Pagans and Poverty

Something I have noticed in general about the pagan culture has gotten me thinking today.

Have you ever noticed how many spells, rituals, and chants there are for money, bringing wealth (in the monetary sense), or otherwise filling your wallet; yet the pagan culture as a general whole, witches, wiccans, etc, are poor or just barely making it by?

I thought to myself why is that? Why out of all the cultures, religions, are pagans almost always short on cash, barely able to pay the bills, and scrambling to find a way to make it by?

This came up because I have been considering writing some short books for kindle. I was discussing with my husband about how much I love to write about witchy topics, yet I doubt they would sell as most pagans would go to a library rather than buy a kindle book for a few bucks. They just don’t always have it.

The realization, one which I have always known about but didn’t really think too hard on it until now kind of shook me.

So my husband and I started talking about why this might be.

I would like to note that my husband, while fully supporting and encouraging my beliefs as a witch, is not actually pagan.

**Please be forewarned that this is not meant to offend and does use a lot of generalizations to get a theory across. This does not apply to every pagan, but only  used as a generalization from what we personally have noticed and experienced.**

In general pagans tend to be more solitary in their practice. (When I say pagans I am referring more to witches, wiccans, and the like)
Even within a coven, covens do not always communicate with other covens on a regular basis, so I still count that as solitary as most covens are not overly large.

There are up sides and downsides to being solitary or in a coven. For this example they will be both one and the same.

When you are solitary, you get to connect with nature, your surroundings, and get all the benefits of doing things your own way.

I could go on and on about how wonderful this can be verses a mass religion type, partly because I can quite be anti-social myself, while other times I like a little social interaction, for the most part I am content being outside of large crowds.

Here is one major downside and part of a good reason why pagans tend to not end up better off money wise. Networking.

I will use Christians as an example, mostly because I was raised Christian originally so I have first hand experience for comparison.

Christians network like crazy. The smaller churches that do not network you will easily tell as they do not do as well as the ones that do.

Churches range in size but still tend to be larger than most covens. Covens in my experience range between 6 and 40 people I’d say, and even less than that show up for regular coven gatherings. Even if the coven breaks 150 people, nowhere near that many are usually active within the coven gatherings.

Christians on the other hand usually go to church, whether a true Christian or one that just goes for appearances does not matter, they go or are usually judged, feel guilty, etc for not going. For some it is highly looked down upon not to go to church unless you are quite ill or have a damn good reason not to.

So not only do you have a whole church full of people, who network with each other, you also should note that most churches communicate with other churches in the area, or even in other states across the nation.

They get involved, for better or worse, but the point is they DO communicate often. Not that pagans don’t communicate, but the way we socialize is a little different and tends to be at festivals, small gatherings, and not quite on the scale that Christians would. Even if we meet regularly, it is usually with the same small group.

Point being is that we miss out on a lot of opportunities we could get by being content to be alone and not network with each other.

Ever heard the saying that it isn’t about what your resume looks like, it is more about who you know when it comes to landing a good job or a great opportunity? Well, that is largely true when it comes to networking.

I was originally raised Christian, and while at times we had money, and other times we did not. We almost always had lots of great opportunities through church members, and help when we needed it from the churches themselves. I can honestly say that the times we did not have money was not for lack of opportunity, but more for poor choices of my parents, but that is a whole other topic.

Heck people were there to help, even if they were just there to teach you how they budget, how to write a resume, where to find good deals, anything was helpful and they were happy to help the community grow by sharing knowledge.

The point is there was always room for growth with the networking system we had.

While paganism is becoming more and more of a choice, and less judged, it is still judged a lot. I am sure part of our networking issues has to do with the fact that Christians have simply been doing it longer and been more open with their lifestyle than we have.


Another bad cycle I tend to see is what I would like to call “trailer park pagans” without being overly offensive, hear me out.

Poverty breeds poverty. Once you are in it, your mindset changes, and one rarely ever gets out of it simply because they become content. No matter how often they complain they wish things would change, they simply do not change, or put forth the amount of effort needed to change. In other words less effort appears to be a lot more than it really is when you feel tired often mentally.

