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cecilianotthesaint · 20 hours
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My poor hair has been desperate for a trim for quite a while but I’m too deeply mistrusting with my hair to get it done
But I finally just snipped off the dead ends and stuff and I’m feeling pretty good about it
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cecilianotthesaint · 10 days
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cecilianotthesaint · 17 days
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Fantastic new spell I just came up with, this can help with depression, anxiety, some kinds of neurodivergence, and all sorts of other mental health problems
It’s called “Take Your Fucking Meds”
Components:
1. Your fucking meds
2. Food or drink or whatever you need to take your meds with
Steps:
1: TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDS
2: do it again tomorrow
3: do it again the next day
4: repeat
5: when you have taken them long enough that you’re like “I probably don’t even need to take these anymore I feel so much better now I can totally stop caring about taking my meds”, find someone you trust to say that out loud to so they can tell you that you’re being dumb
6: just take the goddamn meds pls
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cecilianotthesaint · 19 days
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Update: it’s patchy but I’m into that
I’ll call that a success
Did it right after I watched the eclipse. It was super different from the last solar eclipse I experienced it, but very interesting
Good day all in all
Not sure if it’s the excitement of eclipse day or if I’m just hypomanic or what but it I had to forcibly stop myself from getting bleach for my hair after deciding last night that I miss being blond(er)
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cecilianotthesaint · 19 days
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Not sure if it’s the excitement of eclipse day or if I’m just hypomanic or what but it I had to forcibly stop myself from getting bleach for my hair after deciding last night that I miss being blond(er)
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cecilianotthesaint · 22 days
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Saw a car with a #mom life bumper sticker and instantly had an “ick” judgy reaction and then was immediately lecturing myself about not being judgment about something harmless
But then I saw that she also had a sticker on one of the windows (where a kid was sitting) that said “AUTISM is my CHILD’s superpower” over a puzzle piece and then I felt somewhat less bad about being judgy
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cecilianotthesaint · 24 days
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there is a huge difference between criticizing an institution and criticizing individual behavior. i can criticize the makeup industry without criticizing the 14 year old girl who uses concealer because she’s self-conscious about her acne; i can criticize the plastic surgery industry without vilifying the woman who decided to get a nose job after two decades of pointed comments and bullying. it is intellectually dishonest to respond to an institutional criticism as if it were a personal attack; on the flip side, it is cruel and unnecessary to leverage personal attacks in the name of institutional criticism
if i see one (1) more person respond to a perfectly reasonable beauty-industry-critical sentiment with “but i personally enjoy eyeshadow. why are you attacking people who like eyeshadow :(” or “exactly, all women who wear makeup are miserable and brainwashed” i am going to climb a tree and bite the top of it
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cecilianotthesaint · 24 days
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Happy tornado season to all who observe btw
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cecilianotthesaint · 24 days
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Reblog if you want anon messages of what you would be the patron saint of
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cecilianotthesaint · 1 month
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Made what my boss calls ‘American spaghetti’ for dinner, which is to say that I made spaghetti but I used canned sauce
But anyway, my partner found out today that one of his favorite coworkers is leaving and was pretty bummed so it was a nice opportunity for me to actually get into the kitchen for the first time in a little bit and I added in some basil (which I use for most home/peace/happiness things) and rosemary (which I use for kind of clearing the air, in this case of that negativity/sadness) and he seems to have pepped up quite a bit
That probably has more to do with the fact that spaghetti is so delicious it’s hard to be sad after you eat it than anything about the love and intention and stirring technique used and all that, but hey, why not both?
