Keni
macklin celebrini has autism
Show & Tell
will byers stan first human second
Cosmic Funnies
PR's Tumblrdome
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
pixel skylines
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
almost home
Three Goblin Art
we're not kids anymore.
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
todays bird
dirt enthusiast
Stranger Things
oozey mess
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
shark vs the universe
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Chile
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Bulgaria
seen from Greece
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Iraq
seen from Malaysia
seen from Georgia
seen from Iraq
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Germany
seen from Palestinian Territories
seen from Spain
seen from United States
@edwardskye
I want someone to draw art of invisible girl from boku no hero and she’s wearing like thigh highs and i want someone else to zoom in on the thigh high and notice that they dig in a little bit and it’s like
WOW YES PHANTOM THICC.
this was the best I could do
PENTAGRAM/PENTACLE DEFINED FOR BEGINNER WICCANS
A pentacle/pentagram is one of those symbols that has picked up a whole lot of baggage over the years. Beginner Wiccans often come to our religion having to ‘reprogram’ their own way of thinking about the pentagram. For years, pop culture, media hysteria and other religions have drilled the idea into our heads that Pagan symbols are bad, and the pentagram is evil.
Unfortunately, in a lot of books aimed at Wicca for beginners, more misinformation about the pentagram is spread. This time, it errs on the side of trying to make the pentagram look good, attaching to it all kinds of romanticized ideas that are just not factual.
What is a pentagram? What is a pentacle? Is there a difference? Let’s have a closer look at the history of this symbol, and the meaning of the pentagram today.
WHAT IS A PENTAGRAM?
A good place to begin anytime you’re trying to understand a word and its usage is to hit the dictionary and look up the entomology of the word. The word pentagram is rooted in the Greek.
Instead of giving you my own interpretations, I’ll take the meaning directly from the dictionary:
MEANING OF A PENTAGRAM: A BRIEF HISTORY
The earliest use of the pentagram we know of is from ancient Sumeria– but it wasn’t a religious Pagan symbol. It was a word in their language that meant a corner or angle (due to the 5 sharp angles in the figure).
In the 6th century BCE, Pherecydes of Syros used it to illustrate the five recesses of the cosmology. Pentagram figures occasionally turned up in the far East as well, due to the 5 Chinese elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, water.
Pythagoras went on to use the pentagram as the symbol of man. Partly it was because the shape represented a human standing with his arms spread wide (the top point being the head, the to outer points the arms, and the bottom two points the legs). It was also considered to represent the 5 elements that the Greeks believed made up the physical body: Earth (matter), Air (breath), Fire (energy), Water (fluids) and Aether (the psyche or soul). When Pythagoras’ school was driven underground, students used the pentagram as a secret symbol to identify each other.
In ancient Judaism it was a symbol found in mysticism, related to the top portion of the Tree of Life in the Kabbalah, it stood for the 5 books of the Torah (what Christians refer to as the Pentateuch in the Old Testament of the Bible) and the symbol was featured in a seal representing the secret names of God.
Early Christians into the middle ages used the pentagram heavily as a symbol for Christ’s five wounds. The star of Bethlehem that lead the wise men to the baby Jesus was believed to be the pentagram. In Authorial legends, you’ll often see the symbol of the Pentagram inscribed on knight’s shields and other things—these were actually Christian, not Pagan, references. Christians thought of the pentagram as a protective amulet, and it was the primary symbol of Christianity back then, even more common than the cross.
So the pentagram had a long, ancient history of uses as a Pagan symbol and Judeo-Christian symbol. It had no single meaning. It represented perfection in mathematics, the human body, words, and was also used in religious ritual and magic.
BUT WHAT ABOUT WITCHES, WICCANS, AND SATANISTS?
So I’ve mentioned that just about everyone had used the pentagram back then, except I haven’t mentioned Witches, Wiccans and Satanists. What about them?
The fact is, they didn’t really exist yet. The only “witches” at the time were the kind of folklore and rumor. Oh, don’t get me wrong—there were people who did magick, but they would not have identified with the term “witch”.
WHEN THE PENTAGRAM BECAME ASSOCIATED WITH “EVIL”
The 14th and 15th century saw the rise of occult practices that were rooted in Judeo-Christian symbolism and mysticism, and they borrowed liberally from many of the symbols, including the pentagram. They also borrowed from Gnostic and Paganism symbols. It’s no small surprise Ceremonial Magicians were accused by the Christian church of heresy. And heresy, to a medieval Christian, barrels down to Paganism, Satan worship and witchcraft.
