Not a Picture Perfect Life

Personal ramblings of a Russian jewelry student in Canada who tries to make it through life. Thought I'd make it Pinterest-perfect. No such luck, obviously. Main topics include - jewelry making, art of dubious value and even more dubious dorm food.

[an-adhd-infested-nerd]

Me when a game lets you explore the ocean, find fish, help people and there are also horrors.

[pangothepangolin]

treat everyone like an eldritch god.

Formless, and can be in whatever the heck form it wants, and have the pronouns of whatever the fuck it wants. It’s an eldritch god!

[the-fab-fox-deactivated20250925]

My bestie's and my brother, ladies and gents, had the best take.

My mind was blown by this.

[briefbestiary]

These female water spirits appear to be a Scottish analogue of the French water spirit known as the Drac. Regardless, be wary of picking up objects in the water that seem to be exactly what you want.

[briefbestiary]

The hero of the tale, Prince Petru, overcame each of the Welwa in turn, bridled them, and thus freed them from their curse returning them to horses. Interestingly, the second Welwa was seven times as the one before, and the final Welwa, the youngest brother, was seven times seven times as strong as the second. The beast is also described strangely, no head but not headless, flightless but not alighting upon the earth, and a body that supposedly resembles anything except a living being. Described with contradiction, yet it also has the face of a bear, the mane of a horse, the antlers of a stag, and a polecat's eyes. For the purpose of physical clarity, I chose H.J. Ford's illustration of the beast as the basis for this entry.

[onenakedfarmer]

Reading

Elsie Spicer Eells THE ISLANDS OF MAGIC Legends, Folk and Fairy Tales from the Azores

[ohnoaname]

So LGBTQ+ is now completely illegal in Russia. I wonder if anyone going to talk about that. I'm so tired

[gorkaya-trava]

so, today we, russian queers, may become "extremists" by decision of russian supreme court and thus our existence will be silenced and erased. any queer activism will be impossible for us. I don't know what to do anymore. I was heartbroken when they passed the laws about "gay propaganda" and transgender people, now I'm just numb. I don't want to escape. I just want to live safely in my own country.

please hear us.

[tobnuuy]

why is it that people who dont play hollow knight are the funniest about it. friend whos been watching me play sent me this headcanon of theirs

[thejewitches]

Make sure to read further on Jewitches.com

[rosecoloredtarot]

Since I have seen a post or two floating around recently on the topic: natural medicine is not inherently better than synthetic medicine. In fact, it’s arguably less effective. Chamomile has lovely antiseptic properties, but you know what works better? Betadine. Lavender is great to calm you down, but will it pull you out of a panic attack? No, that’s what Diazepam is for. There is a time and a place for herbal remedies, but certain things plants simply cannot help.

Don’t entrust your healthcare to someone on the internet. Ask your doctor and, if you must, see a certified herbalist.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Okay, y'all, it's rant time again. Buckle up.

A new report just came out from Public Citizen highlighting the dangers of using apps and AI foraging guides for identifying mushrooms, particularly when mushroom foraging. It's the latest in a string of warnings that are fighting against a tide of purported convenience ("just take a picture and get your answer instantly!")

I've ranted about this since last August, and I also wrote up a detailed post on how to identify an AI-generated foraging guide. I'm also including info on the limitations of apps and AI in The Everyday Naturalist: How to Identify Animals, Plants, and Fungi Wherever You Go. I'm not just saying this to toot my own horn--it's because nature identification, and teaching it to others, is literally what I do for a living. So this is a topic near and dear to my heart.

I teach a very, very specific sort of identification class; whether we're focusing on animals, plants, fungi, or all of the above, I walk people through a detailed process of how to observe a given organism, make note of its various physical traits and habitat, and use that information to try to determine what it is. I emphasize the need to use as many sources as possible--field guides, websites, online and in-person groups, journal articles, etc.--to make absolutely sure that your identification is solid.

And every year, I get people (thankfully, a very small minority of my students) who complain because my two-hour basic mushroom hunting class wasn't just five minutes of introduction and one hundred and fifteen minutes of me showing slide after slide of edible mushrooms. There are so many people out there who just want a quick, easy answer so they can frolic in the woods and blithely pick mushrooms like some idealized image of a cottagecore herbalist with a cabin full of dried plants and smiling frogs or something.

While I do incorporate a bit of information on getting started with the app iNaturalist in my classes, it is as only ONE of MANY tools I encourage people to use. Sure, it's more solid than most apps because, in addition to the algorithmic I.D. suggestions it initially gives you, other iNaturalist users can go onto your observations later and either agree with your I.D.s or suggest something different and even explain why.

And yet--even as great as iNat is, it and its users can still be wrong. So can every other I.D. app out there. And I think that is one thing that the hyper-romanticized approaches to foraging--and nature identification in general--miss. In order to be a good forager, you HAVE to also be good at nature identification.

And nature identification is an entire process that requires you to have solid observational and critical thinking skills, to be able to independently research using many different types of tools, and be willing to invest the time, patience, and focus to properly arrive at a solid identification--if not to species level, then as far down the taxonomic ladder as you can realistically manage. (There's a reason even the experts complain about Little Brown Mushrooms and Damned Yellow Composites!)

