Natasha Kindred

@leopardsbane

Poet and artist in triumphant distress • Reliquary archives a specialty • World's worst Catholic ❤️‍🔥 Problems merchant - international shipping God stuff: being moved so it’s no longer on Substack Strange essays & peculiar fiction: natashakindred.co.uk

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Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· 18d

Downloaded GhostTube to see if any le spookies in the house and someone in the Netherworld immediately let me know they were on my team.

A screenshot of GhostTube listening in a room, the spirit is saying ‘coffee’

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· 20d

For her feast day, my (still unfinished) mixed media icon of St Mary Magdalene. ‘…for she loved much’ ❤️‍🔥

A mixed media icon of Mary Magdalene, pearls and red beads added to a collage featuring butterflies, pomegranates. A woman with blue skin in red and green holds a rose, a cloak of pink flowers spills out behind her.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· 26d

Tweaking yesterday’s poem.

Leveret!
Thought I'd imagined it - a brown bun cogitating, and with
those long baby ears back down its trembling round.
Soft my retreat, all the way to the hornbeam on cloud patrol.
'There's a thing' I said to him, and rendered the pilgrim flint under my feet to story.
Young, I coveted fussings;
rich fabrics under my thumb, the throat gem-slashed.
Now 1 am rich in olive trees, in cheddar, in leveret.
I close my eyes to a passion of plums, to the apricot's ripe rosacea.
In a blink the city rolls out before me in acres of warm marble.
There is nowhere I cannot be.
Glory to you, o, my Lord,
leaping, the soul jubilates engulfed in quiet fire.
From your hands pours my wealth in hours, hare-struck,
in doorways of the airy spirit, as wide and as blue as dusk.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· 28d

I don’t think I’ve ever seen fabric ✨glow✨ quite like this before. Get to Zurbarán at the NG, it’s a little slice of light.

Saint Casilda by Zurbaran. A dark haired, dark eyed woman woman holds a cluster of roses in her gown. The grey and orange fabrics of her dress and the hem of seed pearls are vividly painted

Saint Apollonia holds a tooth in an iron pincer and a yellow palm frond in her other hand. The emerald, rose and yellow fabrics of her dress are bright and luminous

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· 29d

Rest in peace, the great Sam Neill. From the epic 1998 Merlin to Cardinal Wolsey, you were with me through adolescent angst and beyond, what a duck-loving legend.

A publicity shot from 1998 Merlin, featuring Sam Neill in the title role. An incredible watch if you’ve not seen it yet!

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· 29d

Gorgeous view of the Lie Factory the other day.

Evening across the Thames, with a view of Big Ben and Parliament. The river and the sky are warm electric blue, a red bus tootles over Westminster Bridge

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Jul 11

The new poem. Thomas.

Thomas
NATASHA KINDRED
JUL 08, 2026
'This isn't Dogma, just my thought: I like to think of Hell as being empty. I hope it is?
- Pope Francis
Twelve, I saw the end of the world.
A rolling boil of molten copper clouds, the sunset roaring over-field
impossibly, and as the sky peeled away the horses too
ceased to crop the grass and watched.
The earth rang to its edges, to where the dead hum like a wall of bees,
out to the angels blowing the embers of Time to fire.
Tell me of your revelation, your calm crash into infinity's side
and if you'd opened your eyes to the stars you would have seen them falling, falling, a congregation of cellos known to Bach and the other prophets.

At the end of the world, the things of the earth began to throw out their voices: the skylark's vertical praises.
The moonish wink of a thin birch like a sheaf of
spears.
The orchid in her creeping, secret universe, glowing with silence.
The wind pouring clear honey down the mountain.
Can I believe anyone stands condemned before the maker of such a world,
before the Father of such a Son?
Crowned with a thousand pink and cornflower dawns,
and all the roses in Jerusalem?
This God who fell Himself into our sorrows, who fell Himself into bread.

When I saw the Lord, His face was a waterfall.
In it I beheld that great radiant homesickness, the path towards the sepulchre an eternity of raining flowers.
For some reason, I remembered that in the double-slit experiment,
light behaves like a river when no one is looking.

I too am Thomas, my fingers in the question, I have always been in safer hands than I own.
In upper rooms where the landing lights hold long-gone moths,
thumbfuls of dust drawn to all things illuminated.
Are these places, too, not emptied purgatories?
Looking back, all the rooms of me are thick with such hopeful remains.
The city stretches into midnight, praying her electric hours,
a thousand souls tall.
Are these things, too, not wounds full of light.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Jul 9

Horrible new bullshit from the sea every time. It’s never ‘oh we found a new pink fish that is so happy’ it’s always stuff like this, the crush-depth screw-headed dongwongler, and it’s got to have big long creepy bits. Sick of the ocean tbh.

