A Science Witch's Handbook.

There's a lot of wonder in that tapestry of magic we call science.

[just--space]

Total Solar Eclipse 2020 : Along a narrow path crossing southern South America through Chile and Argentina, the final New Moon of 2020 moved in front of the Sun on December 14 in the year’s only total solar eclipse. Within about 2 days of perigee, the closest point in its elliptical orbit, the New Moon’s surface is faintly lit by earthshine in this dramatic composite view. The image is a processed composite of 55 calibrated exposures ranging from 1/640 to 3 seconds. Covering a large range in brightness during totality, it reveals the dim lunar surface and faint background stars, along with planet-sized prominences at the Sun’s edge, an enormous coronal mass ejection, and sweeping coronal structures normally hidden in the Sun’s glare. Look closely for an ill-fated sungrazing Kreutz family comet (C/2020 X3 SOHO) approaching from the lower left, at about the 7 o'clock position. In 2021 eclipse chasers will see an annular solar eclipse coming up on June 10. They’ll have to wait until December 4 for the only total solar eclipse in 2021 though. That eclipse will be total along a narrow path crossing the southernmost continent of Antarctica. via NASA

[vugnasmineralblog]

Fluorite Sherry Twins Pocket, Lady Annabella Mine, Eastgate, Weardale, County Durham, England, Europe

[thebeautifulcosmos]

[isthisthis]

This is a crystal

[isthisthis]

Llareta - weird plant - Bolivia

[j-k-i-ng]

“Rooftop garden“ by | Tom Quan

[a-single-scientific-witch]

On Purity and Perfection.

Perfect, ideal, or otherwise 'pure' crystals are often the most boring. Defects, impurities, and imperfections create a wonderful array of properties and effects. Color, contrast, scattering, diffusion. They give strength to iron, hue to quartz, and light to silicon. Here the complexity of nature and all of their mechanism interlock and interplay. Here is where interesting things happen.

I often think people are much the same. Find your own perfect, for it may be quite far off what 'perfect' is assumed to be.

[crystalherbalist]

I’m trying to believe in witchcraft and loa and I’ve had soooo many experiences and proof but i know that scientists would call me crazy

as someone who is very scientific i had a hard time indulging into witchcraft at first. if you think of witchcraft at its root- energy- everything ties in alot more. scientists and witches alike agree that theres so much energy in the world that no one can ever begin to fully explain, witchcraft is simply harnessing the unknown and mixing in your own energy to create beautiful things. witchcraft begins to scratch the surface of how to identify those unknown energies, how to warp and manipulate those energies, etc. if you think of it logically with some creativity, witchcraft is one of those things that just really clicks

[a-single-scientific-witch]

Steel microstructures under different lighting conditions.

[s-t-y-l-e-t-s]

the orbit of the planets in our solar system

[a-single-scientific-witch]

On Energy

"With 3 Laws, I shall describe the Universe to you.

On 2 Axis, I shall show you how to move through.

And with 1 Dream, we shall travel to it's furthest corners together"

[paperbeatsscissors]

FUNGUY.EXE

[vugnasmineralblog]

Siderite Carn Brea Mine, Illogan, Redruth, Cornwall, England, Europe    

[a-single-scientific-witch]

On the Unseen

Some of the most wonderful magic are the ones often unseen. The complex dance of the universe will happen on scales unfathomable, times stretching eons, or within dull exteriors. Cherish the dull and the mundane, for their story may be more complex than you could ever know.

Consider this.

A grey slab of metal may have an intricacy far beyond any monolithic crystal. It's defects and impurities giving it strength far beyond when it is pure.

A dull rock may hold a geological story to rival any gemstone. Formed under unimaginable conditions and spanning a journey across continents to rest under your feet.

A piece of plastic may hold a complex weave with threads innumerable. An infinite tapestry, molded and formed with precision.

And do not consider their stories done. For the processes within them are continuously churning, altering, moving.

The world may not always be flashy, but it is certainly wonderful nonetheless.

I implore you to go seek this wonder yourself. For it is all around you (and you as well!)

[spaceexp]

Jupiter and four of its moons.

via reddit

[garadinervi]

Linda Conner, January 22, 1898, (gelatin silver print), 1995 [MFAH – The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, Manfred Heiting Collection. © Linda Conner]

[a-single-scientific-witch]

On Stories.

In ages past we wondered why thunder struck, why the winds howl, and why fire burnt. To that we made stories of the spirits of the sky, the forests, and the flame.

In time we built systems and monuments, moved mountains and sundered forests. Yet the rains were still greater and the wilderness just as untamed. So we told stories of greater powers, deities above and beyond humanity.

We thought long and hard about ourselves, and we wrote many stories of them too. Mythologies carved in stone, inked on paper, and told through the ages. We sought to discover who they were and how we were connected to them. By what rules did their creation work?

And so we took a second and looked around.

And we saw rules, many rules.

Rules on how things moved, how numbers added and subtracted, how the plants grew, and how we worked.

So many rules! Enough to fill a book and then some.

So we did, we made a story of rules. And we kept writing. And writing. And writing.

More people joined in and brought their chapters to add. New chapters that made more sense revised older ones.

And in that rush to seek the beauty of the gods' creation, to catagorize the spirits that had once eluded us, we found something else.

We found the power within ourselves.

To look and listen and write down a chapter in the great book we call science. To seek out the darkest corners of the universe and find the most complex systems at work. To understand the works of the giants that wrote the prologue and to build the great machines and buildings that will one day write the epilogue.

To know who we are from the smallest unit to the largest mass. To predict and model, to change and alter, and to describe the undescribable.

And so we wrote a story, much like the mythologies of yore, to know why things worked.

The story of science. All of us. One way or the other. A story that is still being written and rewritten. One written in many languages all over the world. The greatest story that humanity has ever written, is writing, and shall write.

...

Who knows if it has an end. The spirits are elusive like that.