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Laura

@hazelbranch.bsky.social
105 followers 216 following 103 posts

Crafting, reading, looking up at the moon 🌙

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Reposted by Laura
Greenpeace Canada @greenpeaceca.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Militarized armoured vehicles made by a Canadian company are being sold to ICE. In fact, Doug Ford spoke to the press in December to say the recent order for 20 such vehicles was “fantastic news.” We don’t think so. What about you? act.gp/3ZBdF4J #CloseTheLoopholes
act.gp
No more armoured vehicles for ICE!
Sign the petition to demand Canada stop exporting military equipment fuelling human rights abuses.
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Kai Cheng Thom @razorfemme.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
2026 was the year that we took our power back from the billionaires & supremacists. The year that we rediscovered the practice of revolutionary & radical love. That we stopped trying to punish ourselves into being better people. 2026 was the year we embraced the end so we could find the beginning.
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Shane Anderson 🏳️‍🌈 @shaneanderson.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future." - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit. Incredible words. Listen to all of it!
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Feeling festive. ❄️
Picture of the book "Hark! The Herald Angel's Scream" with a windowsill filled with potted plants, a lit jar candle, and a felt gnome in the background. The book cover shows a person in a Santa costume with the Santa mask pulled away to reveal a green gorey face below, and snow falling around them.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
RIP my TBR 🧡 @sadiehartmann.bsky.social 💙 my library
Two books on the self-checkout scanner at the library: Feral & Hysterical, and 101 Horror Books To Read Before You're Murdered by Sadie Hartmann/Mother Horror
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C. L. Polk @clpolk.com · 20/08/2025
Canada petition of the day: I like to call this the "stop fuckin' lyin'" petition. basically a stand against mis/disinformation by holding Members of Parliament to a standard of not fuckin' lyin'. I'll sign that! Pass it on, Canada! www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...
ourcommons.ca
Petition e-6679 - Petitions
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Mississippi Free Press @mississippifreepress.org · 19/08/2025
OPINION: "Demonologists offered no original analysis, no evidence and no witnesses, failing to meet the standards of good scholarship," Julia Walsh writes.
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Opinion | Today’s Misinformation Crisis Is the Modern Witch Hunt
Julie Walsh writes how modern-day misinformation found on social media holds a stark parallel to 15th to 17th century witchcraft hysteria.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
I just finished The Massacre at Yellow Hill by @cshumble.bsky.social (the first book in the Amidst the Vastness of All Else saga) and loved it! Ready for the next, A Red Winter in the West.
The cover of the book The Massacre at Yellow Hill by C.S. Humble.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Still reading, still crafting. ✨️ Book: The Black Lord by @chinckleys.bsky.social Pattern: Witchcrafts by @thewitchystitcher.bsky.social
Picture shows the book "The Black Lord" by Colin Hinckley (yellow background with birch trees and an ominous black tree-like shape amongst them) and a cross stitch project (says "Witchcrafts" and shows various crafting tools like scissors and needles along with bats, crescent moons, and a cauldron) against a dark green background. Also includes the embroidery floss for the project (black, yellows, and silver-greys), scissors, and a a repurposed "mystifying mints" tin that looks like an outdated board.
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Rabbi Marisa James @marisaelana.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
I'm not sure who turned my words into a meme, and included U.S. citizens (most of whom do not want a new war!), but I appreciate how many people are connecting with it. May all of us, in all of our different situations, somehow help bring the justice this world so desperately needs. 💔
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Charlie Angus @charlieangus104.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
