⛥January Q&A⛥ (Patreon)

Excuse me, excuse me, rewards from two months coming through! How are you all doing? I must admit it was a really rough start to the year and I can only hope that this universal funk subsides soon while I try my hardest to melt the ice off of my motivation to live. I feel like I'm blowing at a glacier with a 100W blow dryer but you know, I try. Oh, there was stuff you wanted to know, right? What was that again?

How are you?  I'm tired. As the days get longer again I struggle going to sleep and fight my circadian rhythm on top of the usual noise every day. Body be like "well it's light out, we can't sleep now!" and when the exhaustion finally gets to me it's like "well it's dark out, we have to sleep all the way through until it's light out again!" Other than that I'm content with my weight loss progress and starting to feel emotions like hope, which is new. I'm not familiar with hope at all. Even though I do my best and life punches me in the face in spite of it, I'm starting to get my fighting spirit back. 

Do you prefer incense sticks, cones, loose granules, ...? All of the above. It depends on the day. If I have a specific purpose in mind like for a ritual or meeting specific emotional needs I will usually go for loose incense including blends just because I can mix and match ingredients to serve my intention. If I'm just having a casual date with Jack I like to light a nice scented stick or cone, though I think cones are a lot less messy. Sticks always end up dropping their ashes everywhere no matter how hard I try to stick it straight into the sand. 

Is there anywhere you want to visit or a thing that you want that most other people would find strange or not understand (Jack and audio/video equipment aside)?  I want to visit many places. As a rising Sag I always have a lingering wanderlust. Especially places in nature like Stonehenge, the Blue Lagoon, the Hoia Baciu forest. Literally anywhere but here. Nothing that I want is here. People are often surprised when I post photos of where I live, saying how can I possibly want to leave such a beautiful place in favor of the PC melting pot Oompa Loompa run US of A... And I understand why they would not understand. It's a nice place. I love the nature, love the architecture, love the (ancient) history. The problem? People. As stunning as the nature here is, as shitty are the people. It's honestly difficult to find decent people out here in Bavaria. Half the people are high functioning junkies and the other half, as one of you so beautifully put it, have industrial size beams up their asses. I'm so tired of being gawked at like I'm Satan himself just because I dress vastly better than most. All I want is to be me and also be treated with basic human respect. Is that too much to ask? As for a thing I want to have... *chuckles a little as I lift up my coffee* I want to have a good body. *universal outrage ensues*
Ok hear me out before you give into your knee-jerk reaction of typing a comment saying how perfect I am in every way. I've been on a diet and since losing a bit of weight I've come to realize just how skinny fat I've always been. People like to invalidate my body image and discredit my desire to change just because I've never been overweight, telling me that most people would kill to look the way I do without even trying. But I am trying because I'm not happy. Having less body fat than the average woman is a requirement for me to feel good about myself and be comfortable in my skin. I don't aim to look like a bag of bones (trying to build a little bit of muscle aswell) but I do like my body when it has some bone definition going on. All I want is to lose all my excess body fat. When I flex the muscles in my legs, I grab onto like 3 pounds of fat on each thigh on top of my lean mass. That's gotta go. My ovaries make way too much estrogen so it's all in my thighs and hips and arms aswell, aka the most unflattering parts. You can cover up your middle, in fact that part is covered most of the time. But what about wearing cute little sleeveless tops that say "Wear Black, Eat Pizza"? What about my thighs grinding holes into every pair of pants I own? I want to feel confident in anything I feel like wearing and that requires that I feel comfortable naked. So I'm doing something about it now before I'm 45 and it's 10x as hard to lose the weight because I've always had it plus whatever piles on over the course of a decade with the infamous scrumptious but excessive American cookery. If I had my way, I would age like Dolores O'Riordan. Slim, lean and beautiful always. I might not be able to rock the short haircut, but the skinny frame - yeahhhhh that's my shit. 