Also pro tip that may seem super obvious to people but some people don’t know this:
If you’re making spaghetti after you boil the noodles, first of all you should drain them, and then you should add them to the sauce and mix them in there (a little at a time makes this work better/more easily but you can just dump them all in if you want) because that gets the noodles sauced up a Lot better than just adding sauce to the top of the noodles when you serve it does, even if you mix it once you have your portion
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cecilianotthesaint · 1 month
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Just feeling curious so poll time! Answer to the best of your recollection ^-^
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cecilianotthesaint · 1 month
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So my mom, went to a metaphysical fair with one of her best friends yesterday and apparently had a lovely time
For context, she does not know that I’m a “witch” (or whatever term I’m currently using) but does know I’m “spiritual” or whatever. She is Christian at her base and continues to be, but she has always been interested in the metaphysical outside of that and over the years has leaned into that more and more. But she’s been talking to/reading about psychics pretty much as long as I can remember
But anyway while she was at the fair she got a “spirit drawing” done. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the artist is a woman who sees spirits around people and draws them pretty much in the moment
I’m not going to share the drawing because it’s a fair bit more personal than just telling the story, but my mom thought it sort of looked like some of the men on her mother’s side of the family, and I do enough ancestor work and genealogy research that even though I’ve never actually met any of those men, I can recognize the family’s general appearance too. It did look like her mother’s family to me, so I went through some records and stuff and found a couple pictures of some of them. He wasn’t an exact match to any of them, although the general feature were similar, but the drawing has a very specific little smile, and I found a photo of my great uncle and he’s smiling in a way that we (my mom & I, plus my dad for a less biased opinion) all agree looks pretty much identical to the drawing
I don’t know that I’ve ever interacted with him directly in my ancestor/spirit work (though of course in the genealogy I’ve spent some time with him) but that side of the family is one that I’ve always connected to pretty easily. Would not shock me at all if any number of them were to stick around my mom
Anyway, idk, I know this isn’t the most exciting story but it was really cool and interesting to me
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cecilianotthesaint · 1 month
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Things to Do that Aren't Related to Growing Plants
This is my second post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert--just an enthusiast--but I hope something you find here helps! 
Some of us just don’t have much luck when it comes to growing plants. Some of us simply want to aim for other ways to help that don’t involve putting on gardening gloves. Maybe you've already got a garden, but you want to do more. No problem! There’s a couple of options you can look into that’ll help attract wildlife in your area without even having to bring out any shovels!
Provide a Water Source
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Oftentimes when I see ‘add a water source’ in informational articles about improving your backyard for wildlife, it’s almost always followed by an image of a gorgeous backyard pond with a waterfall and rock lining that looks expensive to set up, difficult to maintain, and overall just… not feasible for me. Arguably, not feasible for a lot of people. And that’s okay! There’s still ways to add water in your garden for all kinds of creatures to enjoy!
There’s tons of ways to create watering stations for insects like bees and butterflies. A self refilling dog bowl can work wonders! Add some stones into the receiving tray for insects to land on or use to climb out, and you’ve got a wonderful drinking spot for all kinds of insects! You can also fill a saucer or other dish with small stones and fill it, though it’ll likely need refilling daily or even several times a day during hot times. 
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I've seen people online use all kinds of things to make water features. Some go with terra-cotta pots, pebbles, and a cheap pump to get a small and simple fountain. Others use old tires, clay, and a hole in the ground to create an in-ground mini pond system. If all else fails, even a bucket or watertight box with a few plants in it can do the trick--though do be wary of mosquitoes if the water isn’t moving. In situations like these, a solar-powered fountain pump or bubbler are great for keeping the water moving while still making it a drinking option for wildlife (it not even more appealing for some)--and these items can be obtained fairly cheap online!
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Bird baths are an option as well--a classic way to provide for birds in your area, they can be easy to find online or in a gardening store! The only downside is that a good, quality bird bath can be pricey up-front. However, a nice stone bird bath should last a long time, be easy to clean and refill, and be enjoyed by many birds! I’ve also seen tutorials on how to make your own with quickcrete! Bird baths will be a welcome sight to birds, as they provide a space for them to drink and bathe to regulate the oils in their feathers for flight and insulation. Putting a stone in the middle will also help insects to escape if they fall in, and provide a place to perch so they can get their own drink. You’ll want to change the water and clean the baths regularly--as often as once a week, if you can manage it.
If possible, it’s highly encouraged to fill and refill water features with rainwater instead of tap water. Tap water is often treated, so instead of using hoses or indoor kitchen water, collecting some rainwater is a great alternative. Collecting rainwater can be as simple as leaving cups, bins, or pots outside for awhile.
Butterflies and other creatures will also drink from mud puddles. If you can maintain an area of damp soil mixed with a small amount of salt or wood ash, this can be fantastic for them! Some plants also excel at storing water within their leaves and flowers (bromeliads come to mind), making them an excellent habitat for amphibians as well as a drinking spot for insects and birds.