The view from the Guardian on how Canadian politicians are betraying the call from our people to stand up for democracy and the rule of law. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Canada said it would stand up to Trump. Instead, it’s taking cues from him | Shiri Pasternak and Dayna Nadine Scott
Federal and provincial governments are ‘flooding the zone’ with damaging corporate giveaways under the guise of resistance
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The Nation Magazine @thenation.com · 10/06/2025
As marines descend on LA, as Trump moves closer and closer to martial law, it will be tempting to victim-blame. To equivocate. To find some reason the protesters deserve what’s coming. They don’t.
thenation.com
What I Saw in LA Wasn’t an Insurrection. It Was a Police Riot.
As Trump mobilizes the marines to quell an “insurrection” in LA, it’s essential to be clear about how the protests started and what actually happened.
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Catherynne M. Valente @catvalente.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
You know you can just not use AI, right? You can make a choice not to be part of this. Even if your job uses it, YOU don’t have to in your normal life. You don’t have to let your kids use it. You didn’t have it three years ago. You can just…be on Team Human. You can choose.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
I'm excited to try some natural dyes on these lovely skeins of Canadian wool! Happy to support your farm @topsyfarms.bsky.social !
Five skeins of fingering weight natural colored Canadian wool from Topsy Farms on a blue comforter. Beside the skeins, there is a card with a picture of a sheep and the words "Thank you for helping us to keep the farm land as a farm - Brownie"
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Just finished "Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead" by @biidaasamose.bsky.social Nibi has never given up. 💙
The book "Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead" by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson held in my left hand, with my dog laying in the sunny grass in the background.
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Charlie Angus @charlieangus104.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Canada has raised concerns over the genocide in Palestine. The Israeli army responded by firing on our diplomatic team. Israel is a terror regime. Canada needs to bring in full sanctions, suspend all trade and ensure investigations into any Canadian who serves in the IDF.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
The best Saturday plans: * Reading a book by @sgj.bsky.social * Knitting * A play later today at a small local theatre
A picture of a steel gray, partially knit, sweater (pattern is The Weekender by Andrea Mowry) on knitting needles and the book "The Only Good Indians" by Stephen Graham Jones.
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Charlie Angus @charlieangus104.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Alberta First Nations issue cease and desist order against Danielle Smith's attempt to create a national unity crisis. Alberta is on treaty lands. Those treaties were signed 30 years before Alberta became a province.
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Andrew Simon @simongandrew.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
One of many moments in Omar El Akkad’s new book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” that will stop you in your tracks.
There is an impulse in moments like this to appeal to self-interest. To say: These horrors you are allowing to happen, they will come to your doorstep one day; to repeat the famous phrase about who they came for first and who they'll come for next. But this appeal cannot, in matter of fact, work. If the people well served by a system that condones such butchery ever truly believed the same butchery could one day be inflicted on them, they'd tear the system down tomorrow. And anyway, by the time such a thing happens, the rest of us will already be dead.
No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience.
Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness. Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
"The death of human empathy is one of the most telling signs of a culture about to descend into barbarism."
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Local yarn store day and indie bookstore day being the same day (tomorrow!) is delightfully dangerous.
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Libro.fm @libro.fm · 22/04/2025
