Misplaced Lens Cap
blake kathryn
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
⁂
#extradirty
wallacepolsom
Xuebing Du
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
pixel skylines
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Product Placement
will byers stan first human second
Cosmic Funnies
dirt enthusiast
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Today's Document
Game of Thrones Daily
Andulka
tumblr dot com
Stranger Things
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Honduras
seen from United States
seen from T1
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Honduras
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Australia
seen from Honduras
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
@math-witch
ideally i am a mountain witch who collects mushroom and raw berries before sunrise and summons the birds with the soft sound of my voice
Realistically I’m a witch who ate an entire bag of dove chocolates while laughing at tarot memes and then suddenly remembered that I’m lactose intolerant
tumblr mirrors on ‘photosugar’
So idk if others have noticed this before - but it’s the first time I’m seeing this, hence the post.
There’s a website, https://www.photosugar.com, which apparently mirrors all pictures, gifsets etc. people post on their tumblrs (and also other social media sites like twitter and instagram, if I understand it correctly). An eample for a tumblr user, with my name: https://www.photosugar.com/tu/lordhellebore
Now it won‘t turn up anything but a 404 error in my case, because I sent an e-mail to the contact address, which is [email protected] with the title “My content on your website”:
Hello, it’s come to my attention that you are mirroring all of the posts containing pictures/gifs that I post on my tumblr. I am asking you to stop pulling the content from my tumblr and to delete me from your website. tumblr username is „lordhellebore“ Thank you.
I got a reply consisting of the single word “removed” after just one day, and as you can see, it worked perfectly fine with the informal mail I sent. So if you want them to stop mirroring your tumblr, it seems all you really need to to is this.
I can’t test the site for all of my mutuals, but I’m tagging a few whom I found on there by random trial & error, and I suggest you look yourself up if you see this post and dislike tumblr mirrors (even if this one is only for pictures, not text).
@janiedean, @ladytp, @vaysh11, @lunavagantt, @einemelodieimwind, @robb-greyjoy, @youbuggingme, @ysilme, @rex-luscus, @bai-xue, @viendiletto, @electricalice, @contessa-de-leusse, @memetic-mutism, @bluecichlid, @mrs-storm-andrews, @ladymothwing, @prismatic-bell, @kittykatknits, @tinkili
….basically, whomever I’m trying at random, it seems that you’re on there.
Please reblog so others can know and ask for removal if they want to.
My blog appears there. Don’t want to. Will mail asap.
EDIT : They’ve added a link to remove people’s profiles : https://www.photosugar.com/remove
Wtf. I was on there. Easy to remove.
That is pretty creepy
Holey mother of cheese.
This is not fair use, y’all. Everything you post is copyright you, and tumblr’s rights to it are spelled out in the policy we all agreed to without reading when we signed up. These people are just yanking your photo posts (including your reblogs) and publishing them in a modified format without even notifying you, for whatever purpose - some way of making money off our labor, I guess.
I think the worst part was showing even the last likes… For God sake, I use tumblr just forSim-related stuff, bu what if I’d like to post a pic of myself?
Removed myself, they could at least ask for permission, before doing something like that.
I just removed my profile. That was creepy!
Signal boost! I was on there too, and by Sena, Do Not Want.
Just removed myself, so weird. I wasn’t expecting a sims blog like mine to be copied onto anything.
Check your blog names
I would NOT have thought my tumblr would show up on here, but there it was… Duly removed, but definitely worth checking, folks!
The Science of Spellcraft
The question I get asked most as a Witch, I think, is “How does it all work?” This is often said with a skeptic tone, as in, “You don’t really think you can do magic, can you?” I know. I, too, was (and still am, at points) skeptical of the New Age crowd. But the truth is, there are witches and magic users who are lawyers, professors, paramedics, screenwriters, and environmental scientists, and not one of these people are doing anything that is outside the realm of physical possibility, or really anything more interesting than a ceremonial and personal ritual to get things goin’ or changing in their own mind and in their own life. It’s about as magical as remembering your mom’s house when you bite into her famous meatloaf (which, to a Witch, is exceedingly charming and magical, but to a lot of people, like my partner, is just another mundane example of nature being kind of neat).
Frankly, magic is a lot more boring and sensible than you care to imagine. The general idea is, with “casting a spell”, you’re creating a mini visual metaphor for a result you want to achieve. I’m not saying that by doing this, you’ll “magically” get that result. Not at all. That’s honestly nonsense.