Anything liberally used by Ceremonial Magicians became associated with anything considered heretical. If you don’t want to be associated with such things, you don’t use their symbols.
By Victorian times, the witch hunt craze was ending, and people started to forget how pentagrams were once very common, prominent Christian symbols. It’s now associated with paganism, Satan and witchcraft, and seen as an evil symbol.
The love of romanticized myth and history drive a new movement: the Pagan revival, and the pentagram gets turned around again. This is where it gets confusing, because misinformation and false histories begin to fly liberally from the late 19th to mid-20th century.
This is the time the Pagan Revival begins (mostly a re-invention than a re-construction of “Old Ways”). This is when Margaret Murray published her theories on ancient Witch cults being peaceful Pagan religions—though her works have been completely debunked since. This is when Gerald Gardner founded Wicca, and people came crawling out of the woodwork claiming to be ‘hereditary Witches’, or claiming their coven was ancient, or claiming some unbroken line to the Pagan religions of antiquity. This is also when a few ‘reverse Christian’ groups popped up, with practices specifically designed to mock and rebel against Christianity (those these groups were pretty rare and the NeoPagan community did their best to distance themselves from such groups).
One thing most of these groups have in common, though, is that they adopt the pentagram.
Hollywood – new on the scene in the mid-20th century – adopts the pentagram as well. Hollywood is not interested in accuracy; it’s interested in the shock value of things. They adopt it as a symbol for evil magic and reverse-Christian style devil worship and stick it into just about every horror movie conceivable. This fuels the antics of a lot of bored, rebellious people, particularly teens, who like to spray paint it on park walls and carve it into trees for the shock value.
By the late 20th century, the pentagram is being used and abused all over the place, but it is Hollywood who manages to make an indelible imprint on the social consciousness—and this is further driven by the media with sensationalized reporting during the 1970’s “Satanic Ritual Abuse” hysteria (which has also been debunked).
It’s only the tail end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in which the pentagram is finally gaining some understanding. Though mainstream society hasn’t completely lost the ‘kneejerk reaction’ to it, the growth of the Pagan Revival and the availability of information via the Internet have helped to quell some of the shock value and fears over it.
WICCAN SYMBOLS: PENTAGRAM VS. PENTACLE
More misconceptions abound, considering the Pagan community more commonly refers to the symbol as a ‘pentacle’ rather than a ‘pentagram’. Many books and websites have tried (and failed) to make the distinction clear. Some assertions I’ve read in passing are:
The pentagram is evil with one point down
the pentacle is good with one point up
The pentagram is just the star
the pentacle is the star with a circle around it
The pentagram is 2-D; the pentacle is 3-D
Actually, all of these answers would be technically incorrect. If you look at the definitions provided above, pentagram and pentacle are synonymous, and have nothing to do with which way the points face, or whether or not they have a circle around them.
A look at the dictionary’s answer to pentacle and you see that the only real difference is one is derived from the Greek, the other from the Latin:
DICTIONARY MEANING OF A PENTACLE:
THE PENTACLE: NOT JUST A FIGURE, BUT A TOOL
A tool arose out of ceremonial magic. This tool was a flat, round disc or paper that was inscribed with protective symbols (a pentagram could be inscribed on it, but there were other symbols they used as well). It is used as an amulet of warding and power because a large part of Ceremonial Magic is invoking and commanding various entities from Judeo-Christian beliefs.
It was called the pentacle or sometimes pantacle. On the Tarot (a Christian-origin divination system), the symbol is used for the suit of coins, and it represents the Element of Earth.
Wicca and other NeoPagan religions borrowed this tool from Ceremonial Magic. They kept the name, but re-defined its purpose since Wiccans don’t believe in Judeo-Christian entities and is not concerned with calling or commanding spirits.
The pentacle (the disc) was adopted as an altar tool, and is used to symbolize the Element of Earth on the altar. It’s also used as a tool for placing sacred items upon it when cleansing, consecrating or charging them.
The Wiccan symbol of choice for this round disc was the pentagram/pentacle. To further confuse things, this tool does not have to be inscribed with a pentagram/pentacle.
