#mavis barks

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Haunted Mansion (2023) was really good. It had powerful messages of love and grief, was absolutely hilarious, very good found family situation, and just overall, I really enjoyed it.

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today I went into an abandoned ufo 🛸 (it's actually a boat from the 70's!)

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I love plant shops. I love crystal shops. I love shops that are all about the mystical, such as witch shops. And I love shops that have handmade items like soaps, lotions, candles and so on.

What I hate is that constantly I find that I'll be looking at a shop (online or in person), and it's great. Until I find them selling palo santo. Until I find them selling white sage. Until I find them selling said white sage as a smudge stick.

Please, and I cannot emphasize this enough: Stop throwing around the term smudging. It is a sacred ritual. You are not smudging. You are smoke cleansing. Learn more about both. Smoke cleansing isn't appropriation, but smudging is.

It is disrespectful to indigenous people who have smudging as part of sacred rituals. But especially disrespectful, actually, beyond disrespectful and downright awful, is the use of Palo Santo and White Sage.

Palo Santo comes from two trees, and the process of harvesting it is in itself a sacred process to harvest the trees that involves only fallen ones, after letting them rest for years. When buying Palo Santo, almost every time it will not be in support of indigenous peoples whose culture is being exploited. Culture and environment, land. Because the over harvesting of these trees (one type is in the red zone for endangered, the other is nearing it), is harmful to the trees, and it damages and makes dryer the land that Palo Santo grows on in Latin America. It hurts people and the earth, both through culture and through environmental impacts.

In Peru and Ecuador it's illegal to cut down Palo Santo trees. However, because of the profit that corporations seek to gain because of people turning a blind eye, not doing their research, and being 'trendy' within wellness - and witch - communities, the trees are still being illegally cut down. It's likely most of what anyone encounters in store isn't of a matured tree, because the young trees often are chopped down. Another insult to the people being exploited is that the workers and the indigenous communities are also being specifically exploited with unfair wages.

There is such a thing as appreciating cultures, but just using Palo Santo generally is not the way to do it. Appreciation of a culture means knowing the history, the cultural meanings and traditions related to the plant (or anything else). It's also knowing the impact on the people's whose culture you want to appreciate. When that impact is negative, find other ways to appreciate the culture. Or find ways to ethically source something. For example, finding ethically sourced Palo Santo. Luna Sundara is an example of this. The shop works with the government's of Peru and Ecuador to legally import Palo Santo, they follow both government and sacred laws in only using wood that's been matured, and they make sure the indigenous communities and workers are receiving good care and fair wages.

I got really intensely focused on Palo Santo, but I still need to emphasize the problem with using White Sage. While it isn't currently on an endangered list, it is leading there quickly. White Sage is used in food, medicine and ritual ceremonies for some Native American tribes. White Sage is not the same as some more common sages, and it doesn't grow as much or in as many areas. The overharvesting of this sage threatens the plant and the ecosystem of the area, as well as effecting the traditions of tribes in areas around Southern California and Northwestern Mexico. I highly recommend this article. But to summarize, people use White Sage as a way to cleanse their space, but do so while disrespecting the rituals that they claim to be doing (I'm looking at you 'smudge sticks'). Native people gather from the earth in very specific ways, caring for the plants that are being harvested from and taking only small bits at a time. However, harvesters looking only at profit take from the plant with no regard for it, ripping roots out of the ground, just taking and taking. Not only is that horrific, but it isn't sustainable. White Sage, among other plants, risk endangerment and possibly extinction by the misuse and over harvesting currently happening. The burning of white sage that is popularly done today isn't done in the way Native people of California do it, either. Whole bundles are burned for the smoke because it's pretty, but Native people would burn the same bundle much, much slower. Carelessness is a good word for it.

And again, when looking at ways you might use white sage ethically, there are exceptions. Here's a site that goes into that. I will be honest, because of the level of cultural appropriation that is associated with the misuse of white sage, that mostly looks like not using it. However, when more ethically acquired (see: from Native people of Southern California + farmed not wild-sourced) and used sparingly (and not by 'smudging') there is possibilities. The best thing to do, though, is use something else.

Both Palo Santo and White Sage are (mis)used in wellness communities, meditation communities, and by witches. The idea behind the use of both of these is for cleansing, purification, and to drive away bad energy. However, using plants that are endangered or at risk of endangerment, using these plants while indigenous people beg you not to - and on top of it appropriating ceremonies that are clearly not being understood or respected - will only being bad energy into your life. Burn bundles made of lavender, or cedar, or rosemary. Make an at home essential oil spray (be mindful of the ingredients) with plants that cleanse and purify. Incense, candles. Bake, learn a new craft. Do things with good intentions. Things like these can bring you good energy, but exploiting Indigenous people and exploiting ecosystems, will not.

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Has anyone else noticed an increase in littering as places stop having outdoor trash cans? Because everytime I leave the house I both cannot find a trash can when I need it, and see trash everywhere.

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I wish the pride parade was less capitalism.

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I remembered Microwave (band) exists and it's great I am fuckin vibin

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sometimes I'm piling on my layers of blankets and ancestral brain is like yesss so many furs keeping away out the cold!!

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When did I stop being passionate for music? Why? When did it become a dream to distance myself from? Disability roughened it up but it wasn't the whole extent of it. Why did I become as disheartened as I did? I had all these ideas of what I wasn't, of what I couldn't be. But I've been playing again. Sure it hurts my body but I'm coping. I've been writing songs, I've memorized covers (which I always struggled to memorize songs but here we are). The calluses are back. I want to work in the music industry again.