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ALL 👏🏾 OF 👏🏾 THEM 👏🏾
8 Ursula LeGuin Short Stories You Have to Read
Actually you should read every single one of them because they’re all mind-meltingly amazing, but I’m going to pull together a shortlist. I include links when they are available, though I also encourage you to buy LeGuin’s short story collections, especially The Birthday of the World, which is not to be missed.
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
Everyone recommends this short story, and for a damn good reason. It’s my favorite short story ever. Once you read it, it will inscribe itself into your heart and you will never, ever be able to forget it. In my world, it is not entirely untrue to say that this is the only story that matters, and all other truly important stories are variations on this one.
Solitude (excerpt here)
This story makes me cry every time. It’s about the distance between a mother and her children, and how no matter how well intentioned you are, it’s impossible to always do right by your children. You have to let them become their own people, even if that means making choices that seem terrifying and impossible to you.
The Author of the Acacia Seeds
This story feels like Ursula reached into the deepest parts of my imaginative id and placed them on the page. It’s a story about scholars translating and interpreting poems written by ants and penguins. It’s perfect. I wish I were a therolinguist.
Paradises Lost (excerpt here)
Set on a generational ship bound for a new terraformed colony in space, this story is about how the culture that allows you to survive a long journey through space may not match the culture you came from, or the culture you’ll have to build when you reach your destination. This story was a lifeline to me when I was in an abusive situation, and I came to realize that the coping mechanisms that were allowing me to survive the abuse were going to hurt me when it was over, and I reached the green land that was promised me.
Unchosen Love / Mountain Ways (excerpts here)
These love stories are set on the planet of O, where sexuality, gender, and marriage work very differently than they do in our society. I think about the sedoretu marriages of O all the time, and dearly wish other sci fi authors took the time to try to imagine other possible relationship structures the way LeGuin did. (By the way, fandom: please write more sedoretu AUs!!!)
The Fliers of Gy
This is classic wingfic, as fandom would call it – a world where once in a while, a person will spontaneously grow wings. But in this story, having wings is equal parts gift and curse, and everyone who has them reacts to them in a different way. This story has some beautiful metaphors about disability and difference.
The Seasons of the Ansarac
This story is so imaginative! It explores a species of bird-people called the Ansarac who have a migratory society – every season they abandon their homes of the north or the south and fly en masse the other way. It’s so interesting to think about how a civilization of seasonal long-distance migrants would work.
Coming of Age in Karhide (excerpt here)
This story is set in the world of LeGuin’s magnificent novel The Left Hand of Darkness, but you don’t have to read that book to like this story. It’s about coming of age as a teenager in a world without gender and without any shame about sex. The teenager in question goes to their first orgy and everyone is really sweet and supportive. I love this glimpse into how puberty could be a completely different experience.
It’s not your job to be likable. It’s your job to be yourself. The right people will gravitate.
Persepolis Grandma Quote!
Athena blessed her with the ability to protect herself and men beheaded her for it.
That’s actually a really intetesting intpretation of it I hadn’t thought of. Most people seem to think Athena turned Medusa into a gorgon as punishment for defiling her temple, but thinking that she did so to protect her from being abused again is interesting and I like it!
Athena’s hands were tied. Yes, she was a powerful Goddess, but she was very much a woman in a “boys club”, and the true offending party (don’t think for a moment that Athena blamed Medusa for being raped in the temple, Athena knows better) held all the cards. There was nothing that Athena could do to punish the true criminal, and she was expected to punish Medusa by everyone else. What’s a Goddess to do when she cannot punish those who need to be punished and is expected to punish not only the truly innocent party, but her most beloved follower? Use that incredible brain power she had to protect Medusa at all costs, and of course the men would see it as punishment, to be have her beauty stripped from her and sent to live in the shadows. Medusa should have been KILLED for supposedly defiling the temple, whether she truly did or not, but she was given the gift of life, and the ability to protect herself and her daughters (who she bore thanks to Poseidon). This is why Medusa’s image was used to signify woman’s shelters and safe houses.
Medusa means “guardian; protectress”, and she was.
