Root And Rock

A faster, leaner, iteration of the Root and Rock blog. They/Them.

[dateamonster]

revealing your scaring the hoes type interests early on in a relationship is a good way to secure only hoes of bravery and fortitude that will craft horrible dreams and beautiful nightmares with you

[mortalityplays]

one of the most important things, perhaps the most important thing I have learned in my life is that nice people can fuck each other up in monstrous ways. people can be bone deep kind and loving and self reflective and still lash out under pressure. people can be earnestly neighbourly and charitable and hospitable and generous and still find themselves in situations where they become selfish. people can be well meaning and easygoing and gregarious and hold deep seated opinions that turn them into vicious little bullies under the right conditions. nobody is just one thing, and nobody stays one way. every person is a kaleidoscope and they will surprise you. you will surprise yourself. it's not a warning and it's not a judgement and it's not an excuse, and it's certainly not a reason to stop trying or to stop trusting. it is just a fact.

[rootandrock]

One of the most valuable skills I've learned over the last couple of years is that the way my brain assigns priority, and ability to complete tasks, is just totally scattered and bonkers.

I genuinely believe this is because as a child I'd be told to clean my room, begin to clean it, and then proceed to be interrupted and told I was doing it incorrectly/the wrong order/etc. until I was driven to a crying meltdown because I was a pretty sensitive kid and my folks were not great about that.

Part of hitting that "this is probably a little bit of a midlife crisis, and a little bit hormones" time (aka Perimenopause) has been gently reparenting myself.

Today's tasks could probably be any number of things that I "need" to do, but getting one thing cleaned is better than beating myself up over what the "right" thing is to clean first until I'm making myself have a crying meltdown (We reenact the stupid shit we experienced as kids well into adulthood, forever re-inflicting the same wounds until we learn to break the cycle, you say? Suuuuuure, buddy. Mmmhmm- wait what?)

So, what am I cleaning? I'm sorting out all of the various divination sets I have, taking them out of the "big boxes" they were packaged in for store shelves (usually crushed from years of shelving, too), shelving the guidebooks (were applicable), and sourcing cases or boxes for the ones that don't come with a proper one.

This, in turn, is letting me clean up the jam-packed arrangement of my various woo-woo books, which is then allowing me to get some books out of a stack on the floor.

And as soon as I started touching the books on the floor do you know what happened? I suddenly watered and pruned my office plants, dusted, tidied my art table, took the trash out, and vacuumed.

"Clean up the tarot decks" was a log jam that I didn't even consciously know was there. I just knew I wanted to clean up the tarot decks. Who knows how long "Clean up the tarot decks" was sitting there occupying 'next in queue', preventing anything else from happening, because it wasn't the "right" thing to clean first (and my nervous system still expects me to "get in trouble"), but absolutely DID need to be done.

I mean, I needed them tidied up and moved so that I could get the books off of the floor. And getting the books off of the floor meant I could vacuum without bumping into them or sending them slopping all over the place (big format paperbacks suck). And if I'm going to go ahead and vacuum I might as well get the floor properly dirty first... and- you see how that works? It made all the sense in the world once I just did what I wanted to do.

Anyway, take care of yourself and give yourself room to have the wiring you have.

[ashs-path]

Following witchcraft blogs is an absolute roulette wheel on whether you're following a TERF or not and I can't stand how many times it's happened to me. Reblog this if you're a witchcraft blog and aren't a TERF and I'll give you a follow! On this blog we love and respect trans women!

[onetrackminded]

Transfeminism and witchcraft is a match made in the astral realm ✨🪄

[mywitchcraftdiary]

I'm a firm believer that you cannot claim to be "love and light" and be a TERF; you are committing spiritual warfare against transwomen. Transphobia is spiritual warfare. Transwomen are channels of the Sacred Feminine.

