Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at [email protected]

 

S2E07 TRANSCRIPT:  

----more----

Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Mark.

Yucca: And I am Yucca.

Mark: And today we are going to be talking about the association of paganism with making things crafting and cooking and baking and just all these kinds of amazing alchemical and crafty things that it seems like everybody in the pagan community does.

So we're going to talk about that and its association with ritual and then talk a little bit about the things that we do and why it's, why it's so good for us.

Exactly. And this is a pretty good time of year to be doing that. This is a time of year where lots of folks in the Northern hemisphere, that is, are starting to get a little bit fidgety, wanting to get going after the winter and keep their hands busy.

Sure. Especially this year when we've been cooped up for, you know, pretty close to a year now with the pandemic trying to find ways to occupy ourselves productively is is a really important for just for psychological survival right now. You can only sit around and mope for so long.

Yucca: Recently, we mentioned that. The seeds selling out early this year. And last year, there was actually a shortage in Mason jars. And there still is right now because so many people took up all kinds of activities that needed Mason jars, including canning or jarring, as I think they call it in Britain.

Mark: Sure. Yeah, that's very interesting. I wasn't aware of the shortage of Mason jars, but it totally makes sense to me. There's this sort of cascade effect where many, many more people than usual put in gardens. Last year because they were stuck at home and it was something to do and it, it feels good to garden.

And, you know, you've got this productive you know, these vegetables coming out of the ground.

Yucca: And I've been meaning to do it for years anyways.

Mark: Right. And then of course, the problem with that is you have all these vegetables coming out of the ground and they're doing it all at the same time. So what do you do with all that? Well, you can it or, or you pickle it and all of that involves a lot of Mason jars.

So that's, that's not a surprise to me.

Yucca: Half of everything on Pinterest involves Mason jars too.

Mark: Oh, does it?

Yucca: Yeah. Mason, jars, everything. Your fairy lights, everything is Mason jars.

Mark: Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. I'm not on Pinterest. It's one of the social media I don't do. So

Yucca: I had to delete it from my phone. Otherwise I'd be on all the time. Yeah. It's well, all those, all those things are designed, literally designed to keep you sucked in and on them as long as possible.

So my productivity and everything else in my life went way up as soon as I got rid of those things.

Mark: I'm sure.

Yucca: but Hard to quit there. I mean, harder than a lot of things that we traditionally think of, difficult to quit.

Mark: Well, sure. Because social media gives you positive feedback. It's not just a little hit of dopamine. It gives you these constant, ongoing little sips of dopamine from interactions and seeing how people have reacted to what you post and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, they're very clever.

Yucca: And they, and your people pressure you to get back on,

Mark: Well, I'm sure.

Yucca: Yeah. It's a. It's an it's an ever present siren. So anyways, we're talking about crafting, which yes.

Mark: We are. And one of the things that, one of the reasons that this topic occurred to me as a good one for us to talk about is that there is a particular mental state that people get into when they do crafts it's very present. They're not thinking about the future or the past or anything.

They're very focused on doing what is right in front of them. And there's this very pleasurable state of flow that goes with working on a project, being creative using your hands in that way. And then at the end, achieving