soup du jour

Call me Grim. They/them, 21+. Minors dni.

[breelandwalker]

Heal Thy Heart Powder

Intent: To relieve heartache, heartbreak, loneliness, grief, and other emotional pains.

Ingredients:

Red Roses

Cloves

Cinnamon

Witch Hazel

Orange Peel

Cherry Bark (or blossoms)

Coriander

Materials:

Mortar & Pestle (or spice grinder)

Funnel

Mesh Strainer

Collection Dish

Container

Note: Powdered versions of most herbs are available online. I recommend such sites as Starwest Botanicals and Penn Herbs for the quality products at reasonable prices. Also, if you can get your hands on a good spice grinder, you can make your own powder from dried herb products.

Grind each ingredient separately to produce fine powder. Sieve the material through the mesh strainer into the collection dish; this removes the larger unground pieces and gives you cleaner powdered herb. (Pro-Tip: Putting a funnel under the mesh strainer reduces lost material and makes collection much easier.)

Combine the component powders in the collection dish, mix well, and bottle immediately. For volume, go heavier on the less expensive or more easily available materials like Red Roses, Cloves, and Cinnamon. Otherwise, combine in more or less even amounts.

Use in any spellwork designed to ease pains of the heart, be they from loss, fatigue, relationships, loneliness, or general sadness. Add to charms to help one recover from emotional pain.

For more recipes to fill out your potion kit, you can check out Pestlework: A Book of Magical Powders & Oils. (Available on Amazon and in my shop!)

If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊

[friend-crow]

I am constantly surprised to learn what is considered advanced magic.

Where does this information even come from? Is there a list? What is happening? Where's my nap?

[upthewitchypunx]

My hot take is that advanced witchcraft isn't always knowing all the things, but knowing where to find what you need and knowing you have the skill to bring it all together.

[asksecularwitch]

my cold take is that an advanced witch knows how to make black pepper into any kind of spell. I think you thought of at least two while reading that last sentence, but if you've done three in your mind you're advanced. If it's more than that, like me, you're spell Georg and get out of here *SOB*

[friend-crow]

*pointing and chanting*

Spells Georg! Spells Georg!!

[windvexer]

two-pronged test to see if you are an Advanced Witch(tm): 1) can you find what you need and have the skill to bring it all together? 2) the thing you've found is black pepper, and that isn't a speed bump no matter what kind of spell you're working on

[upthewitchypunx]

Please, someone drawn this as a comic flow chart.

[friend-crow]

It took me a while to get around to, but I made it... As it turns out these things are kind of hard to arrange.

[friend-crow]

#hey by the way the last time this went around I got an angry person FURIOUS that 'advancedness' was being gatekept

I mean yes, this is a shitpost. But also... both of these are such low bars as a litmus test of "advancedness". Like... can you figure out how to do the kinds of spells you need? No? Okay, maybe you're intermediate. What's wrong with that?

[witchy-rainy-nights]

🔥🌱Brigid Devotional Tips🌱🔥

Brigid (”The Fiery Arrow”, “The Ash-less Flame”, “The Moon Crowned Lady of the Undying Flame”) is the Celtic goddess of fertility, healing, music, poetry and smith craft. She´s the daughter of The Dagda and is incredibly loving and nourishing. 

Celebrate Imbolc.

Cleanse yourself and your space calling upon her to purify you. 

Whenever you need her help, light a yellow candle and tell her why you´re invoking her. She´s very loving and will help you. 

Offer her your creative projects (a drawing, a song, etc)

Offer her blackberries. 

Practice grounding yourself.

Ask her for help whenever you start a new project/adventure. 

Give eco-friendly offerings to Birch trees.

Connect with the element of fire. 

When life´s difficult, find your inner fire and strength. 

Cleanse your second chakra for it is the center of creativity and is theme of the divine mother.

Light candles around your house (if it is safe)

Find love and beauty in all you sense. 

Become acquainted with your own cycles.

Recognize whenever you need a fresh start.

Practice not being scared of changes and new beginnings. 

Start the morning telling her your intentions of the day. 

Contemplate what needs to heal within you and ask her for help. 

If you or one of your loved ones is sick, ask for her healing powers. 