Bird Feeders and Bird Houses
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Some of the fancy, decorated bird feeders are expensive, but others can be pretty low-cost--I got my bird feeder from Lowe’s for around 10 dollars, and a big bag of birdseed was around another 10 dollars and has lasted several refills! If you don’t mind occasionally buying more birdseed, a single birdfeeder can do a lot to attract and support local birds! If you’re handy, have some spare wood, and have or can borrow some tools, you may even be able to find instructions online to make your own feeder. You may not even need wood to do so! Even hummingbird feeders, I’ve found, are quick to attract them, as long as you keep them stocked up on fresh sugar water in the spring and summer!
An important note with bird feeders is that you have to make sure you can clean them regularly. Otherwise, they may become a vector for disease, and we want to avoid causing harm whenever possible. Also keep an ear out and track if there’s known outbreaks of bird diseases in your area. If local birding societies and scientists are advising you take your birdfeeders down for awhile, by all means, do it!
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Bird houses are naturally paired with bird feeders as biodiversity promoters for backyard spaces, and it makes sense. Having bird houses suited to birds in your area promotes them to breed, raise their young, disperse seeds, and generally engage in your surrounding environment. Setting them up takes careful selection or construction, preparation, and some patience, but sooner or later you might get some little homemakers! Keep in mind, you will need to clean your birdhouses at least once a year (if not once per brood) to make sure they’re ready and safe for birds year after year--you wouldn’t want to promote disease and parasites, after all. But they could be a valuable option for your landscape, whether you purchase one or construct your own! 
Again, do make sure you're putting up the right kind of boxes for the right kinds of birds. Bluebird boxes are some I see sold most commonly, but in my area I believe they're not even all that common--a nesting box for cardinals or chickadees would be far more likely to see success here! And some birds don't even nest in boxes--robins and some other birds are more likely to use a nesting shelf, instead! Research what birds live in your area, take note of any you see around already, and pick a few target species to make homes for!
Solitary Bee Houses
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A bee house or bee hotel is a fantastic way to support the solitary bees in your area! For a few dollars and some annual cleaning, you can buy a solitary bee house from most big box nurseries. Alternatively, you can make one at home, with an array of materials you may already have lying around! You can even make them so that they’ll benefit all kinds of insects, and not necessarily just bees.
Though you don’t even necessarily have to break out the hammer and nails, buy a ton of bricks, or borrow a staple gun. Making homes for tunneling bees can be as simple as drilling holes in a log and erecting it, or drilling holes in stumps and dead trees on your property. You might even attract some woodpeckers by doing this!
Providing Nesting Area
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There are tons of different kinds of bees, and they all make different kinds of homes for themselves. Not all of them make big cavity hives like honey bees, or will utilize a solitary bee house. Bumblebees live in social hives underground, particularly in abandoned holes made by rodents--some others nest in abandoned bird nests, or cavities like hollow logs, spaces between rocks, compost piles, or unoccupied birdhouses. Borer, Ground, and Miner bees dig into bare, dry soil to create their nests. Sparsely-vegetated patches of soil in well-drained areas are great places to find them making their nests, so providing a similar habitat somewhere in the garden can encourage them to come! I do talk later in this document about mulching bare soil in a garden--however, leaving soil in sunny areas and south-facing slopes bare provides optimal ground nesting habitat. Some species prefer to nest at the base of plants, or loose sandy soil, or smooth-packed and flat bare ground. They’ve also been known to take advantage of soil piles, knocked over tree roots, wheel ruts in farm roads, baseball diamonds and golf course sand traps. You can create nesting ground by digging ditches or creating nesting mounds in well-drained, open, sunny areas with sandy or silty soil. However, artificially constructed ground nests may only have limited success. 
Providing Alternative Pollinator Foods
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Nectar and pollen aren’t the only foods sought out by some pollinators! Some species of butterflies are known to flock to overripe fruit or honey water, so setting these out can be an excellent way to provide food to wildlife. You may want to be cautious about how you set these out, otherwise it can help other wildlife, like ants or raccoons. Butterflies may also drop by to visit a sponge in a dish of lightly salted water. 
Bat Houses and Boxes
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Big or small, whether they support five bats or five hundred, making bat boxes and supporting local bats is a great way to boost biodiversity! Not only will they eat mosquitoes and other pest species, but you may also be able to use the guano (bat droppings) as fertilizer! Do be careful if you choose to do that though--I’ve never had the opportunity to, so do some research into how strong it is and use it accordingly.
