Important to have plant nerd friends who are also plant spirit nerd friends, so when they're making fun of you for your unidentified plants on inaturalist you can have conversations like:
Red: Looks like some sort of violet.
Me: I understand that it looks that way in the photo, but I was there in person, and it did not feel like a violet. I know violets, and it did not have the violet vibe.
Red: Some sort of celandine?
Me: ... Well it doesn't look like the lesser celandine that I'm used to doing [i.e. losing] battle with, but it did have the same sort of menacing aura, so I could buy that.
And they don't think you're insane for literally taking a vibes-based approach to plant identification.
credit to @brujarojaderio for being the cool plant nerd friend in the above conversation
Disclaimer (sigh): I do not use vibes-based plant identification for anything I'm going to consume.
A cemetery is a park that just happens to have dead people in it. It is where we put people we love when we want them to rest in a beautiful place forever. It is as much a place of rest and memory as it is a space associated with death. It is a celebration of life and a space to immortalize loved ones. It's not spooky, scary, evil Mart. Its supposed to be a balm and a blessing to the living, not a place of fear and oogie boogie edgy vibes.
cleansing isn't really all that necessary. in fact, if you cleanse a lot, you won't build up your spiritual immune system. same principle as letting your kid lick doorknobs and the five second rule.
Hi everyone, i'm boosting this here too.. my beloved friend's father just got taken by ICE recently, if you can please help support him by sharing/donating on gfm
Having a conversation about crossing thresholds on the Eve of St. Margaret of Antioch’s feast day (Czech folkloric date-7/12) and as we approach the new moon.
learning the names of local plants.
noticing where water gathers.
thanking a tree before taking from it.
picking up trash.
leaving a place better than you found it.
sitting quietly long enough to feel the mood of the land.
animism is not always spectacle.
sometimes it is relationship, attention, and care.
It's done! I am so freaking thrilled with how this came out. It was immensely fun taking the old poster and trying to figure out a balance between the old art and a modern take on fire management, as well as how to make it my own while retaining as much of the original style and color as possible. And I'm not normally one to stick my whole logo on my illustrations, but I wanted to match the original poster which as the USFS logo there, so!
Shout out to @vaspider for helping me puzzle out better wording for the bottom chunk of the poster.
You can get prints and shirts with this design in my Printful shop! If there's another product you'd like to see it on, let me know!
Some more thoughts and ramblings about this piece below the cut, including a side-by-side with the original poster.
The Death Rides poster was produced in 1933 by the US Forest Service, but I've sadly never seen the specific artist named anywhere. It reflects the pretty typical attitude of the time that fire=bad, that it leads to death as a negative thing. It's also one of the most popular pre-Smokey Bear fire prevention posters. This thing is EVERYWHERE, especially in wildland fire circles. It's on posters, shirts, even a few logos.
I have never seen a GOOD reproduction of the thing. I feel like there's got to be a good quality one sitting around somewhere, but it sure doesn't seem to have made its way onto the internet. They're all grainy with strange color splotches, but that's never seemed to effect its popularity.
I do really love the concept of the original poster, and the simple phrasing that drives home the clear message. For my redo, I wanted to keep the overall look and feel, and the simple, clear message, but changing it to match modern understandings of fire and its place in the cycle of life in forests. I set out with the following goals:
Show fire as a part of the natural cycle that helps keep landscapes healthy.
Make the horse less distressed looking.
Remove the gendered language from the messaging.
Keep as much of the original posing, composition, and colors as possible.
Showing the renewal cycle was the trickiest part, because the composition really didn't leave a lot of room to show the regrowth portion. I think I came up with a good balance, though, by having the forest very overgrown, dark, and unhealthy, then having the strong dividing diagonal/arrow of fire bringing light into that dark overgrowth, and the open, regrowing portion behind the smoke and flames. I also had the regrowth coming from the horse's hooves so that the horse is more of an active piece of the story, rather than being forced through the whole affair.
The regrowing plants in the background are fire poppies and fireweed, as well as a few distant aspen saplings, all of which are some of the first plants to come back after wildfires move through. Death also got a fire poppy as the clasp of their cloak.
For the phrasing, I came up with "Death Renews the Forest" almost immediately, but I had more trouble with the bottom portion. I wanted the phrase to not be gendered anymore, so switched it to "we." Initially I thought about something like "When we are educated in its use." But I wasn't a big fan of "use." While the poster does feature Death doing an intentional prescribed burn, I also wanted the phrasing to apply to letting naturally lightning caused fires burn. So less "use" and more embracing fire overall. This is especially true given that in the US we have, unfortunately, gone back to a full suppression strategy as of 2026 thanks to an executive order from the orange menace. So, despite decades of research showing how much harm that causes, we've been ordered to start doing it again. Which, to me, just makes this redo of the poster even more relevant right now.
Spider helped me puzzle out some other phrasing ideas, and I really liked this final one. I think it is balanced really well with the top portion of the text, and the overall message of the poster.
So yes! Had a lot of fun with this. I probably will do some more redos of other famous prevention posters at some point, but I'm not sure when or which ones.
The other day I was leaving work when I caught a flash of pink in my periphery. Looking over I saw exactly what I was hoping to see, a pair of roseate spoonbills! I'd been hoping to see some, but really thought I'd have to head out to the swamp, but here these were, right in the middle of town. I immediately whipped my car into the first available parking spot and hopped out to get a better look. They were beautiful. I just wish I'd had my camera with me for better pictures.
It seems like each year I get more and more excited about bird sightings. This is just who I am. I like it.
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