Root And Rock

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

[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.

[rootandrock]

It warms my heart when "Tumblr Folk Tales" cycles back around and I see the Big Feelings haunted house or the prince realizing Cinderella is essentially fairy royalty being included on the list.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

[rootandrock]

Anything can be an oracle deck if you put your mind to it.

Grabbed a pack of Apples To Apples Jr. to use for craft purposes a while back, and I had a day fully and completely "off" due to tripping over kudzu on a walk and bruising my everything, so today felt like a good craft day. As a joke I shuffled the cards before I got to work and tossed some down.

"Sick Day", "Gross", "A Broken Leg"

Alright you creepy little fuckers back in the box with you.

[space-queen]

me realizing that the reason i feel the need to be hyperspecific with my wording and phrasing online is because people lack reading comprehension and independent thought and are incapable of recognizing nuance and i don't want a bunch of weird people in my phone trying to argue with me.

[cultusquercus]

Yuuup. I used to make all sorts of disclaimers, essentially trying to preemptively address any strawmen that might be thrown at me, but if you preemptively take away the obvious ones people just get really creative. Almost like it's deliberate or something.

[rootandrock]

One of the really good things about keeping a tarot journal or big worksheet binder is that years later when you get a deck out and you've sorta lost the feel for it you can just Consult The Tomes and "Oh right this was the deck that thinks every reading needs to be punctuated with the tower."

[permanenteclipse]

Being nonbinary at all is kind of a disheartening existence, but especially if you're any kind of nonhuman-flavor, or plural of multiple genders, or you're an it/its kind of thing. It actually is too much to ask. Never in your lifetime. You'll never get to be seen the way binary trans people and some nonbinary people have achieved. It's low priority. You're not serious. Pack it up. Take your they/them pronoun pin, say thank you and go.

[permanenteclipse]

I'm glad I got to be a man but I'm actually not a man. I'm a computer. I'm an animal. I'm a concept. I'm 25 different people. There's a good portion of society dedicated to making sure I get to be a man, and even they see my actual self as a kind of metaphorical joke. Maybe I do want to be a bird in the workplace. I'd like for that to just be normal.

[rootandrock]

It took a while to figure out how Filet/fillet crochet was supposed to work, but it's easy enough once you get the hang of it.

Ignore the little pointy bits. I blocked it out a little too tight to correct some warping. This was done in number 10 off-white cotton thread with a 1.25mm hook.

Next step is learning tapestry crochet, and getting into fancy borders.

[thulium]

[rootandrock]

It's pretty clear they're just trying to build a database of everyone's names and faces and fears and interests and kinks and blah blah blah to tighten the choke chain a little more each and every day.

If they kick me off this godforsaken platform (or any other) for not uploading my ID then so be it. I'll greatly miss the good times and honestly be pretty relieved that the bad times have been relegated to the wastebin.

[rootandrock]

When you're on the doomscroll detox train and you have to go "Well, checking Tumblr doesn't count because if shit goes down I know I can count on the Castiel meme to inform me..."

[rootandrock]

I managed to get my robe usable with an hour to spare on May Eve. Waste canvas has a learning curve and that curve is unforgiving.

A tip for anyone considering using it: Soak it thoroughly. Let it sit to rehydrate. Rinse the hell out of it with cold water. Let it sit to air dry, no heat! Wait until it is fully dry!!! Pull out all of the threads on one axis first, then the other. Don't even bother using tweezers - go straight for the needle nose pliers.

The stitching turned out beautifully, but the lining made it a little warm (and my waistline has grown which made keeping it closed a chore. I really need to trim down so things I love fit again). And naturally I forgot to add the belt loops...

Now for the next design!

[rootandrock]

"Maybe Green Lady isn't dead after all!" I say, bending down to grab her trunk. I have brought the saw and loppers just in case... but I hope.

I give it the smallest tug, and feel the entire thing start to come loose. Roots and all. "Oh. Well, fuck."

There is a trunk the size of my wrist, and a couple that are just a bit smaller. I think it's a knife-handle waiting for a blade (I can see it in my mind's eye... I just need to find the smith who will make it). I see runes as well. Beads.

I know this is not the end of our partnership, because it had all the pomp and circumstance of helping a friend clean their garage. But I know it's going to be different.

And weird.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[teratocybernetics]

@rootandrock

[rootandrock]

Oh you don't know what you've done. I have this exact toad. I have a mold that makes a perky boob shaped mug.

[rootandrock]

The air is thick with head shop Nag Champa. The first time it hits me in the shower I swoon.

I am sixteen again. I am eighteen again. I am twenty-three again. I am aware of the years and yet stripped clean of the slog. I feel unburdened for a bit.

I have scrubbed and scoured with a loofah all places that can be reached. I have moisturized as much as I can stand it (the crepey skin started to hit my hands at 40).

I lock eyes with my robe and realize the chances of getting the last stitches in (and the waste canvas OUT) are.... middling, at best.

The Carling - the real one in the real world that MIGHT be the mirror of the real one in the Other World - has become overgrown and is now a tunnel of trees. The ticks are too thick this year to do much more than leave my offerings and bolt for the safety of a lint roller and "Did I get them all? Am I sure I got them all? Ah fuck one got past the underwear NO DO NOT BITE ME THERE."

[rootandrock]

Ollie's Discount hot tip. $4 Tarot Deck.

The Illuminated Tarot is: $4 A 53 card deck (Standard playing card number, plus a Fool). A larger format deck, but not massive. In a nice box with a guide book. $4. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL and WEIRD artwork in bold colors that remind me of the Hoi Polloi tarot. Did I mention it's four bucks?

I can see this one being my go-to deck, potentially unseating Mildred Payne's Pocket Oracle.

I do not see any immediate AI red flags, and the artist has lots of work of a similar quality and style on their website.