TYPICAL MEANING OF A PENTAGRAM/PENTACLE IN WICCA
As far as Wiccan symbols go, the pentagram isn’t a representation of good vs. evil. It’s a symbol of our faith, a symbol of the 5 Elements (one for each point), and the circle (the universe) contains and connects them all. No matter which way it’s facing, circle or no circle, there’s nothing ‘bad’ about it.
Another misconception about the pentagram in Wicca is which way it points. Again, you will find common misinformation that says the pentagram is “evil” if point down and “good” if point up. The point down is most commonly associated with Satanism, because the largest branch of Satanism (Church of Satan, est. 1966) adopted the inverted pentagram with a goat head inside of it as their symbol.
It’s traditionally used both point up and point down. Point up pentagrams are more common; but point down pentagrams are not considered evil at all.
The point-up pentagram represents the spirit ascending above matter. The top point represents the Element of Spirit, the other four points represent the four Spiritual Elements.
When a pentagram is point-down, it represents spirit descending into matter. This is most traditionally used in lineage covens during second degree initiations, because it’s at this point of one’s spiritual path that one turns “inward”. You face and challenge your ‘dark side’ – your base emotions, fears, ignorance, prejudices, etc., you deal with them and develop mastery over yourself.
Edited Video: ISS undocking & Expedition 52 Crew Lands Safely in Kazakhstan
Put this video on my grave
It’s back
A year of Momo’s face.
These are the people trump is trying to deport due to racist and xenophobic ideologies. MEXICO 👏🏾 IS 👏🏾 NOT 👏🏾 A 👏🏾 THREAT
don’t forget they helped during katrina too Americas pride hurts its people and then it pretends No one ever helps them while refusing help from other countries
Tons of countries always offer to help (many of them Third World countries Republican Americans treat with disdain), but the US media always ignores them. :/
“I have been poor enough that all I could afford was a £1 packet of pasta that lasted me for an entire week. I failed school. I have been ‘let go’ from two jobs, both of which I loved very much. I have had three boyfriends and all three ended it by saying I am ‘too much.’ I do not have a best friend.
I write this, as I sit in Starbucks ordering my fifth coffee, on my new MacBook that I bought outright without putting myself in debt. I’ve just gotten a job in an architect firm as I do my English degree part time. I’m getting published later in the year. I’m dating a boy who lets me flourish despite my emotional states. A group of friends are meeting me for dinner later on tonight.
It’s not about how many times you stumble, it’s about going down 12 times, but getting up 13.”
She is Ms. Frizzle we really need!
Vela Pulsar
The star of this movie is the Vela pulsar, a neutron star that was formed when a massive star collapsed. The Vela pulsar is about 1,000 light years from Earth, spans about 12 miles in diameter, and makes over 11 complete rotations every second, faster than a helicopter rotor. As the pulsar whips around, it spews out a jet of charged particles that race out along the pulsar’s rotation axis at about 70% of the speed of light. In this still image from the movie, the location of the pulsar and the 0.7-light-year-long jet are labeled.
Credit: NASA / Chandra / CXC / Univ of Toronto / M.Durant et al
this is EXACTLY why representation matters
So some dude got sent to the hospital with cyanide poisoning because he was eating cherries and decided, for some fucking reason, to crack the pits open and eat the meat inside.
“I didn’t think nothin’ of it. Thought it was just a seed.”
“Deep breath”
I SWEAR TO THE FUCKIN GODS…..
(cue 25 minutes of unintelligible yelling)
….and that is why being separated from our food’s origins and not knowing anything about botany is what is wrong with the world today goddamnit.
I bet some people would eat castor beans too. Or yew. Or just fuckin’ snack on some hemlock because it’s natural, man.
Fucking incredible.
LIKE IT TAKES SOME FUCKING EFFORT TO GET A CHERRY PIT OPEN FUCKING W H Y
Question: Is it the same with plums? I used to do that occasionally when I ate dried and seasoned Asian plums as a kid.
Yes.
Plum pits do not contain as much as cherry, but they do.
Do not eat stone fruit pits, people. Or bitter almonds.
They all have cyanide in them.
Oh boy, apricot kernels. The amount of people I see lauding those as a “cure for cancer” is… demoralizing. I can’t find it right now but I believe there was a mother in the past few years who was taken to court for child endangerment/neglect for feeding those to her very young child as a cancer treatment.
I saw this horror last year, and yelled for an entire hour.
To be fair, I bet if you die of cyanide poisoning the cancer won’t kill you.
I have been wanting to use these photos for months.
