Songs For The Lost

No road home

[c86]

The Aquarian Tarot Deck by David Palladini, 1970

[dramatic-dolphin]

and if i said nolan's odyssey starring no greek actors and with no recognizable aspects of greek culture or involvement by greeks, is the direct legacy of white supremacist colonialism that treated ancient greece as not just the pinnacle of ancient culture, but of an artificially created "european" culture, which white western europeans and their settler descendants, as the new pinnacle of culture, were the sole spiritual inheritors of.

[hiveswap]

^^^ PEOPLE ARE STILL THERE. There's a metro station across the street from the colosseum where i found a hair in my pizza slice. We drove by ruins of an amphitheater next to a motorway in greece once. It's literally just real places where real people live and have lived. It's not mythical perfect lands that once existed. I went to Itacha in 2023 and there was not enough parking space.

[hagiomoto]

Modern society is built upon hundreds of forgotten genocides and massacres, in addition to the ones history has documented. Living today means inheriting a world shaped by the deeds of previous generations and confronting their consequences, whether we wish to or not. The right thing to do is to confront that legacy rather than pretend it does not exist.

[elminx]

The thing is, I really am only capable of returning to something in my life if I view it as sacred. I am simply so forgetful, and there are so many new and interesting things to do.

Writing about astrology is my dedication to the skies, and photographing cemeteries and other deathly things is my dedication to the Earth. I can't fly too high without coming back to ground. I suppose now that I mention it, growing things is my dedication to the Sun.

They are sacred because they are mundane. They are mundane because they are sacred.

But it's not a demand, it is a sweet return. I don't do things every Thursday, and I don't beat myself up over the exact things somebody has recreated from their idea of a text written hundreds of years ago.

My practice flows with the tides and with the seasons. It will never look the same twice. That, too, is sacred.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

i like how a lot of religion thought goes along the lines “we worship god bc god created us”

and then there’s greek mythology where “god invented humans, the other gods beat the shit out of him”

[jungletopia]

[hazel2468]

Oh, and then there’s Judaism.

Which is- Gd created everything, then Gd went around talking to people, shit happened, Gd tried to find a people to accept Gd’s laws and book, no one would. FINALLY Gd stumbles across the Jews and is like “Hey will y’all accept my laws and be my chosen people?” And the Jews were like “What does that mean?” And Gd is like “It means you follow my rules and read this book.” and the Jews were like “Eh sure why not.”

And so we took the book, read it, and then looked at Gd and said “Hey, do you accept constructive criticism?”

[notanandalitebandit]

[topazastral]

a group of Jews is called an argument

[an-ime-goil]

Can someone give me an example of this? I hear that questioning and debates are super common in Judaism, but as someone who was raised Catholic I don’t understand how that works. You mean it’s not blasphemous to question things?

[jewishicequeen]

Okay, IDK how to explain it but @athingofvikings explained a few times, you ca find it on his blog?

[athingofvikings]

@an-ime-goil

No.  In fact, it’s almost the opposite.  There are a number of places in Jewish thought and Jewish law where complete consensus is a sign of something having gone wrong with the process.  (For example, if all of the judges agree in a case where the death penalty would be imposed, then the accused automatically goes free and the case is dismissed–because something clearly went wrong if you can get all of the judges to agree!)

It’s because Judaism and Christianity have very different viewpoints on God, sinning, forgiveness, and punishment.  

In Judaism, there are several classifications for “sin” that are very different than Christian views; there are sins where one person transgresses against another person, and sins where one person transgresses against God.  The former category is viewed as more significant–indeed, two types of sin from one person to another are classified as unforgivable: Murder and gossip.  Murder because the victim is not around to give forgiveness, and gossip because it is impossible to take one’s words back once they are loosed in the community.  

And then there are the classifications of sin; in Judaism, it is believed that everyone has the internalized capacity for failure and straying.  That’s what sin is conceptualized as–a deviation from a correct path.  The most common word for sin, hata, essentially means “to go astray/to miss one’s mark”.  

So we conceptualize everyone as having free will, and the ability to stay on the correct path of moral righteousness (which is a concept itself tied to justice and charity) through their own choices, or to deviate from that course.  And for when we miss that mark, we ask the people we’ve wronged for their forgiveness directly, or ask God for forgiveness on the appropriate occasion (Yom Kippur) for when we’ve gone astray against God.  

So for us, we have moral and ethical guidelines on what to do from God, but the implementation and interpretation of them is up to us.  So we argue and debate if this particular action or other acts to fulfill that.  Is it good enough?  Well, let’s build a little fence around the concept so we don’t accidentally transgress.  Well, where do we put the fence?  And there’s debate on that.  And debate on whether we need the fence, or if a “keep off” sign is sufficient?  Is the fence still applicable in the modern age?  How do we interpret these strictures in the light of changing times?  Etc.  

And since we didn’t have a central authority to mediate and rule on these things for the last two thousand years, you get practice by consensus… to a point.  