Meditation with Kids, on the blog! 🍃🍂 Here’s what works for us: 1. Start small. Don’t expect much. 2. Give them a physical space to be on. A blanket, a carpet square, a log, a rock. But don’t expect them or shame them if they wander away from that space. 3. Everything stays positive. Draw them back in with a tender voice, an open mind, or a story. Keeping a smile on your face and an open lap or arms open lets them know they are welcomed and heard and seen. 4. Find your flow. We begin by going around the circle saying that we are grateful for. What we are excited about. Max and I will take turns asking: “Are there any worries on anyone’s minds?” “What do you want to get better at today?” “What is one thing you like about yourself?” 5. Bring in a reading or a song. A poem, a Bible verse, a children’s story with intention, or a quote. 6. Verbalize mantras. Max leads us through these and they are simply phrases we repeat to each other and ourselves. With many things in life, the way we speak to ourselves and our kids becomes the voice in both our heads and theres. It sets the tone for the morning, the day, and essentially, our life. 7. Bring in physical movement of some kind to either warm up or cool down. Yoga, stretching, expansion of the lungs, or literally jumping up and down until all the wiggles are out and then sitting again calmly. 8. Have your children choose the timer sound on your phone or timer. Start small by telling them that for the next 10 seconds, 25 seconds, 45 seconds, 5 minutes, “we will all sit still without talking and our eyes will be closed until we hear the song play." No shame, let them watch you do it even if they don’t want to or can’t. Gently welcome them back to their space with a kind smile and a simple "shhh”. 9. If they scream, “No!”. Try saying, “That’s fine if you don’t want to join us. Right now it’s quiet time. You are welcome to sit with us when you are ready.” Carry on, if even for yourself to have a moment of peace. They are watching regardless. 10. The goal is connection and trust building. An “It’s okay if you come to your mat angry, sad, excited, or happy. We just want to meet you there.”
Bessie Stringfield (1911-1993): The Motorcycle Queen of Miami
She was a great woman. Full entry here. Book here. Art notes after the cut.
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{6 Home-Cleansing Tips}
The new moon is a time of cleansing and new beginnings, so I thought I would give my home a nice, thorough freshening! Nothing but good vibes up in here.
Open! Your! Windows!
Tuck a bayleaf in all four corners of your home. I drew a custom home-protection sigil on each of mine.
Burn some incense! I chose sandalwood for overall purification (and ‘cause it smells deeelightful.)
Mix water, salt, and lavender oil in a spray bottle. Spritz it around your home for an extra boost of peace & purity!
Straight-up CLEAN! I scrubbed & swept & dusted until everything felt fresh as hell.
Ring bells/chimes or clap to dispel any negative energy. I sent any bad vibes running for the hills with these bad boyzzz.
Happy cleaning!
Widowed by ISIS: Ezidi women find strength in motherhood
Ezidi widows face solitude and restricted freedoms as single women, but find courage and strength to protect their children. In a barren camp a group of Ezidi women from Shingal discuss the daunting task of being single female heads of household in a patriarchal society. As is the case for countless Ezidi widows, their husbands were violently killed by the Islamic state (ISIS) in 2014 when the militants took control of the Shingal region. Over 5,000 Ezidi men were estimated to have been killed while thousands of women and children were abducted and sold among residents of ISIS. Today their future is uncertain
Pictures by Erin Trieb
1. Fatuma Aziz and her daughters. What keeps me going are my husband and daughters, I hope my daughters will be able to see their father again - I think that he will come back.
2. Airo Qassem Hayder and her three children. Sometimes I feel like there is no life after what happened to us. But I made a promise to my husband’s soul: that I would take care of our children. During the day I take care of them, but at night when I go to sleep there are tears on my face
3. Shireen Qassem Khudaida holds a photograph of her children who she believes are still being held captive by ISIS militants.
4. Fatuma Aziz, 21, lost her husband when she was only 19. While she fled to Mt. Shingal with her two daughters, he stayed behind to protect the village. They have not heard from him since. It was very hard for me, many times I wished I was with my husband wherever he may be. For those who have lost their husbands, it would be better to have lost themselves.When I think of him and how he left us I want to leave everything, but I think of my daughters and I can’t leave them.
5. Haifa Haji Khudida with her daughter Elin, 2. What gives me strength are my children, I love them a lot and wouldn’t abandon them never.
6. Mayan Badal Khalaf with three of her nine children. I am strong but my heart is broken. My strength comes from my children, if I want to support them I have to be strong. I miss him but I do it alone, I tell my children: this is life.
7. Layla Murad Yousef and her children. Each morning my son kisses me on both cheeks and says: it’s one for you and one for dad. Many people have told me to leave the country, I tell them I can’t because I still feel that my husband will come back.
8. Khansa Khudida Ali and her daughter, Asima Yusef Khalaf, 1. Now I’ve no freedom to move, if I want to go alone to places it’s shameful.I need him to stand by me to bring up the children together, my daughter needs her father. He was the man that every girl wants as a father.
9. Shireen Qassem Khudaida and her kids.
10. Pakiza Melhem with four of her eight children. I wish I was the one who was shot that day because this life is hard to face without a husband - but my children help me go on. I stand by them and they stand by me.
Recently, I came across a post warning against storing your herbs in glass jars. “They will mold,” it claimed. I reblogged it, with my owns comments on the subject, explaining to others that simply is not the case.