Create or buy an iron amulet.

The Dagda // The Morrigan // Aine 

[breelandwalker]

Nineteen Flames For Brigid

Excerpt from “Tending Brigid’s Flame” by Lunaea Weatherstone

This prayer litany can be done all at once or over nineteen nights. You can offer one prayer each night or do it “Twelve Days of Christmas” style: on the first night, offer Flame 1′s prayer, on the second night offer the prayers for Flames 1 and 2, and so on until on the last night you offer all nineteen. However you get there, when you’ve lit that final flame, remember that Brigid holds the twentieth flame, which is eternal.

Flame 1: Wisdom

Brigid of brightness, I bid thee welcome, Brigid of blessing, come thou in. Brigid of strength, I bid thee welcome, This night and every night, this day and every day.

Flame 2: Hearth and Household

Brigid of the threshold, come thou in, Brigid of the hearthfire, take your ease, Brigid of the cook-pot, sup with us, Brigid of all comforts, live in our hearts.

Flame 3: Ancestors

Ancestors all, I embody your legacy, Ancestors all, I ask for your blessing, Ancestors all, I offer Brigid’s flame To light the needfires of deep memory.

Flame 4: Flamekeeper

Brigid of the timeless flame, bless your [children]: Those who keep the circle bright, Those whose faith has never failed, Those who keep your name ablaze.

Flame 5: Healing

Brigid of the holy waters, Brigid of the soothing hand, Brigid of the miracles, Touch me with healing.

Flame 6: Poetry

Brigid of lore, deepen my understanding, Brigid of bards, increase my eloquence, Brigid of poetry, lead me to beauty, Brigid of word and beauty of thought.

Flame 7: Courage

Brigid of the golden shield, Brigid of courage, Brigid of the sunbeam, Increase thou my trust.

Flame 8: Righteous Causes

Brigid, lend your righteous sword To those who work for justice, To those who speak the truth, To those who seek a better world.

Flame 9: The Oppressed

In the name of Brigid, who empowers the oppressed, In the name of Brigid, who released the enslaved, In the name of Brigid, who lifts up the downtrodden, May all her people be honored and free.

Flame 10: Children

Brigid the midwife, bless every birth, Brigid foster mother, protect every child, Brigid of springtime, bestow on each childhood The innocence of wonder and the magic of joy.

Flame 11: Women’s Causes

Mighty Brigid, your keening women call to you: Strengthen our voice, Strengthen our resolve, Strengthen our sisterhood.

Flame 12: The Earth

Brigid, preserve this planet, The stones and the seas and the skies. Brigid, spread your green mantle For the greening of the earth.

Flame 13: Animals

Brigid, protect the earth’s animals, The fish and the beasts and the bird. Brigid, shelter your creatures As your sheep shelter lambs from the wind.

Flame 14: Water

Brigid of the clear dewdrop, Brigid of the pure wellspring, Brigid of the pool of knowledge, Teach us to honor the gift of water.

Flame 15: Creativity

Bright Brigid, flame of creation, Kindle my enthusiasm, Fire up my passion, Ignite my imagination.

Flame 16: Nourishment

Brigid of the overflowing milk, Brigid of the good brown loaf, Brigid of the endless butter, May all beings be nourished.

Flame 17: Peace

Peace of the swan and peace of the [cattle], Peace of the hearth and peace of the open door, Peace between neighbors and peace between nations, The deep peace of Brigid within.

Flame 18: Gratefulness

Brigid, I thank thee three-times-three: For my birth, my body, my spirit, For my kin, my clan, my tribe, For my home, my work, my knowledge of thee.

Flame 19: The Three Flames of Brigid

May the hearthfire of welcome warm me, May the temple fire of faith sustain me, May the forge fire of change strengthen me, And Brigid’s love encompass me, now and evermore.

[Note: Some words have been changed.]

[grimoiresunday]

C(h)ord Cutting

There's a common misspelling that i find in these communities that i think can be read as an enhancement to the concept: I've seen a lot of practitioners talk about chord cutting when they mean to say cord cutting.

A *cord* is like a line or rope; it connects or binds two things together, so cutting that allows the two things to be separated.

