. It’s not really picky.

I admit, I’m probably not a great person to ask how to grow things. Most of my most successful plants have been accidents (hi, pumpkins) and part of the reason that I love gardening with native plants and nativars is because they don’t require coddling. Find an appropriate spot, and the plant’ll know what to do.

At the moment, the beautyberry bush I planted is still fairly small. While it’s putting out berries like a champ, there aren’t enough for me to harvest some and leave enough for the birds. Since it’s done so well, though, I’ll definitely be looking for more places to add it to the landscape. By next year, I’ll hopefully have enough for jam, sauce, and even pie!

The most important things I’ve learned about gardening.
life · Plants and Herbs

The most important things I’ve learned about gardening.

J.Leave a comment

I’ve posted a lot about my stumbling efforts at growing things, from murdering the front lawn on purpose, to accidentally planting way too many passionflower vines. It’s certainly been a learning experience, though not in any of the ways that I ever expected.

A pair of ripening pumpkins.

See, I thought I’d learn stuff about soil composition and companion planting. I kind of did the former, if by “learning about soil composition” you mean “discovering that this soil is almost entirely hard clay, good luck.” I have developed strong opinions about mulch, however.

If I had to sum up the two biggest lessons that I’ve learned in my first full year of being responsible for an entire yard, they’d go something like this:

1. If I plant native (or near-native) plants, everything pretty much takes care of itself.

As part of my current course of Druid studies, I’m required to plant and tend a tree (or, lacking a tree, another, smaller plant). I began this study pretty much right after my Handsome Assistant and I planted an Eastern redbud in the front (formerly grass) plot. I was given the okay to use that tree, so that’s what I’ve been working with.

The lesson is supposed to involve building a relationship from planting, watering, and helping a young tree become established, to watching it grow. To be honest, I think I’ve watered this tree maybe three times over several months. It’s native to the area. It’s fine with this soil. It’s putting out new branches and beautiful, heart-shaped leaves on a nearly daily basis.

This seemed a bit like cheating, so I thought I’d start a smaller, auxiliary tree. I wasn’t sure what to plant at first, but the birds made that decision for me: There are an abundance of mulberry sprouts, courtesy of the crows and other birds. They didn’t enjoy being moved, but are doing just fine with minimal intervention. My takeaway here if that if I have to carefully nurture a plant, it probably isn’t the right one. Nature, even transplanted nature, doesn’t really need as much intervention as one might assume.

2. It’s not so much a garden as it is a kind of potluck.

As for the potluck… I’ve mentioned all of the pumpkins in previous entries. (They’ve made for some amazing pumpkin bread.) There’re also sprigs of various kales popping up random places where they were certainly not planted, a thriving bush of bright orange cherry tomatoes, the aforementioned mulberry bushes, and what appears to be a chia plant.

A carpenter bee, a Peck's skipper butterfly, and a sachem butterfly visiting the same flower spike on an anise hyssop plant.

Really, it seems like I don’t actually have to worry about planting fruits and vegetables myself. If I help make this place welcoming enough, tiny guests will show up and bring food. That food may not always show up where I anticipate it, but it flourishes, and I end up with more than enough to share.

A cluster of cherry tomatoes. Most are still green, but a few are beginning to blush orange.

The plants here have mostly gone to seed, so the pollinator garden is as full of birds as it is bees and butterflies. I have no idea what horticultural surprises next spring and summer may hold, but I’m excited to find out!

What’re you gonna do when Dracula comes for you?
Uncategorized

What’re you gonna do when Dracula comes for you?

J.6 Comments

I don’t usually write much about current events. It isn’t that I ignore them, or feel like they’ll bring down my vibe, or think I’m somehow above them — it’s mostly because I don’t think that anyone really needs or wants to hear about them from yet another random blogger. If I lack the experience and language to engage with something on more than a surface level, if I’m going through the same learning process as most everyone else, then there’s no real reason for me to give my two cents, you know?

Every once in a while, though, the news hits different.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the destruction of Lahaina, Hawaii. Depending on your personal social media ecosystem, you may have heard this blamed on Reptilians, energy weapons, and astrological occurrences. The thing that really got me, though, was an image of a “demonic face” in the flames.

It got me, because I remember seeing pretty much the same picture long ago. Only it wasn’t Hawaii, and it wasn’t an entire town — just two buildings. A devil’s face in the smoke billowing from the World Trade Center. A Rorshach’s test for the afraid.
“Look at that! A demon face!”
How easy is it for someone to dehumanize an enemy when they have a sign — however pareidolic, however blurry — that their enemies are in league with the forces of ultimate evil?

History may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes.

I remember another photo. Then-President Bush as he was delivered a folder of important documents, quietly setting them aside. That folder probably didn’t contain any information that could’ve stopped 9/11, but it was no less damning. The CIA had warned his administration months before, and nothing was done.

Sometimes, evil lives in mundane things.

Mundane things, like golf courses and farm land. When Hawaii was taken and sown with sugar cane and pineapples, its water was diverted from wetlands to farmland. When resorts and golf courses came, so was more water diverted. Monoculture brought with it invasive grasses, ill-adapted to Hawaii’s water cycle. Without wetlands, packed now with tinder, Hawaii gave all of the warning signs of a devastating fire. And nothing was done.

Evil lives in a jar of dirt, waiting for analysis. “Handle it with extra care,” they told me, “it’s evidence in litigation.” Evil lives in a board room where it’s debated whether or not it’s cheaper to remediate the soil, or just paying off the people who get sick from it.