If you have done the homework on the plants you are gathering, learned how each plant needs to be dried, and followed the proper steps, storing your herbs in glass jars will not make them mold.
*Herbs in the store can be purchased in glass jars.*
*Herbs have been stored in glass jars for hundreds of years.*
This is a small sample of my larder, all my herbs are carefully air-dried, and stored in glass jars. (Some are in plastic bags, as I ran out of jars!) None have ever molded.
My point is, don’t believe every post you come across, but read up on the subject, and educate yourself well. It’s disappointing to see misinformation being passed around as fact, when in truth, it is not.
Some leaves and flowers will need to be air-dried for 3-5 days.
Some leaves and plants need to be dried for 7-14 days.
Some flowers, (like lilacs) along with any member of the pine/evergreen family will require 3 weeks or more to dry.
Some plants with stems attached may need to be dried for 14-21 days, maybe even longer.
Air-drying maintains the colour, as well as essential oils/benefits of the plants the best, where oven drying can reduce them, and turns the plants brown.
Oven dry fruits like berries, at a very low setting (150°C-200°C) for anywhere from 2-4 hours, checking in between to see if they have completely dried yet. Since oven temps vary, you may have to tweek your drying times.
Do extensive reading on plants and drying/storing. You’ll have a far more rewarding and successful results!
real talk my mom never invaded my privacy, always knocked and waited for my “come in” instead of barging into my room, never tried to read my texts or journals or notes, and I always came to her with sensitive subjects; to the point of telling her I lost my virginity the /day/ I lost my virginity
what I’m saying is: respect your kids’ privacy and they will come to you with shit you’re worried about them doing
take it from someone raised the opposite; not respecting your kid’s privacy and rooting thru all of their shit, making them feel paranoid etc, will just turn them into a very good liar who withholds everything/makes up convincing stories and is really good at hiding things from you right under your nose.
Tips to learn a new language
The 75 most common words make up 40% of occurrences The 200 most common words make up 50% of occurrences The 524 most common words make up 60% of occurrences The 1257 most common words make up 70% of occurrences The 2925 most common words make up 80% of occurrences The 7444 most common words make up 90% of occurrences The 13374 most common words make up 95% of occurrences The 25508 most common words make up 99% of occurrences
(Source: 5 Steps to Speak a New Language by Hung Quang Pham)
This article has an excellent summary on how to rapidly learn a new language within 90 days.
We can begin with studying the first 600 words. Of course chucking is an effective way to memorize words readily. Here’s a list to translate into the language you desire to learn that Derek Roger suggested! :)
EXPRESSIONS OF POLITENESS (about 50 expressions)
‘Yes’ and 'no’: yes, no, absolutely, no way, exactly.
Question words: when? where? how? how much? how many? why? what? who? which? whose?
Apologizing: excuse me, sorry to interrupt, well now, I’m afraid so, I’m afraid not.
Meeting and parting: good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, goodbye, cheers, see you later, pleased to meet you, nice to have met.
Interjections: please, thank you, don’t mention it, sorry, it’ll be done, I agree, congratulations, thank heavens, nonsense.
NOUNS (about 120 words)
Time: morning, afternoon, evening, night; Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; spring, summer, autumn, winter; time, occasion, minute, half-hour, hour, day, week, month, year.
People: family, relative, mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife; colleague, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend; people, person, human being, man, woman, lady, gentleman, boy, girl, child.
Objects: address, bag, book, car, clothes, key, letter (=to post), light (=lamp), money, name, newspaper, pen, pencil, picture, suitcase, thing, ticket.
Places: place, world, country, town, street, road, school, shop, house, apartment, room, ground; Britain, name of the foreign country, British town-names, foreign town-names.
Abstract: accident, beginning, change, color, damage, fun, half, help, joke, journey, language, English, name of the foreign language, letter (of alphabet), life, love, mistake, news, page, pain, part, question, reason, sort, surprise, way (=method), weather, work.
Other: hand, foot, head, eye, mouth, voice; the left, the right; the top, the bottom, the side; air, water, sun, bread, food, paper, noise.
PREPOSITIONS (about 40 words)
General: of, to, at, for, from, in, on.
Logical: about, according-to, except, like, against, with, without, by, despite, instead of.
Space: into, out of, outside, towards, away from, behind, in front of, beside, next to, between, above, on top of, below, under, underneath, near to, a long way from, through.
Time: after, ago, before, during, since, until.
DETERMINERS (about 80 words)
Articles and numbers: a, the; nos. 0–20; nos. 30–100; nos. 200–1000; last, next, 1st–12th.
Demonstrative: this, that.
Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.
Quantifiers: all, some, no, any, many, much, more, less, a few, several, whole, a little, a lot of.
Comparators: both, neither, each, every, other, another, same, different, such.