Also, when you get to the US, do you think it'll affect how you practice withcraft any, insofar as access to more or different things than you use now or being able to practice more with the extra elbow room? I like to think of it as so many more possibilities opening up to me. Over here, witches are far and few between. Any faith that strays from Christianity is frowned upon and it's ridiculously hard to get basic things like, oh, decent sized smudging sticks. Most of that stuff has to be imported. I can't wait to dive into the thriving witch community across the pond and browse real witchery shops for all kinds of oracle and tarot cards, crystals, herbs, candles, daggers, wands, journals, anything black at all... You would not believe the lack of black colored options here. Everything always comes in every color... except black. I will probably accumulate a ridiculous amount of stuff. Meeting other witches is like one of my secret fantasies. Besides marrying the coolest one I know, I've always dreamt about having friends who also practice because I've always been the odd one out. Occasionally I could get some friends to join my rituals, following my lead and they enjoyed it, but on their own free time they didn't care or didn't bother. I want to be friends with real witches. How I define a real witch is this: You are a witch if without the craft your life loses meaning. That's how you know the path is for you. If you don't practice for some time and you don't feel like yourself and everything bores you as a result of it, this is your path. Some may not be affected as deeply by simply not practicing for a while, but I know I was. I want to find people who feel the same way. 

Have you ever had a moment where you thought "Fuck, I guess ima grownup now" If ya remember what was it? ... of course no matter how old we get we can always look back 5 years ago at our stupid naive selves and have a chuckle of exasperation...But yea for me the first time I thought that was the first year I didnt get a Christmas present ... I have yet to encounter a situation like this. But I reckon the day will come when I will stop getting asked for my ID when buying alcohol and that will be the day... So far I've just been maturing and starting to develop a sense of self which is something that I've been denied in childhood. With my changing body, becoming comfortable with sexuality and all the fun stuff, trying to make a living as a respectable artist and contributing to my family (husband to be and cat) I've just slowly started to feel more like a woman than a girl. As my mother has done everything in her power to keep me from growing up and keep me helpless, it feels like a rebellious act to acknowledge that I'm growing up regardless. It brings me satisfaction to do my own thing and see that my path takes me in the exact opposite direction from what she wanted for me. I guess it just drives home that I am my own person - not her property. 

I noticed you like reading books. Do you wear contact lenses? Only for roleplays. I have perfect vision. 

How do you talk to cats in german? How do german people talk to their cats? I talk to cats in English. It's not like they care. Cats communicate empathically, telepathically and through body language - they are not bothered by the words that come out of our mouths unless they have formed associations. They know I have yummy treats and that I want to pet them - that's all we need to get along. Most Germans, I reckon, use the same high pitched baby talk, just in their native language. 

Tips for nighttime/darkish photos? +++ Exposure, --- Shutter speed, --- ISO. Turning the exposure way up and the shutter speed way down lets more light into the lens while avoiding changing the ISO which always just adds grain. For landscape and still life, having a tripod, self-timer and a slow AF shutter really pays. If you're trying to photograph in the pitch dark, you want to expose your shot for as long as possible so that all the light from distant sources (stars, cityscape etc) can be captured. Depending on your camera, you might have a preinstalled filter or settings specifically for low light / night photography. Using those is usually a safe bet. 

Could you tell me happy birthday? My birthday is this month and i really cant think of a question..... wait just thought of one, if given a choice would you prefer to become a vampire or werewolf? Happy belated birthday! I'd become a vampire just because of the aesthetic. Though I genetically have almost enough body hair to pass as a werewolf. You just can't see it as it's all blonde.
 

Do you think someone can act like their parents without realizing it? Of course, the subconscious is powerful. All life I've wondered why I'm so weird about food and body image - my mother starved herself for years on end to lose the baby weight and my father is an ultra spiritual confused new ager who's on a different diet every week. No mystery there, but I really didn't make the connection for a long time. It's only by getting to know our parents and seeing them for who they are as opposed to overlaying the "parent" template over their true personalities that we start to see ourselves in them - no matter how much we want to be different, even completely removed from them. It can be irksome, it can be enlightening, but it surely will be interesting. I encourage everyone who has the chance to observe their parents as objectively as possible as it may teach you about yourself and help you make peace with traits you've inherited, whether you want to change them or not. At least I always find it helpful to know where something I do originated, it gives me a sense of closure. 

Thank you for all your questions this month! I hope you got some mental stimulation and/or satisfaction out of this and if you thought of something else, click here 

I hope you all are well and that this month pans out better than the last cause holy shit.