A *chord* is a group of musical notes played simultaneously. They can be major, minor, diminished, augmented, or extended, and possibly many other things as well, all of which have different effects on the musical experience and mood, which can also vary by culture (in the West, minor chords are sad, but in some non-Western music, they are sometimes happy).

Now, most of the time, we really do mean "cord cutting" because we are severing the connection between two elements for whatever reason. However, "chord cutting" is a fascinating concept to me because for example, if you took a minor triad and cut out the minor third, you'd be left with a fifth, which is generally considered "pure" rather than happy or sad; this would also allow you to add in a major third and make the triad major.

The idea of classifying elements in one's life as musical notes and structuring relationships between them as musical chords, I think, could allow for a very interesting and very nuanced perception of how things interact and reframe the way we think about altering those connections.

I'm not musically savvy or magically practiced enough to do much with this information, but I thought it was a fun concept.

[femboycatofmystery]

Hey folks let me anti-doomscroll you for a quick second:

Batteries and Solar have been getting cheap very quickly for a long time now and not only is it not stopping, but even at the rates it's at the economics of energy are shifting rapidly. The costs of decarbonizing all forms of electric power are now more down to infrastructure and planning than bulk cost. Compare and contrast to the turn of the century when Solar was so prohibitively expensive that saying we'd meet any meaningful fraction of our needs with photovoltaics would have gotten you laughed out of the room.

Meanwhile, although there are lots of complicated moving parts and a surprising amount of gross politics attached, gas cars are now less good in most ways than electric. Again, at the turn of the century this would have sounded laughable.

Many industries have specific needs that prevent direct conversion to electric, but hydrocarbon fuels are not intrinsically fossil fuels and can be made as a storage medium for solar. Hydrocarbon fuels made in this way are intrinsically carbon neutral. The technology is relatively young, but from a basic math perspective looks very doable.

Inflation actually has more to do with the above than it does with whatever it is the federal reserve does, and pulling down a supply of energy from the sky that requires less infrastructure to get (which is true because that's why it's cheaper now) directly helps.

The current "business as usual" scenarios with global warming are lower than they used to be, because the solar transition is just sort of happening because of economics without a lot of government help. All of the above lower the amount of friction and pushback we face when trying to get the government to do something.

By the way, the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Joe Biden a couple years back, is explicitly designed to accelerate these trends.

As disastrous as the current projections for global warming are, it's important to keep two things in perspective: first, that they are exactly that, disasters, not the end-of-the-world kind but more sort of the hurricanes and floods kind, and second, while they certainly will get worse before they get better, they can and will get better. What we do now from a policy perspective has an outsize impact on how much flooding, droughts, and other weather-related costs we will face in the decades to come, but "human civilization ends" is not actually particularly likely. It is much more realistic to say "we could have a huge number of climate-related disasters or a moderately increased number, and every little bit of policy work helps move the needle".

We can and we will solve global warming, the question is not if but when, and how many lives can we save or improve by acting as soon as possible. Imagining this as an almost-certain death sentence for the future of humanity and nature is not merely unrealistic, but wildly counterproductive. It is paralyzing and enervating when what will do the most good is planning, policy, and communication.

Remember, despair is not a tool for positive change. Hope is the real language of revolution.

[breelandwalker]

Magical Powder Recipes

A collection of some of my original magical powder recipes.

All-Purpose Cursing Powder

Bree's Banishing Powder

Clean House Powder

Come Hither Powder

Dead Man's Dust

Dream Dust

“Eye of Sauron” Revelation Powder

Get Thee Hence Powder

Ghost-Be-Gone Powder

Heal Thy Heart Powder

Hexbreaker Powder

Inspiration Salt

Lucky Day Powder

“Outta My Way” Powder

Peacekeeper Powder

Persuasion Powder

STFU Powder

Traveler’s Luck Powder

Truthfinder Powder

For those of you who may not be able to find herbs locally, here are some online suppliers who consistently have affordable and high-quality products.

Penn Herb Co. - Bulk herbs, spices, and botanicals - including over 400 wildcrafted herbs, gathered from the United States and worldwide. Single ounce packages are available. Excellent source for powders.