It’s easy to point the finger at some kind of Evil Other. Dogmatic religions have been doing it for millennia in the form of devils and heathens. Cults do it by isolating members from non-members. The New Age movement does it by calling its devotees enlightened and high-vibrational and pointing the finger at the “unenlightened” and “low-vibrational.” Some just straight-up blame aliens.

It’s easy to do this, because we will never consider ourselves part of this Evil Other. If we aren’t part of the Evil Other, then we can’t have caused bad things, because it’s common knowledge that the Evil Other is responsible. It’s a tautology that saves us from examining our own mundane habits, and the way that they shape the world.

It’s also easy to blame an Evil Other, because cults, enlightenment, or orthorexia (or whatever your dogma of choice may be) always have a baked-in means of spiritual bypassing. Have the right beliefs, eat the right foods, be born the right way, wear the right things, buy the right stuff, and it will outweigh whatever mundane evil you might contribute to.

But it doesn’t really, does it?

Capitalism came to Hawaii, stripped it of its water, stripped its people of the ability to steward the land, and let it burn for the sake of the money it could get for sugar, pineapples, and vacations.

How many of the same people selling spiritual advice, Starseed activations, and life-coaching courses are willing to blame the Evil Other instead? How many more people are willing to try to extract money from the land even while it burns?

Reptilians, space lasers, and demons didn’t do this. (The photo of an “energy weapon” is a long exposure shot of a launch from years ago. It’s not the only one.) Greed did. The thirst for gold at any cost did. The Evil Other isn’t an alien or supernatural force, it’s us. Every time we engage in spiritual bypassing, every time we point the finger and blame the Other, it’s us. It always was.

There’s not a lot of money to be made in saying that capitalism is the problem. At least, not as much as posting about energy weapons and conspiracies (interspersed with the requisite amounts of platitudes, bare skin, and beach photos, as the algorithm demands).

There’s an old saying, “Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water,” and I think it fits here. Enlightenment — whatever form that may take for each of us — is within. It doesn’t change how we have to move through and engage with the world. It absolves us of nothing.

But say I’m wrong. Say that it’s all true — the Reptilians, the demons, the space lasers. History has rhymed often enough to show us the tools they use. We should know what unchecked greed looks like, what it does, and how it operates. Why are we willing to use these same tools as long as they’re making us money?

What makes us think that saying the right words, buying the right things, eating the right foods, and thinking the right things make us immune from wrongdoing?

Evil is what evil does. Not what it says, wears, eats, or believes. Would we even recognize it when it stares us in the face?

Working with a New Medium: Switching from Acrylic to Casein
art · life

Working with a New Medium: Switching from Acrylic to Casein

J.Leave a comment

Oil paint is not my friend.

To be fair, powerful solvents in general are not my friends. I get headaches at the drop of a hat, so working with paint thinner does not rank highly on my list of enjoyable activities.

That’s why I’ve always painted with acrylic. I’ve also taken steps to minimize how much of that acrylic escapes my studio — from using multiple jars of rinsing water, to multiple trays for evaporating that rinsing water, to stripping off the dried acrylic residue and trying to repurpose it.

Still, I don’t want to work with a medium that’s basic liquid plastic if I don’t have to. That’s where milk paint comes in. Rather than using acrylic as a binding agent, it uses a protein found in milk.

There are some key differences between acrylic and casein paint, though:

  • Casein is inflexible, while acrylic maintains flexibility when it dries. This means that acrylic is good for painting on stretched canvas, while casein is only really suitable for rigid substrates like wood or canvas-covered MDF.
  • Casein dries to a velvety, matte finish, while acrylic can be pretty shiny unless you add matte medium.
  • Casein takes a long time to dry fully. This means that you can wet it and re-work it. Once acrylic dries, it’s dry.
  • Casein works great as an underpainting medium, while acrylic has some drawbacks.
  • Casein dries to the touch very quickly. Acrylic stays wetter for longer, and the addition of retardants can further extend this drying time.
  • Casein has a bit of a smell, while acrylic doesn’t really smell like anything. I have to say that casein’s smell isn’t really objectionable, though. It smells kind of like lemon window cleaner, but the scent is very light.

These didn’t really influence my decision to start using casein paint, because I was more focused on reducing my dependency on acrylic media.

Here are two of my paintings. The first is acrylic, the other is casein:

A painting of a raven on a yellow hillside. The sky is blue, and a silver leaf sun hangs in the clouds.

As you can see, there are some differences in vibrancy and transparency. I also had to change a lot of my techniques in order to successfully work with casein. For example, I like to work wet-on-wet. That’s a bit more challenging with casein, because the under layers are pretty much dry to the touch by the time I’ve scooped up the next color I want to work in. I’m also not used to being able to re-wet and re-work paint once I’ve used it.

Casein also tends to have more opacity than acrylic. (This opacity can, of course, be reduced with the addition of a little water.) Some acrylic pigments are very opaque, but others are quite sheer — almost more like a glaze. Casein goes on like it means it.

I’ve noticed that I also have to work more quickly with casein. If I take too long, it’ll start to dry on me. The same dry-brushing techniques that I was taught with acrylic don’t really work here.

All in all, while working with casein has taken some adjustment on my part, I love it. I actually prefer it to acrylic now, especially when it comes to opacity. It’s a beautiful medium that’s been in use for millennia, and one that I hope sees even more use in the future.