Tomorrow, a certain online mega-retailer launches a book sale, just days before Indie Bookstore Day on 4/26. This is no coincidence; Bookstore Day is one of the largest revenue drivers for indies. Indies need our support to thrive & build community spaces for all...mega-retailers do not.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Finished off the first single, and plied it this weekend. Embracing my snail pace.
A fabric basket sits on a window ledge. It contains unspun merino wool fibre that has been dyed in green tones with some brown, as well as some of the fibre that has been spun and two-plied. An acorn tipped bottom-whorl spindle sticks out of the basket.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
I just finished "The Between" by @tananarivedue.bsky.social today, and it was so good! Jumping into "The Good House" audiobook next!
A hand holding the book "The Between" by Tananarive Due and a bookmark with a skeleton on it, outside in a backyard.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
Taking the spindle outside and enjoying the sunshine.
Some green handspun merino wool, on a bottom whorl (acorn shaped) drop spindle, outside in the sunshine.
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
The Trump people claim to be fighting antisemitism, and the media often accept that framing. I believe, on the contrary, that these actions are antisemitic in intention and in execution. I explain in a short video: snyder.substack.com/p/fomenting-...
snyder.substack.com
Fomenting Antisemitism
Not Combating It
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Listening to Bob the Drag Queen's audiobook "Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert" while hearing about her removal (apparently temporary) from the National Parks Underground Railway memorial, was quite the moment. I'm happy to have received a fascinating history lesson through Bob's story & music.
The cover of the book "Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert" by Bob the Drag Queen.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
www.lifeisasacredtext.com/goodtrouble/
lifeisasacredtext.com
THE GOOD TROUBLE CHECKLIST
keep all your shenanigans in one place
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
A lovely spring Equinox surprise from @scottishfolkmagic.bsky.social in my mailbox this morning!
The book "Milldust and Dreaming Bread: Exploring Scottish Folk Belief & Folk Magic" by Scott Richardson-Read and a framed illustration of the Cailleach and the Bodach at Tigh nam Bodach.
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Amara Possian @amarapossian.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Some great ideas in here by @avilewis.bsky.social: breachmedia.ca/trumps-econo...
breachmedia.ca
Trump’s economic war is ours to win—if we ditch the corporate playbook and think big ⋆ The Breach
The tariff attack calls for bold, people-first solutions, not doubling down on the broken status quo
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Nayeli Jimenez @nayelijs.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
“The answer to fascism isn’t more nationalism—it’s deeper democracy, stronger communities, empowered labour movements, and unwavering commitment to justice for all.” @erinblondeau.bsky.social 💯🔥 rabble.ca/columnists/f...
rabble.ca
Fight fascism with climate justice, not 'Canada First' nationalism
Instead of turning towards nationalism, in the face of rising fascism, we should turn to each other and the planet.
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Nayeli Jimenez @nayelijs.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Got a bit personal and wrote this blog for @leadnowca.bsky.social to talk about the rise of anti-immigration rhetoric in Canada, why migrant scapegoating is happening, and what we can do about it: leadnow.ca/migrant-just... In the context of the upcoming election, it feels more relevant than ever.
leadnow.ca
Let’s talk about immigration - Leadnow
As part of our response to rising anti-immigrant rhetoric in Canada, we are sharing some educational resources.
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Doctors TARDIS @doctorstardis.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
We can upload 3 minute videos now. YOU KNOW THE RULE
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M. Belanger @sethanikeem.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
In light of the US National Park Service censoring all references to trans & queer folk from their Stonewall page, today’s a great day for MARSHA’S MYTHIC BRICK, a spell of queer rage from my Little Book of Wicked Spells:
Marsha’s Mythic Brick
 