Starwest Botanicals - Bulk herbs, spices, oils, and teas. Good amount of organic and Fair Trade products, as well as supplies for holistic medicine and tea-making.

Mountain Rose Herbs - Bulk herbs, spices, and sundries. Also carries organic products and essential oils, and has link to schools that offer courses in herbalism and herbology.

Bulk Apothecary - Bulk herbs, spices, and oils, in addition to materials for the home production of soap, candles, wine, and beer.

For more recipes to fill out your potion kit, you can check out Pestlework: A Book of Magical Powders & Oils. (Available on Amazon and in my shop!)

If you're enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊

[will-o-the-witch]

The performance element of witchcraft

Everyone performs. It's just an inherent part of talking about any practice, and that's not a bad thing. It's part of engaging with any community. Talking about cool experiences we have, things we want to do, taking pictures, making posts, etc. We even perform to ourselves, make things #aesthetic to get in the mindset.

The problem is when THAT'S what our identity as practitioners begins to hinge on. Sometimes it's better to keep certain things personal. Sometimes we risk focusing most on the appearance of the act rather than the actual intended results.

Ask yourself: if you could speak to NOBODY about your work, take no pictures, share nothing, what would you do? Would it change? What gives you peace when nobody else is around to give it to you?

[stormwaterwitch]

I like to think that there are more than four elements. Earth Air Fire Water Light Dark Time Space I also like to think that there are combined elements.

Water +Air= Storms Water+Earth= Mud Water+Fire= Steam Earth+Fire= Lava Earth+Air= Dust Fire+Air= Smoke

I know for SURE I am a combo of Water and Air Elements. I’ve always felt a pull towards both my whole life. 

What do you think?

or are there different Elements that i’m missing?

[dumbbbunnnyy-deactivated2021021]

I agree. I have always felt like space and time were key elements that the others couldn’t exist without in the first place.

[the-darkest-of-lights]

I feel the same about the light and dark. 

[occultlongings]

So it becomes almost like the color wheel - a spectrum of primary and secondary elementals

This makes sense to me

[stormwaterwitch]

I’ve even taken it further into tertiary elements~ Primary: Fire earth Water air Secondary: Time space Light Dark Tertiary: Luck Fate Chaos Order ;> But glad that it’s clicked with you! :D i just always felt like there was so much more to the elements

[chillgamesh-the-swing]

quick n dirty diagram since it’s something i’ve been thinking about a lot. 

I stuck to more material elements for the wheel and treat the others as more of a context. Energy/light is undifferentiated existence that is the sum of all things and all of their qualities but also has no specific traits of its own, just potential. Whereas void/dark is simply absence of any of these things. Time and space are basically the same function and serve as a framework for the physical world (four base elements and potentially infinite extrapolations thereof). It gets complicated between fire and water– those things have such a hard time coexisting, so I included a couple different substances that seem to embody both natures, but they’re also kinda close to other elements so??

I’m honestly not sure how to include @stormwaterwitch‘s tertiary elements in this model. Further thought pending.

[stormwaterwitch]

Whoa! I love it! :D

[grimoiresunday]

I see we are once again sleeping on Wuxing (五行), the concept of five elements in Chinese philosophy:

Wood

Fire

Earth

Metal

Water

I love the idea of expanding beyond the core set of traditional elements, but it's also important to keep in mind that the Western four are not universal. Note the absence of Air in the Chinese system, for example, and consider why that might be.

Does it lack sufficient influence in that system? Is it able to be folded into a subtype of a main element? Is it possible it was just overlooked because it's invisible? What do external sources say about it? What makes sense in terms of how you interact with the elements?

I personally recognize Air as an element in its own right, but I also see value in including Wood and Metal, so my system is more like a six element system.

It's not necessary to reinvent the wheel, and the concept or concepts you use in your practice don't need to resemble anyone else's. But it is always worth it to ask "why?", and then either research it or play with it until you figure something out.

