LA LA IN THE LIBRARY: CAULDRON CONVERSATIONS - What Is Immersion Living? #MagicalLiving #MyMagicalLife

AM I A WITCH?

(no, it's only fantasy)

WHAT IS IMMERSION LIVING?

MY MAGICAL LIFE

Hello, my witchy wonderful magical mavens! Cauldron Conversations is a new floating feature for magical discussions of all kinds from books and movies... to magical living. Let's talk!

During the Spring Equinox someone who follows my Toadstone & Bumbershoot's Facebook page asked me why I didn't refer to the equinox as Ostara, seeing that my page was a "witch" page; another asked why I didn't post spells like other pages when I asked for ideas for new content. The simplest answer to those questions is it's because I'm not Wiccan and my Facebook page is a fantasy page.

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Wicca is an actual religion. I have a close friend who is Wiccan and she is horrified by the witchcore craze on social media. My page is not witchcore, either. This is why I roll my eyes when I see Harry Potter collectors who have items and books with pentacles on them amongst their HP collectables and books with Wiccan spells. *Cherry Wallace, I'm looking at you* If you are an HP collector, please don't do that! Some of the same people who scream misappropriation on Twitter are into witchcore. Irony I say!

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As my friend says, if Gentiles did "jewcore" and wore yarmulkes, grew payot side locks, and threw their kids bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, heads would explode.

Now that I have that out of the way...

I started my Facebook page when the social site MyLeaky shutdown. When I first joined MyLeaky in 2010 there were about 175K members, with around 22K people active on the site every day. Just before it shutdown, three years later, there were only about 50-100 active members; of which I was one. When it did shutdown we tried keeping our diehard group together by making Facebook pages for our MyLeaky RP characters and setting up Facebook groups. I admined the Harry Potter parties and recipes group which morphed into the Toadstone and Bumbershoot page. Mine is the only truely active one left. So, as you can see... my page started as a fantasy page and continues to be one. It's just more generalized fantasy witchiness now, and not specifically Harry Potter based.

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One of my followers once said that my page is for people who want to celebrate Halloween all year long without it being obvious that they are celebrating Halloween all year long. Ha!

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There's lots of silly wand waving and no pentagrams.

IMMERSION LIVING

What is immersion living? My definition is dressing, cooking, and decorating your surroundings with a fictional or anachronistic theme, and being as authentic as possible. Maybe it's living in the '50s, or as a humanoid alien (I have always wanted an authentic looking spaceship control deck room), or, as in my case, in a magical world; which is mostly based on Harry Potter, but is also a mash-up of Bewitched and Practical Magic... with maybe a little Discworld thrown in. Ha ha. Once I move all of my HP books and unrealistic looking Harry Potter collectables into my bedroom, when people walk into my house they will feel like they've walked into a real wizarding world home.

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Some people go all out. Remember this guy?

ITALIAN PASTRY CHEF LIVES LIKE A HOBBIT FOR THREE YEARS

Some people immerse themselves only once or twice a year at Renaissance faires, fairy festivals, the Wizarding World theme parks, or the Galaxy's Edge Star Wars theme park.

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Others host dinners and parties as Middle Earth residents, wizards and witches, 1960s hippies, or zombies having tiki time. And then there are people like me who dress in a mildly quirky, fantasy magical fashion, and eat magical looking foods on almost a daily basis while decorating their home in a fantasy magical manner.

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This is all immersion living, and no matter how much you do it, or how little, it's there to make life more fun and enjoyable. My new project is to throw a dinner party catered by fairies.

A friend of mine has a friend who sets up a fantasy encampment in the woods in back of his house every summer. He and his family basically live there from Friday night to Sunday night every weekend, and on vacation days. His close friends have an open invitation to join them every weekend. They can live as any magical folk, but they have to dress, speak, and cook authentically. People bring instruments and they play Medieval music, dance, and play card games with handmade cards. I wish I was one of those close friends!

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They also have a Woodstock weekend for the Fourth of July every year.

You can have one room, a backyard, or an entire house set up for immersion. Right now my bedroom is my authentic magical space, and my kitchen is magical in a modern way, too; my kitchen theme is black cats. I have a realistic-looking witch broom collection, in a large cauldron, on the staircase landing to our second floor apartment. It's there all year long.

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When we move I will be switching my Harry Potter books collection and my HP collectables from the living room booksheves to bookshelves in my bedroom; real magical folk wouldn't have Harry's wand or a mug that says "Dobby Is Free" on it, etc. Ha ha.

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There are some Harry Potter items that can be kept in my new authentic living spaces like: my Remembrall, my tin of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans in the kitchen, and my bowtruckle, Twigg, who is tucked away up high in a hanging plant. Authentic looking Hogwarts items are okay, too, because I was an exchange student in my sixth year. *winks* The secret is to keep things understated and realistic looking.

So... that's what my T&B Facebook page is about, and my Pinterest boards... witchery cookery and fantasy magical living. Living not "lifestyle," ambiance not "aesthetic" (my gawd I hate that word), witchy wonderful not "witchcore." I will tell you to run away screaming from anything with a suffix of "core" because 99.9% of the time it's used to get you to spend money on overly priced goods. Don't even get me going on that cottagecore trend. I don't sell anything on my page. I do post links to quality fantasy products and artwork at fair prices from Etsy and small business websites, like wands, from time to time. I love posting tutorials for everyone to make their own magical items! I'm just here for the fun and community.

And yes, I do have a black cat! His name is Zuzu. He's actually a pooka stuck part way between a goblin and a cat. Remind me to post the photos of his goblin belly. Ha ha.