A photo of a Magnapinna squid captured by a deep sea drilling company.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Jun 24

There are days in the archive that…exceed expectations. ‘Whose hair is this, boss?’ is a question that should be asked fewer times than I have to ask it.

An envelope with ‘3 vague relics’ written on it

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Jun 13

First time doing wedding flowers and not a total disaster actually

A wildflower bouquet flanked by two smaller ones. Poppies, cornflowers, stocks, lavender, roses, thistles, etc

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Jun 7

My absolute favourite new phishing email intro

Text that reads: ‘congratulations! I have to share bad news with you’

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Jun 4

Strike it down in the name of the Pope!

A telephone box seen out of a moving bus advertising an AI persona as ‘your next hire’

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Jun 2

Thunderstorm jasmine ⛈️

Soaked white jasmine flowers and their pointy green leaves against a brick in the rain

White and green jasmine soaked by the rain storm against a warm red mottled brick wall

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Jun 1

I feel for the people who lost whole swathes of much-loved work and a great artistic following on the Other Place meanwhile my peak moment there was Beef Richards.

A quote tweet of a large black square-faced dog, very muscular, kind of a hell hound, with the caption ‘what should we name him?’
The reply is ‘Beef Richards’

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· May 26

💀❤️‍🔥

Instructions for a Holy Grief

Prepare by bathing.
The ocean is best, the grit of salt under your soles in the shower will do.
Dress in white, be appropriate, (this is a funeral after all),
put water out for the creatures crawling on hot pavements.
Face North. Light the candle. Close your eyes.

Light forever in all directions, pray for us.
Saints of the intersection, pray for us.
Plump Mother of all fruits, pray for us.

Light your incense, speak the names of the spirits of transition:
The ghost of the first vineyard,
(it will show you the hypnosis of wine after death by crushing)
The morning cigarette,
Duty free perfume,
St Brendan the Navigator.

Gather them on your right, like blossoms in the East.
Turn your head, seek the intervention of the spirits of fortitude:

Cult of the Saguaro Cacti (pray for us)
Holy bathroom spider (pray for us)
Our Lady of hospital coffee (pray for us)

Wash your hands in almond milk and rearrange the furniture.
All four chambers of the heart will need sweeping,
open their windows to the daytime moon.
Lay what remains of your table,
you have sent out
the great invitiation of tears.

God is coming, with a bunch of gas station flowers
and a rowdy party.
God is coming with the Ace of Tombs up His sleeve.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· May 25

Walking towards Camberwell in yesterday’s heat, a surrealist avenue of plane trees.

An avenue of Plane trees in the heatwave, almost bare apart from a few sprouting tops. Purple and pink toned photo.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· May 17

I'm a simple woman, this will forever be one of the funniest moments on television to me, alongside 'he won't sell much ice cream going at that speed'

A still from Father Ted, a priest is chased over a hill by three enormous peanuts with legs. the subtitle reads (peanuts growling)

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· May 13

We're not even pretending to take this seriously

a sky news headline that states: 'Streeting meeting is very fleeting'

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· May 11

Bit of weird fiction up on the blog. Originally published in the Before Times on my old Patreon. natashakindred.co.uk/2026/05/11/r...

A sepia toned photo of an empty road between hot summer fields. stretching away under a mostly cloudy sky.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· May 9

My Out of Office is ON amigos

A stretch of wooded Green fields under a blue sky with puffy summer clouds

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· May 8

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Apr 29

How lovely these were this morning. If you stand downwind they perfume halfway down the street.

Peach and yellow roses lit up by the morning sunlight

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Apr 26

A lovely, lazy wander along the river last night, listening to the starling chatter of Saturday shenanigans

A bridge in London lit up in the late evening, blue yellow and purple tones reflect off the water as the lamps glow.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Apr 14

This painting always stops me mid-step. The cool serenity. The sense of being able to breathe inside it. The blue! The blue!

Cezanne’s Lac d'Annecy (Lake Annecy). A view over a lake to a distant castle. In reflective almost geometric blues and greens.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Apr 14

Here she is, my beautiful wife

Cranach the Elder’s Adam and Eve. A beautiful Renaissance painting showing the moment of temptation in the garden, surrounded by the animals.

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Apr 14

One of my favourite views in London

Looking through a doorway of the Cortauld gallery to the Cranach Adam and Eve

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Apr 9

My money is on the Holy Father

A photo of Pope Leo XIV holding a baseball bat

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Apr 7

A lovely wander yesterday through the blooming park, got my first starburn of the year, naturally.

A delicate pick cherry tree in full blossoms with a bright blue sky

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Apr 5

Regina caeli, laetare, alleluia! Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia!Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia! Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia!

Natasha Kindred@leopardsbane· Mar 21

I tried Dave. I really did.