[shirtsthatgohard]

[doggirls-in-stem]

this is edited. here’s the original photo, taken at the Second National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights, in October of 1987:

Article 27 of the Maryland Annotated Code was a law prohibiting a number of common sexual acts; sections 553/554 specifically criminalizing sodomy and oral sex, and making them punishable by up to ten years in prison.

that law wasn’t repealed until 2020. i don’t have the time to do more research on this right now but reading some articles it seems like its repeal was fraught and maybe not even complete. there’s definitely cases of it being used to arrest patrons at gay bars.

so like yeah fuck censorship and the hays code but this young man (who i think is identified somewhere, again, if i could do more research rn i would) is humorously protesting the criminalization of gay sexuality, specifically sodomy. kinda shitty to edit the original message.

[asksecularwitch]

Can one be a low key catholic and also into witchcraft

Orthodox or Roman? What kind of witchcraft? So there are Syncretic practices that come from various specific cultural backgrounds and norms. Since I don't have any experience with Roman Catholicism, let's talk about Orthodoxy for a minute.

So my understanding is there are pockets (pockets) of folk magic that exist in the world that are blended with Orthodoxy. To the point where it's become a ~thing~ for some of the branches of Orthodoxy to explicitly say if you're practicing ~this~ and you cannot be an Orthodox christian (because right belief and whatever). However... as with most folk syncretic practices, what u gonna do? kick them out? excommunicate? yall ain't got much to do because I guarantee that those icons will just stay in their house, ngl. I said folk magic, it's not necessarily witchcraft, but it could be. So I'm just aligning it to that. You can also practice a religion and practice secular witchcraft to the side. Of course, if you have strong feelings or your religion really explicitly hates a particular other practice, or you feel nervous about interacting with of course any of the Angels while also being a witch, then you will need to build a secular witchcraft practice that doesn't offend your religious senses or harm your religious obligations. So you may consider some ethical things that exist in your religious obligations as part of the necessary build or construction of your practice. Furthermore you may need to spend more time understanding the boundaries between your religion and your religious obligations versus your boundaries in your witchcraft. If you intend it to be more of a blend rather than two separate practices. Because sometimes there's a whole conversation around how your faith (in Orthodoxy explicitly) informs the actions that you do (because literally that's in the name). So while you may be following your Orthodox calendar for Pascha being some time in May this year, and you may be following your fasting, and doing your prayers as part of the item. You could also be implementing those prayers into a daily witchcraft practice. Every day for the most part on an Orthodox Calendar has people/saints/angels/events going on that day so you could potentially build that into that witchcraft practice as alignment over things like what kinds of spirits or offerings or things you do on any one day. It's up to you anon, whatever you feel most comfortable with.

[oracleishdiviner]

May I intercept the discussion, since I was raised as a Roman Catholic until I decided to cut ties with it, but still, I live in Italy, so I am culturally Christian influenced?

Since the Romans decided to switch to Christianity, there was a gigantic "problem" (for them, for them!) to convert people in the countrysides, the "pagan" weren't interested in the new God, their Deities and spirits were what they liked, so Syncretism HAD to happen.

You see, there is ( I will ruffle more than some feathers with this) a good 70% in the Roman Catholic faith that is giving a wink to those syncretic, folk and esoteric practices that the first Christian tried to "erase". Those copy and paste celebrations or Deities and spirits, became saints and Catholic days of their religious year. I am thinking about the Epifania, for example or the Candelora, traditions in Italy, that aren't much Christian, but much more ancient and introduced to "convince" the countryside population that convert to the new religion was good.

There is a lot to tell, with the name of the Saints, maybe Angels if one is willing to dig deeper, who knows, and the many practices that are going on where the Roman Church, touched a population. Folk magic is happily incorporated in todays Catholicism (I think the Church itself knows it and it's closing an eye since those people who are still practicing are Catholics anyway) and in some regions passed down to new generations too!

There are Roman Catholic witches too, who are deeply devoted in their religion but also very active in their witchcraft, of course, many could choose to call themselves in another way, yet they incorporate a typical form of magic with the Bible, Saints, Angels or calling in their God.

This one to tell you, Anon, that it's quite possible to be a Catholic and a witch, too!

[novicewitch-hot-takes]

Also?

Rules are fake and made up, and you can do whatever you want forever, no matter what. That's like the first rule of witchcraft, imo.