Sometimes people who live in poverty situations tend to become pagan because of the solitary practice, the act of rebellion, the connection we have with living with less as pagans used to. The big difference of course being that pagans used to live with less because they did not need more…

Pagans were ‘Poor’ by monetary definitions because they got all they needed from the land and had no need to work outside of their own stewardships.  They were not poor in every other way. Poor only referred to money, and when money is not needed, and your needs are met, it is hard to see them as being in poverty.

Nowadays there are simply things we must pay for and it is almost impossible to live without some expense. Because of this our mindset has to change a little to evolve with the current times in the ways we must.

Now that is not to say that I don’t agree with simplistic living and getting back to our roots. I am creating an urban homestead for petes sake, though that does not mean that I am ok with barely getting by either. I would very much like to have a constant amount of savings in the bank that I could use when needed, and I know things need to be done to keep that there, or create that savings for that matter.  I am working hard to make that happen, and it will happen.

Now I am not saying that people are horrible trash if they live in a trailer. What I am saying is that once you move to an area that is filled with sorrow, guilt, regret, poverty, illness, sluggishness,  etc, that it is very hard to not have that energy pull your own down and drown you in it. A sinking ship if you will and misery does love company.

Sometimes people get out and end up right back in that situation. Most of the time though those people are just not wise with the way they spend their money. Fast food and spending sprees anytime they see a little extra, as if to reward themselves for that little extra they got.

I understand the need for having nice things or going out. I am not saying not to do those things. But seeing my parents, when times were tougher, going out and spending anything extra they got immediately on useless things… Rather than saving the money and making better use of it. That is how you get stuck.

You get so excited that you have $20 extra, $200 extra that is normally not there… and you decide to do something special because you can for once, and you feel you deserve to go out or get something you normally couldn’t have.

People who usually have a little extra at the end of the month do not think this way and tend to save more in the end. Because they save a little more each time they have a little more they end up being able to do more. I am not meaning they can do more spending, I mean they can make actual full lifestyle changes if they do things the right way. It is literally just another thought process and way of doing things.

Changing your lifestyle is a lot better than staying in a bad lifestyle and only having a nice thing every once in awhile. You want to actually like the life you live in.
I think it is very possible to change that. It is hard work, but if you do it right anything is possible.

I have changed a lot in my life and the way I think and do things. I still have a lot more to go, but it has greatly impacted the way I view my life. I have gotten so far ahead of where I thought I would be now. It is just proof that you can change your situation entirely and not just for the short term.

Another difference is mindset in general.
Now I am speaking in general terms for things we have both observed on a mass scale, so don’t take any of this as “fact” but more as our personal opinions and observations.

Christians tend to pray for help but also act… They are told to pray but that God will not do all the work for them, and if you do not do all you know to do, you are tying his hands. While God may want to help, he cannot if you do not also act on what you know.

So in addition to praying, they are also doing everything they can to fix situations.

Pagans, for reasons unknown, tend to think doing a spell or a ritual is both the prayer and the action. It is not.

The spell, ritual, chant, etc, is there to put your intentions out there. Yes, you can call things to you, but it is an aid, not a “all I have to do is this and it will fix my problem”
Do you really think that the Gods are going to help a lazy witch who only ever complains about their life? No. You will get help, but only through action, and not just the action of doing a spell, prayer, ritual… No, I mean if you want a damn job you do a spell to find the job that best suits you and your needs, and then you do a job search for as long as it takes to find that job.
A job is not just going to land itself on your lap because you spelled it to. That is not how spells work.

Spells work through intentions, will, action, willpower, motivation, ambition. Do you get my point here?

They are aids to help sway things in our favor. To help open doors that we may have missed, to turn one opportunity that might be good into an even better one. or just to help guide people to us. None of this will happen if we don’t actually do anything other than the ritual and then complain when nothing happens, or complain when we do not continue to act upon things.

Yes, it takes awhile to find a job, but spells and rituals do not always have a “expiration date” and we do not always know when things will happen. Just because we think they should happen now and they do not, does not mean we should give up. It means we need to keep trying and trust things should happen when it is the right time, even if you yourself think the right time should have been yesterday with all the crap that is going on in your life. Things happen for a reason, be it good or bad.