Provide Passageway Points
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If you want your area to be more accessible for creatures that can’t fly or climb fences, allowing or creating access points can be an excellent way to give them a way in and out. Holes in the bottom of walls or fences can be sheltered with plants to allow animals through. 
In a somewhat similar manner, if you’re adding a water fixture, it’s important to provide animals a way to get into and out of the pond--no way in, and they can’t use the water. No way out, and they may drown. Creating a naturalistic ramp out of wood beams or sticks, or stepped platforms out of bricks, stones, or logs can do the trick. 
Get or Keep Logs and Brush Piles
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I’ve already mentioned logs a good handful of times so far in this post. To be used as access ramps, or as nesting areas for solitary bees. But they have value as much more than that! Logs on the ground provide shelter for all kinds of animals, especially depending on size--anything from mice, reptiles, and amphibians to things like turkey vultures and bears will use fallen logs as shelter. Inside of a decaying log, there’s a lot of humidity, so amphibians are big fans of them--meanwhile, the upper sides of them can be used as sunning platforms by things like lizards. Other animals can also use the insides of logs as nest sites and hiding places from predators too big to fit inside. Fungi, spiders, beetles, termites, ants, grubs, worms, snails, slugs, and likely much more can be found inside rotting logs, using the rotting wood as food sources or nesting places. They can then provide food for mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. They can also be regarded as a landmark or territory marker as wildlife get more familiar with your space.
So how do you get logs for cheap? Try Chip Drop! I talk about them more in a future post, but you can mark saying that you’d like logs in your drop, so they’ll give you any they have! In fact, you may even get a drop faster if you're willing to accept some logs. You may also be able to approach arborists you see working in your area and ask for logs. There may also be local online listings for people selling logs for cheap, or just trying to get rid of them. If there’s land development going on near you, you may be able to snag logs from trees they cut down to make space. Do keep in mind, you don’t need to have huge gigantic logs laying around your property to make an impact--even small logs can help a lot.
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If possible, creating and leaving brush piles on the edge of your property can be a great boost to biodiversity--even if you may not see the wildlife using it. They’ll provide shelter from weather and predators, and lower portions are cool and shady for creatures to avoid the hot sun. The upper layers can be used as perch sites and nest sites for song birds, while lower layers are resting sites for amphibians and reptiles, and escape sites for many mammals. As the material decays, they also attract insects, and as such they’ll attract insect-eating animals too. As more small animals find refuse in your brush pile, their predators will be attracted to them as well. Owls, hawks, foxes, and coyotes are known to visit brush piles to hunt. Making a brush pile can be as simple as piling branches and leaves into a mound, as big or as small as you want. You can even use tree stumps or old fence posts near the base, and keep stacking on plant trimmings and fallen branches. Do note that you don’t want to do this near anything like a fire pit.
Don't forget, with all of these, your mileage may vary for any variation of reasons, so don't worry if you can't take all of even any of these actions! Even just talking about them with other people may inspire someone else to put out a bat box, or leave a few logs out for wildlife!
That's the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about ways to get seeds and plants as cheaply as possible. For now, I hope this advice helps! Feel free to reply with any questions, success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!
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cecilianotthesaint · 1 month
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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?
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cecilianotthesaint · 1 month
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Air Witch|
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cecilianotthesaint · 1 month
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Got myself a (cheap) blending board for a birthday present and my brother got me a mix bag of different colored wool so I’ve been having a lot of fun
I did a couple other colors too but these are the ones that I liked a lot and also probably have the best/most accurate photographs of
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cecilianotthesaint · 1 month
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Prompts for your Grimoire: About You Page.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
✦Your name.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
✰Your correspondences✰ ✦Your zodiac signs (Sun, Moon, rising, Venus, etc.!) ✦Your birth chart ✦Your Element ✦Moon phase on the day you were born. ✦Birthstones/ birth gems. ✦Tarot cards associated with your birthday ✦Your numerology ✦Crystals associated with your birthday or birth month ✦Herbs associated with your sun sign or birthday/month ✦Colors ✦Symbols (example: scale for libra) ✦Runes associated with your birthday
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
✰Extra Ideas✰ ✦Deity/Deities you worship ✦Spiritual beliefs ✦Type of witch you are/want to be.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
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