ADJECTIVES (about 80 words)
Color: black, blue, green, red, white, yellow.
Evaluative: bad, good, terrible; important, urgent, necessary; possible, impossible; right, wrong, true.
General: big, little, small, heavy; high, low; hot, cold, warm; easy, difficult; cheap, expensive; clean, dirty; beautiful, funny (=comical), funny (=odd), usual, common (=shared), nice, pretty, wonderful; boring, interesting, dangerous, safe; short, tall, long; new, old; calm, clear, dry; fast, slow; finished, free, full, light (=not dark), open, quiet, ready, strong.
Personal: afraid, alone, angry, certain, cheerful, dead, famous, glad, happy, ill, kind, married, pleased, sorry, stupid, surprised, tired, well, worried, young.
VERBS (about 100 words)
arrive, ask, be, be able to, become, begin, believe, borrow, bring, buy, can, change, check, collect, come, continue, cry, do, drop, eat, fall, feel, find, finish, forget, give, going to, have, have to, hear, help, hold, hope, hurt (oneself), hurt (someone else), keep, know, laugh, learn, leave, lend, let (=allow), lie down, like, listen, live (=be alive), live (=reside), look (at), look for, lose, love, make, may (=permission), may (=possibility), mean, meet, must, need, obtain, open, ought to, pay, play, put, read, remember, say, see, sell, send, should, show, shut, sing, sleep, speak, stand, stay, stop, suggest, take, talk, teach, think, travel, try, understand, use, used to, wait for, walk, want, watch, will, work (=operate), work (=toil), worry, would, write.
PRONOUNS (about 40 words)
Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, one; myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.
Possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs.
Demonstrative: this, that.
Universal: everyone, everybody, everything, each, both, all, one, another.
Indefinite: someone, somebody, something, some, a few, a little, more, less; anyone, anybody, anything, any, either, much, many.
Negative: no-one, nobody, nothing, none, neither.
ADVERBS (about 60 words)
Place: here, there, above, over, below, in front, behind, nearby, a long way away, inside, outside, to the right, to the left, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, home, upstairs, downstairs.
Time: now, soon, immediately, quickly, finally, again, once, for a long time, today, generally, sometimes, always, often, before, after, early, late, never, not yet, still, already, then (=at that time), then (=next), yesterday, tomorrow, tonight.
Quantifiers: a little, about (=approximately), almost, at least, completely, very, enough, exactly, just, not, too much, more, less.
Manner: also, especially, gradually, of course, only, otherwise, perhaps, probably, quite, so, then (=therefore), too (=also), unfortunately, very much, well.
CONJUNCTIONS (about 30 words)
Coordinating: and, but, or; as, than, like.
Time & Place: when, while, before, after, since (=time), until; where.
Manner & Logic: how, why, because, since (=because), although, if; what, who, whom, whose, which, that.
Throughout his career, Carl worked as a science popularizer and as a professor of astronomy and critical thinking. He stayed true to his understanding of the world even in tough times—like when his little girl asked him if he would ever get to see his dead parents again:
He considered his answer carefully. Finally, he said that there was nothing he would like more in the world than to see his mother and father again, but that he had no reason—and no evidence—to support the idea of an afterlife, so he couldn’t give in to the temptation.
‘Why?’
Then he told me, very tenderly, that it can be dangerous to believe things just because you want them to be true. You can get tricked if you don’t question yourself and others, especially people in a position of authority. He told me that anything that’s truly real can stand up to scrutiny.
I don’t enjoy nihilistic proclamations but I always remember Bowden’s words on the stultified condition of humanity in the context of modernity.
We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no longer know how to produce food. We no longer can heal ourselves. We no longer raise our young. We have forgotten the names of the stars, fail to notice the phases of the moon. We do not know the plants and they no longer protect us. We tell ourselves we are the most powerful specimens of our kind who have ever lived. But when the lights are off we are helpless.
We cannot move without traffic signals. We must attend classes in order to learn by rote numbered steps toward love or how to breastfeed our baby. We justify anything, anything at all by the need to maintain our way of life. And then we go to the doctor and tell the professionals we have no life.
We have a simple test for making decisions: our way of life, which we cleverly call our standard of living, must not change except to grow yet more grand. We have a simple reality we live with each and every day: our way of life is killing us.
Charles Bowden, Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America
When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.
Bertrand Russell (via themindmovement)
What goes around comes around, Texas (x)
P.S. If you’d also like to do this, it’s perfectly legal, as long as the biological material is ‘reasonably expected’ to be free of pathogens (i.e. you aren’t going to mail some guy infected blood with the intention of also infecting him) and you package it correctly!
Some guidelines for doing so are here here and here
This is the single most chaotic good thing I can think of oh my god
This sums up everything I feel and so so so much more.