I just think pagans should be taking more initiative and come out of the broom closet and start networking with each other more than just a few online forums or small gatherings.

What does it say for our path if most of our people are barely living paycheck to paycheck yet we have all these money spells that appear to not work? Why on earth would anyone want to be pagan if what it seems to offer is poverty and spells that obviously are not working?

Money isn’t everything, but it DOES mean something when it comes to living in a time where you have to have money to survive.

By the way there are many very effective money spells. They only don’t work if you don’t actually use them correctly and then take action after. No you will not get rich from them, but they are quite helpful when needed.  The fact that most people complain they do not work is a testament to just how many people do not understand the process of a spell and the actions after it is cast.

I have always been one to think that you have to do what you need to do to get where you want to be, whatever that means for the situation presented. I think things could greatly improve in the pagan community if we changed the way we do a few things to better suit the communities needs.  Am I wrong?

Could it really hurt to take more physical action? Could it hurt to network and be a little more social while still being non-social as a lot of us are? You don’t have to be a social butterfly, but just actually get involved with more than just a few people.

No one is going to help the pagan community. We have to help ourselves. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot be a thriving community who helps to build each other up like more mass religions do.

That is not saying we are conforming to be like a mass religion, that is saying that we can evolve to better help the needs of our people and better the way of a pagan life.

Outside of GoddessFest, and private or open coven meetings, how many events are there that are pointed towards the pagan religion vs events and holiday gatherings for Christian religions? Mind you, we have more holidays and sacred days to celebrate.

I think it is time for us to come out of the shadows, the broom closet, and actually be more of a community. Yes, we may get hate thrown towards us, but really it does not matter. You can be hated for the choice in the shirt you wear, but you will still wear that shirt if you like it will you not? Religion is a personal choice. One choice in which others opinions should never matter. Stop being afraid of ridicule and connect.

Not all pagans are broke all the time. Every person can learn something as well as has something to teach, even if they do not realize it.


Here is a simple way to see it. Take the show Lost for an example. If someone decided to be greedy and wanted to go out and survive on his own, maybe he could do it, but he could not do everything he needed to do in a day to survive without breaking his back.
By working together, each person has their own job, their own skill set they can teach others, and by becoming a community they get a amazing amount of work done in a fraction of the time because they decided it was better for survival to work together than alone. This is no different than coming together as a community.

We do have community, just not quite to where it needs to be. We have a lot of catching up to do.

Morning routine

I enjoy my morning routine. I actually look forward to waking up and starting it all over again.

For me right now my routine is to get up, drink a protein shake.
I shake up any extracts I have brewing. Currently the only one I have going is ginkgo biloba.
Go out and water my garden. I water twice a day usually but I do not water deeply, so this is fine.
I get ready for work.
I harvest a handful of strawberries if there are any that are ripe and ready to be picked.
Today I also harvested a handful of mallow flowers and a bit of spruce resin for later use in my herbal preparations.
I then make some coffee and read some blogs, newsletters, do research, work on my garden gate book, read, do art, etc… Whatever I feel like doing. Sometimes it is sitting and watching a tv show but lately my tv has been mostly during the hotter part of the day or late at night on my days off.
I make my lunch, eat a little more of a breakfast at this point.
I throw any dishes into the dishwasher if needed, and get ready to leave for work usually after that.
What I get done depends on how long I have.

Basically my routine allows me to do some of what I love every day. It is sort of my meditation. While at some point I would love my garden to have a system set up where I will not need to water it by hand, I enjoy doing it with the size of garden I have right now.
It also forces me to keep an eye on progress and head off anything harmful sooner rather than later.

Of course all of this will change as often as my projects do, when the season does, or as my muse pleases. I like working on many things at once.

General rantings and shop related updates

I have not written in my blog in awhile and figured I might take the time today to make a post. There are a lot of things on my mind and a lot of things that have been going on recently. For one, my shop has been invited to have a booth at the Rapture Party on Dec 10th at the Shredder in Boise. It always makes me happy to be thought of when people think of what vendors they wish to have at their event.
Been working on some mini book earrings and necklaces.