[witch-of-snow-and-stars]

I try to do witchcraft and magic posts. I think my backlog is fairly decent in my tarot and witchcraft tags (I also do free readings and other things, everything is in my pinned post)

My dms are 18+ and open if anyone wants to talk too

[enki2]

[thebdelliumlady]

For anyone wondering, the PhD student's name is Myra Cheng.

Here's a link to an article about the study from the Stanford Report: link.

[chapscher]

Across three preregistered studies, participants interacting with sycophantic AI became more convinced of their own rightness and less willing to repair relationships. Yet at the same time, participants rated sycophantic AI models as higher quality, more trustworthy, and more desirable for future use, which may explain why this behavior has persisted despite its harmful impacts.

Myra Cheng et al. "Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence." Science 391, eaec8352 (2026).

[akonoadham]

Footage of Juneteenth parades and events from 1979-1991 broadcasted on the KXAS-TV station in Fort Worth, Texas.

[lakevida]

free the nipple has to make a resurgence for a number of reasons but bro look at our upcoming eternity of wet bulb temps youre smoking straight up cock if you think im keeping a shirt on when it hits 105° in new england

[rootandrock]

To the person who sent me the pop culture magic/HPL ask: I am actually responding to that, but it got sent at a really weird time that went 'Ha ha check out this Synchronicity!" so it in fact lead to a LOT more things that I wanted to talk about and then the reply got out of hand and became a LibreOffice document.

But I'm workin' on it.

[squeakitties]

following weird horny furries who are into shit like pooltoys and transformation and stuff is enrichment. the vitamins and minerals of posting

[squeakitties]

[twinkenjoyer-deactivated2023083]

once you get over your ass and realise you will never get some people and that’s ok you are basically immune to right wing fearmongering. otherkin? none of my fucking business

[stevishabitat]

[mandate-transgenderism]

I must not fall victim to disgust. Disgust is the heart-killer. Disgust is the little-death that brings total apathy. I will face my disgust. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the disgust has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

[rootandrock]

The floor of my workshop/removed temple space being, essentially, one giant chalk board* has meant that those ornate, grimoiric, circles have become a very new but very "Hmmm, that's doin' something interesting." addition to my Process.

"Chalk markers" haven't been a good choice, because they leave a greasy residue (and have been pretty hard to remove in general). Instead I've been using water-activated gouache. The dark background doesn't have problems with staining, and opaque pigments are usually pretty non-staining anyway. I use a swiffer and (if I really need to) a magic eraser type sponge. But that latter really only needs to get busted out when I've let designs sit for too long in summer heat.

The existence of a "Ritual Swiffer" is, perhaps, comedic. But I can put whatever I like in the swiffer's tank. Infused "teas" can also be used to activate the gouache. It ain't dumb if it works.

Pouring a lot of time and effort into creating ornate "circles" does something. What is that something? Palpably intense is about the extent I can put it into words. There's an extra degree of attention from spirits, and an extra degree of "Oh shit I'm sorry I wasn't familiar with your game".

It's also beautiful, and temporary. The creation is meditative and the destruction is sacrificial. *It's not actually chalk board, just a very tough porch and patio paint.

[rederiswrites]

Just watched Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything) make such a solid point that I think we should spread far and wide. Yes, having AI write your emails is lazy, sure, but people love being lazy. We need to really emphasize that sending AI emails (or using AI responses on social media, or publishing AI flyers, or or or) is rude.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

It's rude.

[rootandrock]

Growth and healing is not linear.

"What happened with XYZ project?" an ask asked. I reflexively deleted it out of shame and disgust and fear.

It doesn't matter what project "XYZ project" is in this case, because the answer is actually the same for all of them.

I would hit a place in my life where I was in a good stride, and feeling positive about the world. Stable financially, stable socially, stable in my relationships. And then, inevitably, someone would do something to undo every bit of that stability.

I learned to fear trying to do anything because I knew it would call down an air strike. TW: Uh... y'know... mental health and emotional stuff stated in a very frank way.