So here’s my whack at explaining how spells and the “science” of magic works:
“Visualization” is one of the techniques that people often misunderstand in magic. Some think that if you “visualize” what you want – say, picturing a new Audi – that Audi will fall from the sky into your lap. Well, there are quite a few steps between wishing for a car and getting one, that require you to do a little bit more than simply imagine a car. A more effective thing to do, maybe, would be thinking of all the features you’d like your dream Audi to have, thinking about your savings and how you might finance a new car, imagining where you might drive it or use it, and imagining how you might interact with the dealership to haggle down the price. Then – and this is the important part – you go out and try to do the thing you just imagined. That’s the whole point, like practicing a situation in your head first. It’ll be easier, since you’ll have an idea of what might happen, and you’ll be familiar with the situation, so if you need to adapt or change, you’ll know what to do.
Imagine you have to break up with your partner. You figure out that’s what you need to do, then you decide what you want to say. You run through it in your head several times, making sure you know what to do. When the time comes, you can say everything on your mind and you’re ready for that conversation. That’s visualization!
“Correspondences” is another word that describes a concept often used in magic. This refers to the properties an object, time of day, or other type of thing has in relation to magic – for instance, Sunday is the day of the Sun, or hematite being good for protection and grounding. There are lots of people who believe herbs, crystals, and other objects have intrinsic properties that affect other things magically. You may have heard people talk about how rose quartz is “good for healing”. I’m a spoilsport “Scientific Method Witch” who won’t take these at face value unless I see it myself or can see practical data on the subject to make up my own mind. Personally, I have a couple theories on why things like stones, herbs, and colors – all commonplace things with a wide variety of types that can be acquired easily or incorporated into spells – are so often used as magical tools, and given these special attributes. Certain herbs really do have numbing, aphrodisiac, or hallucinogenic qualities: It’s not hard to see why rosemary is a “cleansing herb” when it helps with the digestion. Perhaps certain crystals are colder to the touch, lighter than they look, or have a unique texture, thus giving them unique qualities that are easy to remember and associate with a property. Whether these objects have any “intrinsic magic”, though, is kind of moot: It definitely adds depth to your practice when you truly know the steel in the knife you’re holding is running high vibrations, but the knife is ultimately a metaphorical representation. Correspondences are a personal and widely universal way to assign attributes to the reagents and tools around you, to incorporate them into your spellwork (which, largely, is an elaborate visual metaphor).
“But Ash,” you may be saying, “All of this just sounds like common sense and not in the least bit magical.” Hold your horses. We’ll come to how this applies to spells and rituals and the Craft in a second.
The general idea of “casting a spell” is that your spell is a smaller representation of your ultimate result. That is, it is a miniature ritual representing what you want to happen, by simulating it metaphorically.
I know, I know, I’m the only person who can make magic boring!
Take this very easy example I like to use, which is a memory spell paraphrased from Scott Cunningham’s popular Earth, Air, Fire, and Water:
For each thing you need to get done today, find a small stone. (It’s best if these are somewhat visually distinct.) Make a to-do list. For each item on your list, hold one of the stones, concentrate on what you need to get done and walk yourself through it, then, when you’re sure you know what to do and your stone is fully associated with the task, put that stone in your pocket. Repeat for all your to-do tasks, then, as you complete them throughout the day, remove the associated stone from your pocket. Continue til your pocket is empty.
Sound like something folksy you’d hear from Huck Finn about remembering easier? That’s because it might as well be. Magic really is as simple as that. If you break down the most elaborate spells and rituals, it all comes down to a smaller, earthly representation of the larger effect. Some people call this “vibrations” - think of it as a non-chaotic butterfly effect.
It would be a lot less exciting, of course, if magic relied purely on your own imagination and head to get done. It would work, certainly, but human beings need stimuli. Most importantly, by working with the environment around you and incorporating real, natural effects – like burning incense to set a sense of wonder, or brewing an ale with a little bit of endorphin-boosting borage – a system takes place, wherein the magic-user works in harmony with the world around them.
Take this paraphrased spell for sharpening the senses from Australian psychology doctorate and White Witch, Titanie Hardie:
You will need: A light green ribbon, a selection of herbs and flowers, a silver talisman that represents focus (try a stag or an owl).