I have also been working on spirit vessels but I do not have pictures of those currently. I came to the realization that I make lots of items for my shop but almost never make anything for myself. Part of that is due to not having enough proper storage. Yet another reason I want a large wooden treasure chest is to help store some of those things I want to make and keep for my own use.
I have been painting a little, mostly for my shop sign which is not all that elaborate given the amount of time I was given but it will do. I am outlining a new painting I think I am going to do. Sometimes I like to jump right in and start painting, other times I like to do an outline and then mull it over in my mind for a few days before I actually pull out the paints. I think it is going to be a snowy scene. I am really excited for the snow to come this year. It has been so cold outside I think snowing would bring the temperature up a bit. It can be too cold to snow you know. I hope to go out and take photos of the town and untouched snow blanketed landscape once it actually snows and snows enough to stick.
As much as I am anticipating the snow, it is kind of sad that as soon as the weather gets cold I want to go out and wildcraft things that have gone to sleep for winter, or get inspired by gardens. I do dislike that I cannot have an in ground garden here. Container boxes is what I can do and that is about it. I have been seeing some really inspiring indoor gardens that I would do if I had the space and or if it would not make things feel very cluttered. If I can reorganize things in my house (which need organizing anyways) I may try out some of the indoor garden ideas I have seen. The main problem I am worried about is that what happens if the herb gets too big for the indoor container? having to keep transplanting to larger containers *may* not be possible. I will think over possible ideas for awhile and see if I don’t come up with a better idea.

Started writing a second story. I have not finished the first one but it really needs organizing which is a pain and I have been procrastinating it. I don’t want to get writers block so I have to keep up writing and am doing so with my second book. This one is based off of some of the ideas I had for the Funeral Home for the Strange and Deranged painting I did that was based off of a story idea I had long ago. I changed a few things but it won’t effect the painting at all, just the story. I have about 60 pgs written in the book so far. I may have to go back and revise some things to make it flow better but otherwise I am happy with the story so far.


I have most of my Christmas shopping done. This year, like most, I am buying and making presents. I have a few I need to ship out as soon as I get the last portion of one finished so I can ship them all out at once. Just making Christmas presents and making new shop products and preparing for a booth can be kind of crazy at times. Funny how it seems to always go the same way when preparing for a booth. I don’t mind one bit though really. I would rather be doing 12 things at once then having nothing to do and being bored as hell. In between all of this I had a wonderful day filled with divination, crafts, and tea with a friend. I got my snake bones back and made some spirit vessels with them today. Took awhile to get them cleaned but well worth it for the tiny little bones. I hope to find more bones in the future when I go out on my bone collecting and herb wild crafting adventures.

Sewing machine is kind of on the fritz right now so I haven’t really been able to sew much of anything. Was not fun having it stop working in the middle of a project I really wanted to get done and would rather not hand sew the rest of it.

I did have to take my products out of Alchemy Spa since they are going through some changes and I believe are going to be switching locations possibly. My products may be put back up at some point in the future but for now they will only be either at booths or online.
While picking up my products I also gave my brother an early Christmas present and got him his first piercing. He was quite happy about that :) Teenage boys are very hard to shop for in my experience.

I am not so into the Christian aspect or some of the rowdy people who come out during Christmas, but I do like the snow, and the holiday season, Yule celebrations, decorating, and presents. Oh and can’t forget good food and family surrounding you. I would attempt to make a wreath for my front door but sadly we aren’t allowed to put anything on our doors or windows. I do however have my tree up and decorated and it looks awesome. If I really want to I can always hang a wreath inside the house over the mantle.

Started watching Grimm and Once Upon a Time, two new series that came out on tv recently. So far I am really liking both. Watched some new movies too that I really enjoyed. I am just waiting for the second Sherlock Holmes to come out so I can watch that.

Well, have a lot I still need to get done. So I am going to end this blog for now. May have more to update on later.

Sick but still productive

I caught a cold this weekend which is not a lot of fun but has not stopped me from getting some things done that I have been needing to work on.

I have been getting a bit more writing done in my book.
Got about 7pgs written the other day.
Not quite as much as I usually do when I am sick, but it is a start.
I am hoping to write more soon.
I have around or just over 250pgs written now which isn’t too bad.


