wonderkat’s blog @daffodilsandbumblebees - Tumblr Blog

just saw a post complaining about how hard it is to find adhd resources for adults and one of the comments said “tiktok has a lot of adhd tips” as if telling someone with adhd to enter the algorithmic quicksand of perpetual dopamine hits isn’t the most insane thing you could suggest for someone with adhd

crafblr

btw I've found these stretches from the WAK blog very helpful when knitting a lot:

Plus make sure to take breaks regularly - and stop if anything starts to hurt!

especially with gift knitting I know it can be tempting to push through it for a deadline, but it's really not worth causing long term injury. (And anyone knit-worthy should be understanding of that, imho.) Stay well :)

georgiacooked

A portrait experiment from last year, featuring my fave: Mina Murray. I totally missed the Dracula Daily hype, so consider me fashionably late with my first post.

criticalrolo

losing my mind at this amazing story from r/dndmemes some people’s dnd adventures are just. So Fucking Cool

here’s the link and the story, it’s Amazing

lionofchaeronea

Happy New Year, all.

bookishdiplodocus

Reblog the writers’ fortune cookie for luck!

redeadepression

Guys I reblogged this and then wrote an 8000 word story I didn’t even have a solid plan for. Reblog this shit.

chaotic-archaeologist

Dear fellow digger, your thoughts on Marija Gimbutas?

Prehistoric European archaeology is so far outside my area of expertise that I hadn't actually come across her name before you sent this ask.

Honestly, I don't feel all that qualified to give an opinion, but from little I've gleaned, it seems to me that 1) she was a woman in archaeology when that was very difficult, and 2) while interesting, her theories about gender are a little rigid and binary for me to feel completely comfortable supporting. That being said, she seems to be a product of her era, and I while I might not agree with all of her work, I can understand where she was coming from.

-Reid

rhysintherain

Okay, I didn't recognise the name either, but after a quick look-up, I do know a bit about what her research grew into.

Namely, the "Mother Goddess" theory of human history and religion. This idea suggests that, prior to the "patriarchal" and "warlike" societies that we traditionally know from history, ancient European societies ascribed to a peaceful, matriarchal tradition characterised by worship of a single or central mother goddess.

I have... A lot of issues with this theory, some of which are archaeological and some of which have to do with modern culture and modern religion.

First of all, this theory rather aggressively pushes the idea that separate genders shape societies in separate ways, and you will have a markedly different society with women in charge than with men in charge. They link matriarchal structures with peace and patriarchal ones with war in a very essentialist way, one we don't actually see in practice. The idea that women will create a compassionate, peaceful society, while men will create a violent and rigid one, isn't something we see in actual cultures. In reality, both men and women rule as a reflection of the culture they were raised in, and carry on those power structures as long as they benefit from them.

This theory also has strong roots in modern western monotheism. It hinges on the worship of a central goddess, and the dominant authority of her priestesses. As someone who has studied pagan and shamanic beliefs to some extent, I just don't buy that the early cultures of Europe structured their religions this way. Celtic religion, for instance, had a wide variety of gods that varied by community, area, and priority. The gods of bronze age Britain would be very different than those of bronze age Germany, and the gods a person worshipped would be the ones with the most impact on their life. Looking at more recent hunter-gatherer cultures in North America, we see a pattern of powerful supernatural beings that wouldn't quite be viewed in the same way as gods. The further back we look, the less convinced I am that modern ideas of one all-powerful deity apply at all to the period discussed in this theory.

If anything, this idea of a "one mother goddess" tells us more about our culture, and our lack of imagination, than about the cultures it ostensibly describes.

It's also very tied up in modern new age religions. This, in my opinion, has kept the ancient mother goddess concept relevant longer than it would have been if it was only an archaeological theory. Religion doesn't require the level of archaeological evidence science does for an idea to persist, and the ideas this theory suggests are very appealing to feminist seekers looking for a way to believe outside the patriarchal structures of organised religion. As a result, it has gained roots in communities not trained to evaluate scientific evidence or put these ideas in the cultural framework of ancient societies.

I think this theory grew out of a perfect storm of modern concerns and profound misunderstandings. In the mid-20th century (and even today) we desperately needed an alternative to the patriarchal religious structures of mainstream christianity. The people championing the idea of a utopia ruled over by a compassionate mother goddess found that alternative in questionable archaeological evidence.

Unfortunately, it's really difficult to conceptualise the culture, values, and beliefs of ancient peoples though a modern lens. Archaeologists study the past for years to get there, and still constantly struggle to tell what is really going on in the archaeological record and what results when that record is filtered through modern western experience.

The mother goddess theory is an example of this. Why do we believe artistic depictions of people to be religious in nature? Because they often are to us. Why do we believe a single goddess, not a variety of female spirits, is depicted? Because we were raised in a culture that considers monotheism the norm.

I can't scientifically disprove that there was ever a culture that worshipped a single mother goddess, but I can also find no reputable archaeological evidence for it. I have no issue with people believing in it, as long as they recognise that this is religion, not science.

I'd also encourage the people attracted to this theory to think critically about why. Why believe women lead us to utopia, while men only lead us to ruin? Why do we need a compassionate creator, man or woman, to inspire us to better? Where do people outside the gender binary fit in this idea?

Anyway, here's a paper that goes over a few of these points, and the issues in the archaeological evidence:

Meskell, L. (1995). Goddesses, Gimbutas and new age archaeology. Antiquity, 69(262), 74-86.

And here's a much more fun and practical take on Venus figurines, suggesting that they could have been self-portraits by female carvers:

McDermott, L. (1996). Self-representation in Upper Paleolithic female figurines. Current Anthropology, 37(2), 227-275.

(full disclosure this isn't an area I've studied extensively, just a tangent related to a side hobby. Anybody with more experience here feel free to chime in.)

chaotic-archaeologist

Okay, thank you because this is a much more coherent version of the result of the brief vibe check that I did. A+

sadclowncentral

2023

1. COMMIT TO THE BIT

2. PARTAKE IN THE DIVINE ACT OF CREATION

3. LET THE SOFT ANIMAL THAT IS YOUR BODY LOVE WHAT IT LOVES

ihavemints

actually, brennan, none of that happened.

mxdotpng

everyone always asks "where did you get that information" and "why are you covered in blood" but nobody ever asks how was the time loop was the time loop fun it looked fun