I know there are A LOT of Christians and specifically Catholics who would say, "no you absolutely cannot", but then you have to ask, "why do you care what they think? "

[asksecularwitch]

No.

I have a lot of rules, mostly ethics and morality based, in my witchcraft as well as in my personal life. Some of them are built on philosophic principles. Removing them would break a lot of fundamental parts of my own witchcraft.

Rules are very important, even if they are "made up," and you have no right to tell someone that their rules are fake.

This sentiment completely disrespects someone's ask here as a simple hand wave is neither fair nor appropriate as a response to this question. If someone is looking how to balance their Catholicism (Orthodox or Roman or of any kind of Catholicism more broadly) in their witchcraft, they will look to their community - a vibrant, multicultural and expansive community of witches and Catholics of all kinds, and then they will make the decisions about building the practice that works for them within the rules that they want to enforce and incorporate. They will build rules and make a unique practice in addition to that vibrant community, some of which they may pattern from that community as expressed by myself and the other responder.

You may think we said the same thing in our posts, but we did not.

I explicitly did not tell the original asker "well who gives a fuck about someone else's opinion" or "who gives a fuck about these other christians" because it's irrelevant. They aren't talking about anyone else's opinions. But I did want to address the feeling that some Catholic (at least in Orthodoxy) folk feel that they are some how "trouncing" on their Orthodoxy, as I said the icons stay anyway even if the "worst" thing (excommunication) happens. It's a vulnerability that some people do feel but they manage to balance it. That was my intent. I am sorry if I lead you astray.

They are simply asking about being able to be both a Catholic person and a witch, and is there a history in the community for it.

I hope that I was able to change your mind on what was the right way to reply to this kind of question.

[witches-bottle-deactivated20241]

There's no better joy in this world than watching someone collapse to their own self when you agree with them:

You know witchcraft is probably the placebo, right?

Me - yeah

Them expecting a fight - wait, why do you practice it then?

I don't know whether I'm placeboing myself a new life or whether I'm manipulating the forces of change in the universe but either way, I'm becoming a better version of myself and overcoming my enemies, my own issues and living well. Is that not what the end game is?

[petrichorvoices]

non-Natives cannot be w/nd/go/g. non-Natives cannot be w/nd/gokin, nor w/nd/go extranths, nor any other sort of w/nd/go identity. i don’t say this to be exclusionary, i say this as a Native person who’s tired of our culture and religion being bastardized, appropriated, and stolen by colonizers. i say this as someone who’s tired of plain old racism being excused by those who straight-up don’t care about Native voices

a w/nd/go is not just some cannibal ice monster, nor is it some deer cryptid, nor is it merely a Native personification of evil. it is far, far more than that, and it requires cultural knowledge and experience to really understand. this is knowledge and experience that non-Natives are not let into because of centuries of us sharing our culture with people who take it, misunderstand it, silence us when we try to correct them about it, and then continue to oppress Natives while enjoying cherrypicked parts of our culture

if you, as a non-Native, believe that you may be a w/nd/go; no, you are not. i’d recommend looking into monsters and such that aren’t from closed cultures, as well as potentially taking a look at invented species from things such as the furry culture, and then proceeding to uplift Native voices on this topic

non-Natives are encouraged to reblog this, and please, don’t uncensor the word unless you have to. i don’t want anything coming after me that i’m not prepared for

[asksecularwitch]

Where do we, I mean uh, YOU, find dragon transformation spells to try out? Just asking because I want to experim- understand, I mean, more about your process.

I mean I do be googling some transformation spells. But I used to find them on webrings. Sometimes they are in spell books.

For instance the one I keep referring to (knife in the woods) is actually a wolf transformation spell that I retrofitted for a dragon transformation spell (because u know how it is, go big or go home). It's basically, you go into the woods, find a naturally fallen tree, bring a silver knife (I brought a knife that was silver-ish?) stab the tree, say something, hop over the knife (and the tree), and as you're in mid hop you are supposed to transform.

Then if you want to come back to human, you must hop over the knife the other way than you went.

There's a lot of interesting /spell technique/ in this one transformation spell I tell you what.

But there are definitely other transformation spells that are specifically for dragons. I just google them or I see them in spellbooks and I enjoy myself.