I have also the past two or three days been working on a rough draft of a painting I will be doing.
It is so interesting to see how each piece I add to it makes the whole thing evolve into something more or different from what it was when I started.
I would post pictures of it but I cannot yet considering I have been requested not to understandably by the person who commissioned me to paint it.
Mostly so that a specific someone will not see it before it is finished.
I haven’t started it on canvas yet being that I wanted to make sure that the colors would not clash once on the piece since there are a few which I cannot name.
Wanted to make sure I got the brush stroke pattern that my client and I liked for a few portions,
And basically so I could see how it would all be laid out and not in pencil.
I don’t mind doing the bit of extra work and think it will be worth it in the end to do it this way rather than find out something just isn’t clicking that would be hard to fix later.
That way when it comes time for canvas, I can know where everything goes and how it is supposed to look that would make everyone happiest.
I never want to paint something that someone is only moderately happy with,
Especially if it is something they have come to me to paint for them.
It is their vision, their idea.
I am just putting it to canvas as best as I can see it
to give them a physical representation of that vision.


I finally got what I think will be just about all I will be able to edit from the photos we took from the Dec 2010 photo shoot I did with one of my friends.
Her camera was malfunctioning so it would say it was getting clear shots, show clear shots, but in reality it was really blurry…
Most of them I could not fix at all, which is really sad, but oh well.
I did get some of them fixed up and edited.
(my editing skills are horrid haha but I made do… A few of them I had help with :)
I had a lot of fun on that shoot and going through and editing a good handful of those pictures tonight makes me think about the next shoot and what we will have planned.
Hopefully with a better working camera next time.
I might be able to fix up a couple more of the pictures, but so far I think I have about 14 out of I think it was 103 shots we took.
Which really is not that many shots for a typical photo shoot but we were kind of on a slight time cap and it was a spur of the moment thing.
If we had taken more, it would have just been more to throw out most likely so its not a big deal that we didn’t get many. Just wish more of them would have come out clear.
It was more for the adventure and a good time than it was for the shoot this time.
I only had about 30 minutes to get ready and leave from being in PJs to fully made up.
Don’t know how I did that one when you count in that I had to also piece together my dress as well….
Katie (photographer and my model for part of the night as well) was quite happy with the shots that did come out.
That made me happy since I really liked a few of them and hoped she would too.


During my relaxing I watched some shows/movies.
Ghostbusters (always a good choice)
Gingersnaps (love)
Iron Man 2
(first time I had seen it, thought it was hilarious. Especially the coconut line)
New Vampire Diaries (one of my favorite series)
New Nikita (really starting to like this show more and more)


Not too recently but a month or so ago I saw the Grindhouse movies.
Death Proof
&
Planet Terror
(Loved them both)


I have been slacking on my Apothecary work but there isn’t a whole lot I can do in my shop right now until I can pick up more supplies at some point to make more products.
I always feel antsy when I go long periods of time between making things.
I am a crafter and an alchemist.
I need to keep busy in some way or another…
I know I am writing and painting, but its not always enough for me to only be doing a couple of things. I need many things to keep my attention and from being antsy.
Which I have been feeling recently when it comes to my shop stuff.
I want to make more tree of life pendants and possibly some herbal massage oil soon if I am able to.
Just not sure what kinds yet.
I hate it when I feel like my shop is kind of dead at the moment.
Its not super dead but it could be doing a bit better than it is, I just haven’t been able to do much work wise on it recently to get the word out there about it since it is still newly open to the public.
Its a slow growing process that has been giving me a lot of good feedback on my products thus far which is great but I would like to bring in more repeat clients, new clients, and sales, just need to do a little better marketing which takes time and effort.
Once I am feeling a bit better I might look that over again.
Being that I make my own products and run the business by myself solely;
it can be hard to do everything at once.
Sometimes things take longer because of this but I expect that and have no problem with it.
I am patient, most of the time ^_~

I still have a BOS that I have yet to finish and post up…
Mostly due to the fact that I am not sure what to do with it.
I almost don’t want to do anything to it at all since I like how it looks now but maybe it does still need something in the center of the oval?
I really don’t know.
I have been mulling it over for awhile now and have not come to a conclusion as to what I think it should look like once it is finished. I still love where it is going but the only thing I could think of that I would want in the middle of it I do not think I could do. I am thinking of other ideas so that the book will not be laying around my house forever and I can get it listed in my shop soon.