The recommendation is to only eat 3 in one hour. because that is just the most filling snack and of course they will stop at three.
But then they say DON’T EAT MORE THEN 10 A DAY.
It’s not even FDA approved. “may be toxic”.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you.
Just because it’s food for another creature doesn’t mean it’s fine for you.
Best case scenario it’s like grass which is basically neutral- it’s generally not going to kill you but there’s no nutrition for humans in it, and enough will probably make you sick.
Worst case scenario it’s something like belladonna berries which taste sweet but will kill you stone cold dead.
Same for the wrong kind of mushrooms, other berries, leaves and barks. Before consuming, CHECK. If you can’t check, don’t put it in your mouth.
Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you.
Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you.
Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you.
I’ve been saying this for so long, oh my gosh.
apple seeds have the same cyanide innards, but obviously not in such high quantities. you’d have to eat like 10 apple’s worth of seeds to feel the effect. for that matter, just swallowing a cherry pit whole isn’t going to do any harm, it’ll pass through your body before the outer layer breaks down. but deliberately cracking this stuff open and eating it isn’t the best idea
Literally cherry pits used to be used to make poison. Like, you crack the pits open, boil em for 8 hours, change the pits out for a new batch three times. Reduce the liquid and add honey and sugar. Bam.
hello internet. please stop believing things like this. One would have to eat a shit ton of cherry pits to get cyanide poisoning. A man did not get sent to the hospital from eating 3 cherry pits.
….he literally did did you not look at the news article I linked.
He was cracking them open and eating the meat.
Swallowing a pit whole won’t hurt you, since our digestive acids are not strong enough to dissolve the shell of the pit. But if you crack them open and eat the cyanide filled meat, then you’re gonna have a bad day.
Me; “Look at this thing that actually happened, as proved by this guy’s confession and the testimony of trained medical professionals.”
You; “LOL fake news.”
*quietly but emphatically* for the love of gods.
Glass pen and glow ink drawing. Via Peter Draws.
FUCKING WHAT
This is some Disney’s Atlantis magic
hey everyone! i know that this isn’t super helpful, but i just reached 300+ followers after having this blog for only 4 days. i thought i would do a little something for the community, by making this masterpost of all of the soundtracks to the harry potter movies; it can be for studying or just for your own personal enjoyment! thank you again for this milestone, and enjoy!
t h e p l a y l i s t s
– harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone
– harry potter and the chamber of secrets
– harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban
– harry potter and the goblet of fire
– harry potter and the order of the phoenix
– harry potter and the half-blood prince
– harry potter and the deathly hallows ( part 1 )
– harry potter and the deathly hallows ( part 2 )
b o n u s
– fantastic beasts and where to find them
** pro tip! if you want a more relaxed study use the earlier movies and if you want a more intense mood, look at the later movies!
thanks so much again, and let the magic begin!
Pro-tip for Autistics
When I’m out and about and need to escape being overwhelmed with noise, light, or socializing, and the people I’m with don’t know I’m autistic, I don’t tell them that I’m heading towards a meltdown or am experiencing sensory overload.
I tell them I’m getting a migraine.
Meltdowns and migraines are, from my understanding, neurologically similar events, and for me they often go hand in hand– if I get one, it’s a signal to me that I’m likely to get the other pretty soon and need to take care of myself. The remedy is the same: removing myself from the situation and retreating to a dark, quiet room.
The difference is that NTs often don’t understand and simply dismiss sensory overload if you explain it to them as such, but nearly all of them understand what a migraine is and sympathize. 99% of the time, if I tell a NT that I have a migraine or am about to get one, they treat it as an emergency and help me get away from the source of the overload as quickly as possible. I am then free to recover in a quiet, dark place without anyone trying to invalidate my needs, forcing me to “tough it out”, or thinking that I’m rude for having to leave or to outright avoid certain events or situations in the first place.
Y'all really gotta stop throwing ya boyfriend’s video game systems in pools and cuttin up they shoes and lighting they clothes on fire just because you mad or you want his attention bc if he responded by throwing them $100 eyeshadow palettes in the pool or cuttin up a brand new lace wig you gon be pissed as hell, as you should be. It’s not cute, it’s abusive. And you need to fuckin stop
Say it louder for the parents who think it’s okay to destroy their kids stuff as retaliation for disrespect
This is abusive behavior… SIMPLE
why do straight people show their love by hating each other?
