Desert Wanderer

Name is Johna. She/her. An adult. Black and Filipino. Kemetic and Buddhist. Queer. This is a sideblog for spiritual stuff. Main blog: duerme07

[nyancrimew]

guy who does buddhism slightly wrong and ends up in nevada after he dies

[cheshmenoor]

[makingqueerhistory]

Before the binary: Reclaiming erased Trans+ histories in the Philippines

Long before colonialism, when gender was policed and queerness was punished, Trans+ communities in the Philippines were sacred

Long before gender was policed and queerness was punished, they were sacred. In the Philippines, trans and gender-diverse people once stood at the centre of spiritual life. Precolonial Filipino societies recognised figures known as babaylan, ritual leaders primarily in the Visayan region who served as healers, spirit mediums, historians, and political authorities.  Many babaylan were women, while others were asogor bayog, who were described by Western accounts as effeminate men or transgender individuals. Their gender variance was not only accepted but revered. Their authority did not exist despite their gender expression – it existed because of it.

[artfest]

[homunculus-argument]

I'm not a catholic and have never even seen one up close, but I think the pope should start excommunicating people on the reg again. Just start publicly going "you know what, fuck you, you can't sit with us. You're not allowed in church or heaven on the grounds of being JD Vance. Eat shit and go to hell."

Stir shit up a little. What's the point of being the mouthpiece of god if nothing you say has consequences.

[homunculus-argument]

it's rushed and ugly, but I threw this together about it anyway.

[sasukechannel]

where's that native meme that's like "lol you worship the sun lmao" and they respond "ok. the sun is real"

[karafina]

hello i have this

[kalisbaby]

from Viteloi on IG: 2026 ✨

[feldfrog]

I used to be monotheistic. Until the great worm that I worship got cut in half

[swordshapedleaves]

Someday your hands will be old and wrinkled, the skin spotted and bunching over your knuckles. And a child will watch you make something. It's a simple task, you'll have done it a thousand times before. But to that child, the smooth, confident way your hands move will seem like impossible magic. You have to keep living.

[swordshapedleaves]

prev these tags have me crying. this is absolutely what it's all about

[weaselle]

i am 100% positive it has been that way since at least the time of these

so, several million years

[rosslynpaladin]

okay NOW I am crying

[meanbuddhist]

let’s all make the really uncomfortable decision of being brutally present in our bodiesssss 😍😍😍😍

[lord-kitschener]

I mean the whole damn point of the Nativity story is that the supposed son of God (interpret Jesus how you fucking want, of course) was born to a couple of poor, exhausted peasants in the stable for the inn, and his first bed was a feeding trough for animals. That would nowadays be like a poor couple where the mother gives birth in a parking garage behind the motel because they couldn’t find a better place and nobody else would take them in. It’s a pretty gritty setting, and the idea is that God was reborn in some of the rock-bottom lowest circumstances. The only thing majestic was all the angels and shit, and of course motherly love

I get that a lot of the art portraying Madonna and Child as fabulously wealthy europeans in splendid robes and golden light was meant to glorify God + whichever nobility was sponsoring the artist, and while of course it’s genuinely beautiful art, it just always struck me as horribly missing the point, which is that the supposed son of God started in incredibly humble circumstances, among the kind of people that everyone else looks down on

‘Massacre des Innocents’ by Leon Cogniét, 1824. Although the Feast of the Holy Innocents is in a couple of days time, this painting is still really relevant in that it portrays Mary as how She really was: a scared refugee mum, so fearful that Her son was going to be one of the Innocents killed by King Herod.

[durnesque-esque]

My new favorite mordern interpretation is this work, José y Maria by Everett Patterson (http://www.everettpatterson.com)

I had to look at this like FIVE TIMES to register all the layers of symbolism going into the piece by Patterson. 

The hoodie as a veil. 

Weisman cigarettes

Each of them is haloed by an advertisement sticker. 

No Vacancy sign on the motel. 

Dove sticker over Maria’s head. 

Neon sign with a star symbol also over Maria’s head. 