This is currently what the book looks like.
It has a detachable wand on the front left side of the cover near the spine as you can see in the picture. The wand which is maple, book, and book marker, were hand made.
All the flowers and vine like stems were gathered by me and are real.

Anyways, this is long enough and I think I shall go make myself a cup of tea.
Echinacea elder tea is helping with my cold.
I was happy to find I still had half a box in my cupboard.
I really like the stuff and drink it even when I am not sick.
^_^

Things on my mind and whats been going on over the weekend

I am pleased to find that my late night writing sessions have been paying off.
I realized last night that I have 15 new pages written (future chapters not immediate ones) 

I wrote 8 of those last night/early this morning & the rest not long before last night.  

I honestly only thought I had 3-5 pages since I had been writing it on OneNote & it looked like soo much less than it actually was until I transferred it to MS Word & actually saw the page count. Go me!
I hope to keep this up even though it keeps me up later than I should be, which is late even for me.
Writing is more important than sleep, right? haha.

It seems that my muse likes the wee hours of the morning for me to do my best writing currently.
I am happy I am getting more done even if it is not on the chapters I should be on.
The book will come together how it comes together in the end.
I am having a lot of fun developing my new characters, though some are coming along easier than others.
I need a bit more character inspiration for a couple of them
to help develop how they react to different scenarios.
I believe I have finally come up with a last name for Iris (my main character) her last name had been a blank in all the old chapters since I could not come up with anything that fit.I am finding I am quite happy with her last name being Snow, obviously inspired by the 9 inches of snow we got here not long ago (which I wish had stuck but now we have thick fog) So as it stands now  her name is Iris Snow.

The next scene I am writing is a good one, or will hopefully be a good one.
I really do hate it when sleep will not be put on a back burner for as long as my muse would like it to be and I have to pass out right as I am about to type the good stuff.
Once I get going with my writing it gets kind of hard to stop sometimes.
Other times it is a big push to get through even a page or two, but I have to keep going or else I stay stuck for a long period of time. I am cheating by writing other chapters while I am stuck on a small scene in the current chapters. It is ok for me to do that because I am still writing and not letting the story get stagnant so to speak.
I have sent the first 216 chapters of my book (I have more than that now, but that's what I sent out that I was happy with showing) to a few close friends of mine to read over and get opinions from.
So far I am getting good feedback and have a good flow and progression to my writing,
which is good to hear.
I have a lot of friends who are either good with English or are writers themselves,
like one of my friends is who is reading it,
so I try to get feedback from knowledgeable people rather than just ambiguous likes or dislikes. 

I should note I do not mind negative feedback so long as it is constructive and not destructive.

I would post up small sections of my book for everyone to be able to read 

(I will not post the whole thing up for everyone because I may publish the book at some point in the future) 

but I honestly wouldn't know what parts to post up...
I am not good at chopping my book up into interesting tid bit parts since I see the book as basically a whole. Maybe I will talk to one of my friends after they have finished what I have sent them and see what parts they would post up for tid bits of reading here and there
so people can get a better idea of what it is I am up to all the time.

Another thing I have not been able to get off my mind recently is the udder,
can't say need so I will say want, to dye my hair blue again. 

The last time I had it blue it was this kind of blue underneath and dark green on top,
though you cant really see the green in my picture so it looks all blue. 

I would love to either do it all blue this time, or mostly the darker colbolt looking blue with some parts that are a lighter shade of blue or turquoise. To give it depth.
I don't usually like doing only one color in my hair.
I had also considered doing my hair blue and black with it done in the peek a boo style like this image I found is, but black does not like to stay in my hair long I find.
Though blue LOVES my hair and will stick for a long while.
I would also love to have matching synthetic dreads put in my hair like hers is done at some point.

The Macrame yarn hair falls I am making take forever for me to make.
I just don't have the time to put into them that I should..
Not to mention I suck at making my own synthetic hair dreads.
Tried once, failed miserably.

