Tonight is the new moon, a great time both for introspection and for new beginnings. I’m still obsessing over autumn and mori kei, so today I’m beginning the “mori girl 30 day challenge” I found here at I Don’t Know Much but I’m Learning. It looks like a fun way to explore my “forest witch” side.

And now, without further ado . . .

Question 1: How did I get into Mori Kei?

I’ve known about mori and dark mori for a couple of years, I guess. I’m coming at it from the dark side, where it overlaps with strega and goth. For a while now I’ve been attracted to the draped, layered look of mori fashion and I enjoy the handmade and witchy elements. It’s a look that’s easy to play with and personalize, and I appreciate how practical and easy to wear it is. I love over the top goth looks but I don’t have the dedication to dress up that hard every day; dark mori and strega are looks that work well with my lifestyle and body type.

But lately I’m also starting to feel a deep interest in the lifestyle aspects. I’ve always been interested in natural and handmade things, and the mori way of slowing down to savor good moments and put a little romance and mystery into your day really speaks to me. The “mori girl checklist” that’s been passed around since the beginning has a lot that doesn’t really speak to me, but things like “you can’t help starting collections of things you like” and “you get excited when you visit a furniture” are totally me. When I combine that with dark mori checklist items like “collects oddities” and “prefers strangeness over prettiness” the descriptions get wicked close.

Mori is old and mostly over, and dark mori was more of a straight fashion thing than a lifestyle (and quickly broadened out to strega fashion), so I guess I’m pretty much free to invent my own forest witch lifestyle based on the parts of mori that inspire me most.