1. Tie a light green or mulberry ribbon around your hand.
2. Close your eyes. Take one of the herbs, and crush them between your fingers. Feel its texture, then hold it to your face and remember its scent. Continue on with all your herbs and flowers, until you’re quite sure you know which is which by touch and scent alone.
3. Put your head to the ground. Become attuned with the noises around you: Try to hear everything. Become aware of the faintest footsteps in the distance, a rumbling of a washing machine, or birds out the window.
4. Once you are done, take your ribbon and secure it around the talisman. Hold it up to the sun, and thank it for its senses. Look at the world around you with heightened senses and new eyes, and touch the talisman whenever you have need of awakening your senses again.
Let’s break this down.
The light green or mulberry ribbon here represents “wisdom”, a color gone over in Hardie’s book, but you could use any color ribbon that represents wisdom or focus to you. By tying the ribbon to your hand, this will associate the actions performed in the ritual to that ribbon.
Crushing the herbs and smelling them allows you to experience a much more delicate and refined set of smells and textures than you come across on your daily life, forcing your nerves to work harder to distinguish and experience the many-layered scents and textures before them. By remembering which is which, you’ve not only stimulated your tactile and sensory senses, but allowed your brain to make some snap associations to them. You’re basically exercising your brain out by playing a mini memory game, using scents and textures instead of visuals, which, in my opinion, is much more of a powerful and mystic experience than playing a matching game with cards.
Putting your head to the ground tunes up your auditory senses just as the previous exercise did for your touch, sense of smell, and memory. By trying to listen in to even the faintest sound, you’re become much more aware of the bevy of sounds around you.
Taking off the ribbon and securing it to the talisman “binds” the ritual to the talisman. By knotting the ribbon, you’re “securing” what you did in the ritual, remembering it and its results – leaving you feeling exhilarated and open to outside stimuli – whenever you see or touch the ribbon. The talisman is a physical bonus: By choosing a shape representative of wisdom or focus, you’ll additionally remember the subject of the spell, and you’ll have something physical to touch in your pocket or bag to “activate” the spell again without having to look at it.
I hope you can begin to see the possibilities at hand when working with magic. Using the human resources available on Earth and in world around us, we can combine them in a nigh infinite number of ways to create hundreds of unique and personal rituals!
Ash
rachel pollack, i was enjoying your book The New Tarot Handbook until:
"Remember in school when you learned that if you divide any number by zero, the answer is always infinity?"
no, i don't remember learning that! incidentally i do remember learning that indeterminate forms are very different from infinity.
i don't mind when woo authors are unscientific, but i really mind when they misjudge their readers' scientific knowledge & scientific education. i worked very hard in high school calculus ms pollack, don't tell me what i did & didn't learn! (๑•̀д•́๑)
The Minor Arcana and the Ugliness behind it
The essence of an idea, and the omen of a downfall
Making a choice by choosing, or not choosing
Wanting more than we have, and having too much
Wanting to hold on to, and hating what we have
Facing reality and the risks, and hiding from them
Moving to face reality, and seeking comfort in illusion
Facing the obstacles, and fleeing from the truth
Growth through struggle, and struggling with growth
Seeking perfection, and punishing ourselves for the lack
Moving forward, and dying where we stand
they’ve always said, when you feel a random shiver, that a rabbit has run across your future grave
Also available on Instagram
(i always heard it was a goose)
(I always heard it was a possum)
(I’ve always heard it was a cat)
(why are we whispering)
my first 5k post and it's one with bad fire safety 😰 please be careful when using wood, fire, & paper together. if you're a teenager just don't use fire unsupervised, okay. don't burn your family's house down because of a tumblr post.
when i work with fire i always keep water & baking soda within arm's reach, and i HAVE had to use it. in the 10 seconds it takes to run & get water, your fire can get out of control. stay safe everyone!
it’s time
me
ME
deck collector challenge day 14
~ link to calendar here ~
after a bit of a break, i’m back with my favourite ace. what is time? i’m following whatever day of this challenge looks good at the moment. let’s lay out all 12 of my aces:
they’re all so different! shoutout to the weird & wonderful Wooden Tarot god designs, with elemental symbols for heads, lovely subtle colourcoding, and elemental scenery to make it clear how the new suits map to the traditional suits.
my favourite though is the Ostara Tarot ace of swords (second row) by krista gibbard. i love the little hopeful mouse in the ominous setting. it’s clear that it’s taking on way more than it can handle - but it looks to the sky, its mind is clear, it knows the path. the sword and the new beginning rising from a skeleton bring home the tarot’s cyclical nature. every new start has old, old roots.
you can do it, little mouse! the Ostara Tarot guidebook says “With reason and intellect, even the humblest of creatures can rally its courage to champion a cause.”