This is the color I want, but I want more blue and less black, if not all blue.

This is me in the below picture, when I had green and blue hair.

Sadly I did not take many pictures when I had my hair this color. Which sucks because this is my favorite color I have had in my hair out of all the colors I have had, which is many.
The picture sucks and so does the lighting
(super bright outside and no blinds) and was a spur of the moment thing.
Yes i had bangs at that point, I no longer have them now.
This photo was taken a few years ago too I should note. I cut my hair pretty short awhile after that and it has grown back since. Not as long as it was then (which was to my navel or hips depending on when it was) but long enough for me to like it again.

Only reason I haven't dyed my hair yet is A. I don't currently have the funds to go get it done professionally and I don't talk to the person who used to do my hair for free for practice since she was in cosmo school and wanted to mess around with fun colors; and B. I was waiting for it to grow out, which it is grown out enough now but that also brings me back to point A.
So unless I find another way to do it my hair is staying its current blonde color which it is naturally.

One of the many reasons I have been thinking about dying my hair is because I had a photo shoot idea planned out in my head a bit recently. Which originally involved flat backed blue and green rhinestones for the mermaid scales on my upper body. I got a better more cost efficient idea today of using glitter glue in the blue and green to draw the scales on my body so to speak. I have been getting antsy since I have not done an erotic art photo shoot in quite sometime and I wanted to do one with a better quality camera. Which I believe I have a photographer friend who would love to help me with taking the photos.
In the past most of the erotic art photos I have taken were done with a horrid camera if not a web camera so it lacked the clarity I wish a particular set could have had.
Not to mention some of which I had to take myself which restricted pose options.
I would like to make it clear, I am not taking pornographic photos, I am not fully naked, and no I do not do requests. It is a form of art for me in how I can inventively cover myself and not be slutty about it.

Some people I find just do not understand this concept.

Anyways, I will not be doing the out of water (meaning no tail but still scales) mermaid shoot until I am able to somehow dye my hair since that is a big part of it. Having some seaweed colored sheer or textured fabric to use in the shoot would also be a wonderful addition.

I will say, the shoot I did recently (which wasn't in the woods as planned but still a ton of fun) will be awhile before pictures are posted. There is a lot of editing that needs to be done. When working in the dark it is sometimes hard to tell exactly how clear the pictures will turn out no matter how clear they appear on the camera. Some turned out really well, some really fuzzy and need to be worked with as do most pictures.
I know some of you are impatient and want to see them but you will have to wait for now.
No, I am not doing the editing myself, someone else is.
I am horrid when it comes to editing photos.Never learned much about how to do it, though I have had many offers to be taught how to, just haven't had the time to do so.
It wasn't an extremely long shoot and was rather unplanned all things considered so it will not be the quality it could have been had we had exactly what we wanted, so I will be happy if even a few pictures come out well since we did not take that many as far as photo shoots go.
Of course being treated to hot chocolate after being out in the cold was a wonderful treat!

Yay for hot chocolaty goodness!


Had to push some things around on short notice this weekend since I had a friend fly out to see me ^_^ it was well worth it though. I will catch up on the other stuff later on, no big deal.
We have been having a ton of fun since he got here. He took me out to eat a few times, one of which was to the Sakura Steak House which has my current favorite sushi rolls on their menu (The spider roll)  Watched a ton of movies late nights. We found that even though in the last movie Indiana Jones got raped, it was still funny to watch. We walked around all over down town and went to the Flying M for coffee. Haven't been there in ages, used to go every Wed I could back in the day
since that was the local hang out for most of my old friends.
He lives in Canada but was in the US for some photo shoots, and had a couple of days between shoots so he decided to come here to see me before going to San Fran for his next shoot.
I had a ton of fun getting to play around with his hair and makeup
...going through some of the makeup he brought with him.... >_<
Not to mention all the drunk dancing haha! good times.
I swear I was not the cause of this.
>.>
<.<


Anyways, I need to get back to things so I will end this now, though I am sure there is much more I could type about. Just felt like taking a break for a moment to type out whats been happening,
whats on my mind, and update all of you.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

~Lotus