a spell of queer rage
 
Hidden or known
Named or unnamed,
Rise in your power
And unleash your pain.
 
Taken too soon
Reviled, erased
Help us smash down
The walls of their hate.
 
 
Marsha never really threw a brick. By her own account, she wasn’t even present when the Stonewall riots began. She and a friend arrived closer to two that night. But the mythic history around Marsha P. Johnson and the brick that smashed open a new era of gay rights has grown beyond the narrow confines of simple fact. The brick as well as Marsha herself have become transfigured symbols. This spell is about harnessing those symbols and everything for which they stand: queer rights; queer freedom; and queer rage.
 
For this spell, you need a brick. On one side of the brick, write out the words of the spell. On the other side, write the names of queer martyrs: names that inspire you; names that you mourn; names directly or indirectly connected to your own story. Take this opportunity to add more than those names you easily recall and learn their stories, too. If you have too many names to fit (or your brick does not hold ink easily) write the names instead on a piece of paper and wrap this around the brick, fixing it in place with twine.
 
Keep the brick someplace where you’ll see it every day. If you have a personal shrine or memorial for our queer ancestors, that would be a perfect place for this inscribed object. Whenever a law is passed, a protest mustered, whenever you or your friends personally are impacted by hate, recite the names on the brick. Remember their stories. Then recite the words of the spell and invite those powerful, beautiful, wronged, and rage-filled martyrs to lend whatever strength they can to continue the fight.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Snow day cuddles and a newly finished handknit.
My dog, a beagle mix, looking up at the camera while cuddled up with me, her head resting on a multicolored knit.
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Kai Cheng Thom @razorfemme.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Not to be that wellness girl, but as the increasingly terrifying war of annihilation on trans people and many other communities continues, it is absolutely essential that we continue to practice the skills of spiritual & emotional resilience, if only to keep from turning on one another.
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Cottage in the Woods @cottageinwood.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Happy Lunar New Year! 🐍 May the year of the snake be the moment when you finally shed your skin, press your heart against the earth, and figure out how to unhinge your jaw so that you can devour your enemies, bones and all. 🌙
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Charlie Angus @charlieangus104.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Don't let Elon Musk interfere in our elections. Here is my letter to Elections Canada to protect our electoral process from interference by the X algorithm. www.charlieangus.ca/_files/ugd/5... If you are worried about Musk's extremism please send an email to: Stephane.Perrault@elections.ca
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Jimmy Colvin @jimmythemodel.com · 20/01/2025
Every MLK Day, people who’d likely have opposed him in life share out-of-context quotes. They focus on unity while ignoring his sharp critiques of inequality, inaction, and complicity. Let’s honor his full legacy by reflecting on the truths many would rather forget. 🧵 (I made time this morning 😏)
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
Knitting up advent minis and enjoying the colour changes.
Two panels of knitting in progress: one with 6 colours in a dark pink to cream gradient, and the other with the first three of the same colours.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
Three becoming-yarn stages. The second spun rolag has now also been plied, and the third rolag started its transformation into yarn today. Thank you to @nyxieh.bsky.social for carding and gifting the fiber. 🩵
A curled up rolag, a drop spindle with a rolag's worth of fiber spun on it, and a skein of yarn made from the third rolag.  The colour of fiber varies from gray to light and darker purples and blue.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
Holiday spinning thanks to @nyxieh.bsky.social
Two drop spindles, one with a finished cop and the other just begun. Unspun fiber in a rolag nearby.
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Naomi Kritzer @naomikritzer.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
And "The Year Without Sunshine" is available in Uncanny: www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-...
uncannymagazine.com
The Year Without Sunshine - Uncanny Magazine
During one of the much smaller disasters that preceded the really big disaster, I met a lot of my neighbors online. I can’t remember if we set up the WhatsApp group because of the pandemic or the civi...
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
A quiet Sunday morning.
A picture of items on a wood table: a blue ceramic mug of coffee, the book "A Witch's Guide to Burning" by Aminder Dhaliwal, and a handspun yarn knitting project, lit by nearby candles.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
This week's reading: "Withered Hill," "The Fright Before Christmas," "The Lost Village," and "Lanny." If forced to choose a favourite, it would be Withered Hill, but Lanny had the most emotional impact.
The cover of the book "Withered Hill" by David Barnett. A hare's face made of branches on a black background.The cover of the book "The Fright Before Christmas" by Jeff Belanger. A picture of Krampus holding up a branch in one hand and a distraught child under the other arm on a red background.The cover of the book "The Lost Village" by Camilla Sten. A picture of a large old abandoned house, with other houses in the background, under a grey sky.The cover of the book "Lanny" by Max Porter. The background is made up of two black shapes, almost like a sheet of paper torn in two, that don't quite fit together.
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
The first six in a series of tiny joys with this advent by TinyHumanKnits. I'm enjoying watching the gradient unfold.
Days one through six of a hand-dyed mini skein yarn advent showing warm browns into yellows and creams.
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Horror Makes Us Happy @horrormakesushappy.com · 05/12/2024
#horror goals
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
I'm about 90% into listening to the folk horror novel "The Haar" by @paperbacksandpugs.bsky.social , and out of nowhere, the name Bianca Del Rio appears. You never know where she'll pop up! Lol
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Laura @hazelbranch.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Robin Wall Kimmerer is such a gift. Her books are soul-nourishing, and I love listening to her read them. I'm torn between taking it in in one go and parceling it out in many small, delicious moments.
A screenshot of the audiobook "The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World" by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
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