[rosecoloredtarot]

Next spell I make is going to be a Pull the Trigger Spell. Not in a shooting way, but a "actually do the thing you've been talking about for years" way.

Gotta think of some motivation components.

[friend-crow]

correspondence: gun

[grimoiresunday]

gun is an element.

[pnwnativeplants]

[reasonsforhope]

Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.

Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms.

The city’s water managers, though, were ready and waiting. Like other urban areas around the world, in recent years LA has been transforming into a “sponge city,” replacing impermeable surfaces, like concrete, with permeable ones, like dirt and plants. It has also built out “spreading grounds,” where water accumulates and soaks into the earth.

With traditional dams and all that newfangled spongy infrastructure, between February 4 and 7 the metropolis captured 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater, enough to provide water to 106,000 households for a year. For the rainy season in total, LA has accumulated 14.7 billion gallons.

Long reliant on snowmelt and river water piped in from afar, LA is on a quest to produce as much water as it can locally. “There's going to be a lot more rain and a lot less snow, which is going to alter the way we capture snowmelt and the aqueduct water,” says Art Castro, manager of watershed management at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “Dams and spreading grounds are the workhorses of local stormwater capture for either flood protection or water supply.”

Centuries of urban-planning dogma dictates using gutters, sewers, and other infrastructure to funnel rainwater out of a metropolis as quickly as possible to prevent flooding. Given the increasingly catastrophic urban flooding seen around the world, though, that clearly isn’t working anymore, so now planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability. “The problem of urban hydrology is caused by a thousand small cuts,” says Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley. “No one driveway or roof in and of itself causes massive alteration of the hydrologic cycle. But combine millions of them in one area and it does. Maybe we can solve that problem with a thousand Band-Aids.”

Or in this case, sponges. The trick to making a city more absorbent is to add more gardens and other green spaces that allow water to percolate into underlying aquifers—porous subterranean materials that can hold water—which a city can then draw from in times of need. Engineers are also greening up medians and roadside areas to soak up the water that’d normally rush off streets, into sewers, and eventually out to sea...

To exploit all that free water falling from the sky, the LADWP has carved out big patches of brown in the concrete jungle. Stormwater is piped into these spreading grounds and accumulates in dirt basins. That allows it to slowly soak into the underlying aquifer, which acts as a sort of natural underground tank that can hold 28 billion gallons of water.

During a storm, the city is also gathering water in dams, some of which it diverts into the spreading grounds. “After the storm comes by, and it's a bright sunny day, you’ll still see water being released into a channel and diverted into the spreading grounds,” says Castro. That way, water moves from a reservoir where it’s exposed to sunlight and evaporation, into an aquifer where it’s banked safely underground.

On a smaller scale, LADWP has been experimenting with turning parks into mini spreading grounds, diverting stormwater there to soak into subterranean cisterns or chambers. It’s also deploying green spaces along roadways, which have the additional benefit of mitigating flooding in a neighborhood: The less concrete and the more dirt and plants, the more the built environment can soak up stormwater like the actual environment naturally does.

As an added benefit, deploying more of these green spaces, along with urban gardens, improves the mental health of residents. Plants here also “sweat,” cooling the area and beating back the urban heat island effect—the tendency for concrete to absorb solar energy and slowly release it at night. By reducing summer temperatures, you improve the physical health of residents. “The more trees, the more shade, the less heat island effect,” says Castro. “Sometimes when it’s 90 degrees in the middle of summer, it could get up to 110 underneath a bus stop.”

LA’s far from alone in going spongy. Pittsburgh is also deploying more rain gardens, and where they absolutely must have a hard surface—sidewalks, parking lots, etc.—they’re using special concrete bricks that allow water to seep through. And a growing number of municipalities are scrutinizing properties and charging owners fees if they have excessive impermeable surfaces like pavement, thus incentivizing the switch to permeable surfaces like plots of native plants or urban gardens for producing more food locally.

So the old way of stormwater management isn’t just increasingly dangerous and ineffective as the planet warms and storms get more intense—it stands in the way of a more beautiful, less sweltering, more sustainable urban landscape. LA, of all places, is showing the world there’s a better way.

-via Wired, February 19, 2024