The crown over the ‘Dave’s City Motel’ sign. “New Manger.”

The sign behind Jose’s elbow likely says ‘Herod.’

The wee little plant growing through the cracks at their feet. 

It’s like a New Testament ‘I Spy.’ I love it!

Ugh.

New favorite interpretation of the nativity. 

[alextheraven]

Ezekiel 34 15-16 on the phone

[clockworkvulpine]

Good news sticker above José

Maria sitting on a donkey

Shepherd Watches advertisement in the newspaper

Gloria sticker on the payphone

[bending-sickle]

from an exhibit of nativity sets in barcelona (2023), with jesus born next to atm machines (top), in a war-destroyed movie theater (middle), and in an alley (bottom, featuring graffiti saying “coronavirus”, “no human being is illegal”, and the anarchist symbol)

[determinedapathy]

@apocrypals

[apocrypals]

Reblogging to share art without inviting “actually it wasn’t a stable” correction discourse

[mtsodie]

The Fool

[mtsodie]

The Hanged Man

[mtsodie]

The Lovers

[mesothelihomo]

[mesothelihomo]

[vyvilha]

i like when people say that the universality of campbell's hero's journey only applies to western mythology/folklore. brother, i am going to hold your hand when i say this... it doesn't apply there too

[tumblr]

Reblogs in a chain now get their own notes

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!

[changes]

It’s very clear that you all have strong feelings about Tumblr and about this change. We hear you. The passion people have for how Tumblr works is one of the things that makes this place special.

As this rolls out over the next few days and you explore it, we’ll keep reading your replies and reblogs, so please keep sharing your questions, concerns, and ideas.

Your creativity has always been the heart of Tumblr, whether you’re the original poster or adding something brilliant in the reblogs, and nothing about this change is meant to limit that.

If you’d like to talk directly beyond the comments, leave a reply and we’ll follow up with as many of you as we can. We want to work with you to make Tumblr better.

[duerme07]

Blocking accounts that I didn't want to interact with had been the single most useful tool for curating my experience on tumblr. It's why this became my preferred social media site for over a decade.

Blocked accounts now have a way to circulate my posts and add onto them while I have no way to tell that it's happening and have no way to stop it even if I were to find out.

I'll be taking a few days off from using tumblr. Hopefully in that time, there will have been some meaningful restoration of the blocking function. If not, then I'll have to reassess my use of this site.

[duerme07]

Fully didn't expect for the changes to be reverted within 24 hours, so I do give @tumblr and @staff credit for their quick response. Will look for the promised "communications" about future changes, whatever form that will take.

My few days away, however, showed me that despite my love for this particular site and my history here, it really wouldn't be hard to jump ship. Having the ability to limit others' interactions with my own posts is really the bare minimum for protecting my peace anywhere on the internet. I won't compromise on that protection and will make the sensible choice when @changes fail to uphold it.

[tumblr]

Reblogs in a chain now get their own notes

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!

[changes]

It’s very clear that you all have strong feelings about Tumblr and about this change. We hear you. The passion people have for how Tumblr works is one of the things that makes this place special.

As this rolls out over the next few days and you explore it, we’ll keep reading your replies and reblogs, so please keep sharing your questions, concerns, and ideas.

Your creativity has always been the heart of Tumblr, whether you’re the original poster or adding something brilliant in the reblogs, and nothing about this change is meant to limit that.

If you’d like to talk directly beyond the comments, leave a reply and we’ll follow up with as many of you as we can. We want to work with you to make Tumblr better.

[duerme07]

Blocking accounts that I didn't want to interact with had been the single most useful tool for curating my experience on tumblr. It's why this became my preferred social media site for over a decade.

Blocked accounts now have a way to circulate my posts and add onto them while I have no way to tell that it's happening and have no way to stop it even if I were to find out.

I'll be taking a few days off from using tumblr. Hopefully in that time, there will have been some meaningful restoration of the blocking function. If not, then I'll have to reassess my use of this site.

[pinoy-culture]