People mistake one single tool--apps--for the entire toolkit. They assume any book they find on Amazon is going to be as good as any other, and don't take the time to look up the author to determine any credentials or experience, or even whether they actually exist or not. It doesn't help that the creators of these products often advertise them as "the only [book/app/etc.] you need to easily identify [organism of choice]!"

I mean, sure, the world isn't going to end if you never question the birdsong results on the Merlin app, or if you go through life thinking a deer fern is just a baby western sword fern. But when we get into people actually eating things they find in the wild, there's often no room for error. There are plants and mushrooms that can kill you even if you only eat a tiny amount. And even if they don't kill you, they may make you wish you were dead for a few days while you suffer through a whole host of gastrointestinal nastiness and other symptoms.

There aren't any shortcuts if you want to be safe in your foraging. You HAVE to be willing to do the work. And any teacher, author, or product that says otherwise isn't being ethical. I'm glad to see more people speaking out against the "fast foodization" of foraging in regards to overreliance on apps and the existence of AI foraging books; I just hope it's enough to prevent more people from getting sick or dying.

[southernmermaidsgrotto]

Herbalism book reccomendations 📚🌿

General herbalism:

The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook by Green J. (2011)

20,000 Secrets of Tea: The Most Effective Ways to Benefit from Nature’s Healing Herbs by Zak V. (1999)

The Modern Herbal Dispensatory: A Medicine-Making Guid by Easly T. (2016)

A-Z Guide to Drug-Herb-Vitamin Interactions by Gaby A.R.

American Herbal Products Association’s Botanical Safety Handbook (2013) 

Medical Herbalism: The Science and Practice of Herbal Medicine by Hoffman D. (2003)

Herbal Medicine for Beginners: Your Guide to Healing Common Ailments with 35 Medicinal Herbs by Swift K & Midura R (2018)

Today’s Herbal Health: The Essential Reference Guide by Tenney L. (1983)

Today’s Herbal Health for Women: The Modern Woman’s Natural Health Guide by Tenney L (1996)

Today’s Herbal Health for Children: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding Nutrition and Herbal Medicine for Children by Tenney L. (1996)

For my black folks!!!

African Medicine: A Complete Guide to Yoruba Healing Science and African Herbal Remedies by Sawandi T.M. (2017)

Handbook of African Medicinal Plants by Iwu M.M. (1993)

Working The Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing by Lee M.E. (2017)

Hoodoo Medicine: Gullah Herbal Remedies by Mitchell F. (2011)

African American Slave Medicine: Herbal and non-Herbal Treatments by Covey H.C. (2008)

The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism: Transform, Heal, and Remember with the Power of Plants and Ancestral Medicine by Rose K.M. (2022)

Indigenous authors & perspectives!!

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Kimmerer R.W. (2015)

Gathering moss by Kimmerer R.W. (2003)

The Plants Have So Much To Give All We Have To Do Is Ask by Siisip Geniusz M. (2005)

Our Knowledge Is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Botanical Anishinaabe Teachings by Djinn Geniusz W. (2009)

Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: ethnobotany and ecological wisdom of indigenous peoples of northwestern North America by Turner N. (2014)

A Taste of Heritage: Crow Indian Recipes and Herbal Medicines by Hogan Snell A. (2006)

Medicines to Help Us by Belcourt C. (2007)

After the First Full Moon in April: A Sourcebook of Herbal Medicine from a California Indian Elder by Grant Peters J. (2010)

Latin american herbalism works!!

Earth Medicines: Ancestral Wisdom, Healing Recipes, and Wellness Rituals from a Curandera by Cocotzin Ruiz F. (2021)

Hierbas y plantas curativas by Chiti J.F. (2015)

Del cuerpo a las raíces by San Martín P.P., Cheuquelaf I. & Cerpa C. (2011)

Manual introductorio a la Ginecología Natural by San Martín P.P.

🌿This is what I have for now but I’ll update the post as I find and read new works, so keep coming if you wanna check for updates. Thank you for reading 🌿

[grotesque-grimoire]

Magical correspondences are only valid within a magic belief structure and have little-to-no validity outside of that structure.

There may be reasons why an herb corresponds to xyz in some belief systems, but that doesn't mean that the herb has those abilities within chemistry and/or medicine.

Don't fucking consume an herb based only on it's magical correspondence.

Do not consume an herb without doing the proper research into interactions, contraindications, side-effects, preparation, and dosage.

Don't start taking herbal medicine without consulting your physician first.

"Witch" and "herbalist" are not synonyms.

"Herbalist" and "doctor" are not synonyms.

"Natural" does not mean "harmless".

Mundane > Magical, always, no exceptions.

[exoflash]

a concerning amount of witchblr will be like "um actually new years was stolen by europeans from the ancient god scroobus mcdoobus" and then you actually try to research scroobus mcdoobus and it turns out he was invented in the 1940s by a conspiracy theorist who powdered every meal with ketamine and thinks that queer people are reincarnated fish

[luna--778]

Lookin for a midnight treat

[daily-spooky]