Shortcuts for the Minor Arcana
Ace: Upstarts that have all the intention of going the distance for their suit, without realizing the logical conclusion. Two: Stuck at the starting line because it turns out it’s not a marathon, but a quest-focused RPG that requires backtracking. Three: Starting new parties, getting new connections, and dealing with the consequences of living with other people. Four: A good save point before a “boss battle.” However, there’s a tendency to want to stay here. Five: The “mid-boss.” Things get pretty hairy here. Hope you did some grinding before this. Six: The inn after the mid-boss. Starting to rest up and deal with the effects. Also a tendency to want to stay here, but you have to move forward. Seven: Starting to understand that not everything is in your power to control, so you have to make do with what you CAN control. You are allowed to not like the hand you’re dealt, but you have to play it or fold. Eight: Pressing forward and getting experience, even if it’s not happy experiences. Nine: Almost there at the finish and a strong need to make sure you’re ready to deal with it. Take time to make sure the circumstances are as you THINK they are. Ten: You’re done. You either accomplished something or failed on some level. You live. You grow. You begin again. Now what?
Sophie Bryant-Funnell Illustration
deck collector challenge days 6, 7, & 8
~ link to calendar here ~
today it’s the themed trio of newest deck, oldest deck, and deck i don’t use that much.
my newest deck is the Seeker’s Lenormand. i jumped on that kickstarter back in october 2016 and it was a great choice. a.l. swartz designed another gorgeous deck in his signature organic, emblematic, grotesque, many-eyed Skullgarden style. i've always felt like his art is better-suited to lenormand than tarot (which i’ll go into later), and working with this deck confirms it. the singular subject with minimal clutter is perfect for lenormand. tarot wants rich, mysterious detail to ponder - lenormand is best read quickly and intuitively. at least that’s what i’ve been taught and it’s how i read.
here are some of my favourite cards. most are played straight, but i love the swerves: the chrysalis putting a positive spin on the Coffin card; the fragility of the ladybug’s Ship. also i love the easter egg of the Fool and Chariot from the Wooden Tarot teaming up to become the Rider.
these images are straight-up gorgeous. coloured pencil on the wooden backdrop gives them extraordinary depth and softness that’s lost in these grainy photos here.
as a stretch goal i got sent a mini version of the deck for free (and this gold-and-black reading cloth in the background. perks!). the mini cards fit great in my tarot pouch, so i now have 2 physical decks with me on the go. overkill? maybe.
my oldest deck is the Art of Tarot. i spoke a bit about it earlier - got it for christmas 2002 (the apex of a childhood-long interest in divination) and it was my only deck until 2014. it’s done in a decoupage style by emma garner and came boxed with a little manual by liz dean. the colours are bright and there’s great texture in each design. its big flaw though: the boring minor cards! no wonder i struggled with the minors as a kid - they all look the same and rote memorization is the only way to learn them.
it’s not the most innovative deck, seeing as it was designed for beginners. but i put the death card here as an example of its occasional strayings from tradition. my favourite death card - and a great card back design, while we’re handin out compliments.
the deck i don’t use - sorry to say it’s the Wooden Tarot.
plumes, stones, blooms, and bones - it’s the minors here that get me turned around. i still don’t know each minor card 100% yet - i rely on detailed imagery to prompt me. the Wooden Tarot has a strong RWS influence - here the 8 coins, 9 cups, 6 swords, and 5 wands are obvious on a second look! the problem for me is that they’re so stark and simplified that i find it hard to read fluidly and confidently.
i feel guilty, because it’s a truly beautiful deck, but one that i’ll probably never use frequently. so glad that the Seeker’s Lenormand exists, so i can have a.l. swartz’s cards in my hands more often.