But I know now it wasn't me inviting it on myself. It was other people seeing my "leisure" as free real estate. It was disrespecting my time, my value, my entire self.

And I was too (Insert "there's no diagnosis, but like... we're pretty sure" meme here) to really notice. I just assumed it was my fault because I'd been raised to believe that everything that went wrong was somehow my fault for not being "normal."

And realizing it wasn't has been a real motherfucker of realizing what else wasn't actually my fault, either.

But then also finding out some things totally were on me, and trying to make amends.

Right now there's a lot of stuff I want to do again and I'm working through the fear and irrational emotional kneejerk that doing those things will cause something bad to befall me or those I care about.

That's it, really.

What happened to it? The horrors. What will happen in the future? We'll see. I'm doin' my best.

[kaylmao]

you love fat people outside of sexual contexts too, right?

[rootandrock]

"You decided to live despite the horrors" the often-crippling malfunction in my head says "So, if you think about it... you kinda caused this."

I grab it by the metaphorical hair and hold its face under the softly rippling surface of the town square fountain, cooing a soft "shhhh" over the initial splashing.

"How full of hubris you are to lay the world's ills at my feet. If my despair made the world better we would live in paradise and we sure as fuck don't. So, that's not how this is going to go." I add, patting it on the now-still back.

[thesunxlx]

Coming out (2026)

read about this illustration shop + commission enquiries + snail mail + more

[portalibis]

Terracotta relief showing Skylla, a sea-monster (Milos, found in Aegina 336-323 BC)

Scylla is a terrifying sea monster from Greek mythology, famously encountered by Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. Living in a cliffside cavern opposite the deadly whirlpool Charybdis, Scylla was once a beautiful nymph transformed by a jealous curse into a grotesque creature with twelve deformed feet and six long, snaking necks, each topped with a horrific head boasting triple rows of sharp teeth. As ships passed through the narrow strait, she would lean out of her cave to snatch and devour sailors directly from the decks. Forced to choose between risking his entire ship to Charybdis or losing a few men to Scylla, Odysseus chose the latter, helplessly watching as the monster struck like a predator and devoured six of his finest companions.

[graveyarddirt]

@rootandrock

[rootandrock]

So, it's been six months since I started my "daily challenge".

I haven't managed something significant every day but I have managed "something" every day. Usually progress on embroidery or crochet (robe and altar cloth respectively). Sometimes it's cleaning and organization. Sometimes it's taking offerings and harvesting bits and bobs.

I'm going to step up my game (so to speak). Today I crossed every "to do" off of my fridge list and am now typing up modified habit trackers for daily, weekly and monthly tasks. My goal is to be full clearing those lists by the end of the month, with no leftovers and no "it can wait."

I'm making new inserts for my fauxdori journal. I also got myself a lovely folder that holds old inserts, so I have somewhere better to store my "BOS" notes as they get filled up.

In all honesty I am fighting my way back from a very bad place. A place that was so bad that I didn't realize how bad it was until I was a couple of years removed from it. I need to thrive again.

The goal I have for the next six months is outmanoeuvring the part of my brain that says "It doesn't feed me dopamine so I'm not doing it." And, yes, it's also the part of me that has slowly been gaining weight.

Quite frankly: I do not give a single, solitary, fleeting, indo-pacific pygmy goby lifespan of a fuck about societal "standards" of beauty or weight or what other people think about my appearance - be it positive or negative. This is not about that.

Body positivity is beautiful, and I'm absolutely positive that my body hurts. Weight leads to pain, pain leads to being sedentary, being sedentary leads to weight. Weight, as you may have read previously, leads to pain.

And, most importantly, I'm running out of clothes that fit and I am not buying new clothing for a myriad of moral and ethical reasons. If I want to wear things they need to already exist in my closet, or I need to be able to afford to make them. Fabric ain't cheap, but walking on a treadmill I already own is free. The happy side-effect is that a more trimmed me is also a less dysphoric me, so that's nice.