that’s it for tonight, thanks for reading 💖🔮
edit: forgot to hit post before i went to bed lol
deck collector challenge day 5
~ link to calendar here ~
best example of my favourite card! i’m excited about this post. my favourite card has been the Moon since forever. when i was 12 and learning the cards, it fell out of my deck so often that i started to believe it was a sign of my intuition waking up and crawling from the pond. i decided to never do a reading without first drawing the Moon at random from the deck - which meant i didn’t get much tarot practice, and more often went to bed after unsuccessfully drawing like eight cards. but it did give more weight, mysticism, and ceremony to the readings i did - which as a young sprout was most of the draw anyway.
let’s lay out all of my Moon cards:
six lovely examples. but none of them are my favourite! second-favourite is the top center, my first love, from the Art of Tarot by Emma Garner. other moons are nice and fine but i can never get enough of the crustacean-crawling-out-of-the-pond motif. five hundred years of weird crabs can’t be wrong. this blue-green colour scheme was the inspiration for:
i am my favourite moon card. a little cheap but how could i not!
deck collector challenge days 3 & 4
~ link to calendar here ~
the ugliest card i own is a tie between these 2 of my own making:
what the hell happened here. on the left is the Mountain, or “i can totally draw mountains ... maybe i’ll just ... no that made it worse”. on the right is the Rider, or “why is that horse so terrifyingly large”. the other 34 cards turned out ok though.
for day 4, instead of picking one card i don’t understand, can i pick all the court cards? hashtag autistic problems or whatever - i’m not good at noticing personalities or character development. inferring peoples’ motivations or feelings from the way they act feels as impossible as telepathy. mapping court cards to people in my life? they could be all of them - they could be none of them - i don’t know!
on the flip side i haven’t found any really satisfying non-personality interpretations for the court cards either - though truthfully i haven’t looked that hard, preferring to just ignore my weaknesses for now. i do like the collective tarot’s reimagined court (seeker/apprentice/artist/mentor) but it feels like a small piece of the puzzle. i know there’s depth in the court cards, i just need to find the right approach. tell me about your favourite genderfree/nontraditional court!
what great words to wake up to! thank you 💕
deck collector challenge days 1, 2, and 31
~ link to calendar here ~
my favourite deck is the Ostara Tarot and my favourite card from it is 7 cups. but before that, about my collection! i guess this is day 31′s task, but with such a small collection it feels silly to postpone it in the name of a reveal.
from the top going clockwise: the Ostara Tarot, the Art of Tarot, a lenormand i made myself, the Seeker’s Lenormand, and the Wooden Tarot. i’m happy with these 5 decks and don’t see myself adding more. the Ostara resonates with me best and i know i’ve got many more years before i reach the bottom of all its ladders of meaning. it’s what i read from like 90% of the time - when i’m using a physical deck at least.
segue into the Galaxy Tarot app! my second-favourite deck. portable, well-designed, the book of meanings is straightforward and down-to-earth, and i love working with the classic RWS deck. screenshots ahoy:
but back to the Ostara - i have tumblr to thank for bringing this gorgeous deck into my life. it’s a collaborative deck by julia iredale, molly applejohn, krista gibbard, and eden cooke. each suit is drawn by a different artist, which gives each a distinct vibe, but the deck never feels disunified to me. the colours and ... ethoses are harmonious. the detailed storybook illustrations have a rich complexity that evokes, but is often different from, the RWS deck that they’re based on. one design feature i especially love is the assigning of animals to numbers - each ace card features a mouse, each 4 a rabbit - drawing parallels across the numbers that help the deck cohere.
on to the 7 of cups:
my favourite card in my favourite deck thanks to this phenomenal illustration by eden cooke. foxes masquerading as humans, humans masquerading as foxes. the brilliant swirl and chatter of a crowded party. the moment just before the glasses crash - will they? or will some magic right them again? illusion, temptation, danger, bedazzlement, fancy, recklessness.
A challenge for all of you deck collectors out there!
This is for tarot, oracle, lenormand, playing cards…whatever it is you collect. I want you to go through all of them. Take a photo for each of the day’s prompts and maybe tell us a little bit of why. Not required, but we are all curious!
Make sure to use the tag #amethystdcc so that we can all see, and feel free to tag me as well!
Starts on March 1st!
Now, with all the days of the month!
This starts tomorrow!
let’s do this! with 3 tarot & 2 lenormand decks i’ll probably skip some questions but it seems like a fun challenge.