Contrast that with Christian views on Sin, and how sin can only redeemed through Jesus–and in Catholicism, Jesus is only accessible through the priests of the Church, which, for the last thousand years, has been aggressively centralizing and defending its authority, on pain of sin for those that go against that authority.  And engaging in sin imperils your immortal soul to Hell (another concept that doesn’t exist in Judaism).  

So there is a coercive element there that doesn’t exist in Judaism, along with a centralized authority who can and will punish deviation–not just in behavior, but in thought.  Because Christianity has thought-crimes, being an Ortho-dox (Correct Doctrine/Thought) religion, while Judaism is an Ortho-prax (Correct Action/Practice) religion.  

As a result, in Judaism, debating on what actions to take is not only acceptable, but encouraged, but in Christianity, debate and dissenting viewpoints are forbidden, as independent thought has the risk of breaking someone from the doctrines, and is best left to the priests for the safety of one’s Christian soul.  

Note I’m simplifying significantly, but that’s the major difference.  And to simplify even more: TL;DR: Judaism focuses on action, Christianity focuses on belief, and questioning actions to make sure they’re correct is applauded in Judaism, but questioning belief in Christianity is a dangerous sign of heresy and stamped out with extreme prejudice.  

[math-is-magic]

This was a beautiful and intriguing explanation, but I wanna deviate back to the top jokey part from earlier comments- I’m very sad no one brought up the ‘and then our ancestor wrestled with god’ thing. Seems like it would fit.

[charnel-grounds]

Edward Gorey (1925–2000), “Cemetery (Garden obelisks with skulls)”

pen and ink with wash on paper, 1980 — source

[creekfiend]

I love how when highly social apes gained the ability to think narratively the immediate result was like "ok everythings a guy now" like that's so funny that's SO charming of us. hello I have developed the cognitive capacity to frame my experiences in a narrative and now that mountain is a guy. the river? a guy. storm? also a guy. they're all guys now. when they do something which results in damage inconvenience or death is probs bc they're mad at us. because they're guys.

its just I think. soooo adorable its such a funny little unexpected outcome of becoming as social and as narrative-in-language brained as we are. Everything's A Guy Now. and we are in a social relationship. us and the guys. the sun is in my social group now. bet you didn't foresee that when you programmed this level of social with this level of narrative brain, DID you, god???? <- look look I'm doing it right now I'm making there be a guy

[loth-caatgirl]

[heavenslittlemachine-deactivate]

when u run away from the circus and steal their best swords

[heavenslittlemachine-deactivate]

when u look at your ill-gotten treasures later in life and think What Have I Done

[secretseakrait-deactivated20170]

when the circus catches up with you and they aren’t happy

[cryptotheism]

You mentioned in a previous ask that you don’t think people should believe in supernatural stuff but isn’t occultism the belief in supernatural stuff? Or do you refer to yourself as that in more of an interest way than belief? Not trying to ask in bad faith, I’m curious if/what the distinction for you is

A lot of people in occult spaces do believe in the supernatural yes. I do not. This does not make the occult less interesting or valuable to study practice.

For example, I enjoy tarot cards. I have memorized the rider waite smith, and can perform acts of cartomancy. I don't believe anything special is happening, no subtle energy is changing hands, the future is not being divined. It is an act of meditative improvisation. I feel like it would be disingenuous and intellectually dishonest to say that I am not practicing cartomancy.

The thing that makes a tarot deck special is the story we tell each other about the tarot deck, the thought and artistry that went into its design, and the gravitas with which we treat the deck. It is fundamentally just a stack of colorful cardboard, but performing the act of belief is fun, and imo, intellectually valuable.

[grendelsmilf]

i don't believe in astrology, but i think time of birth can possibly affect people's personality in terms of like. a december baby in the olde days would stay inside its first few months of life and not get as much sun or social interaction. a nov baby absorbed secondhand thanksgiving planning stress and so hates people. september baby ate a lot of yummy tomatoes in the womb and is more likely to be italian, etc

fuck. you’re right. i didn’t even consider that september babies are italian. my eyes have now been opened

[elodieunderglass]

Because September babies consistently perform the best in academics and sports (being a full year older than some of their classmates), while August babies perform the worst, due to being the tiniest and youngest, I know a statistically significant number of parents who strive on purpose to conceive September babies. Thus Virgos and Libras are preferentially selected by ambitious parents. It’s just how it is. The differences carry forward - a September-born child, inherently stronger and more advanced than 90% of their classmates, is born into the habit of being more confident and talented than classmates born in summer - and most professional athletes are born in the last months of the year. It’s called the Relative Age Effect, and impacts across talent, “intelligence,” gender and neurodivergence.

A September-born child has a higher chance of being conceived in an auspicious month by parents who know that scientifically they will have an advantage that carries into their career. Summer-born children, born in carelessness or desperation or without any parental strategy whatsoever, just have to miss out the percentage points (I’m summer-born myself)

You can literally farm a 5% difference in academic achievement by doing a little bit of birth control and family planning. That basically cancels out whatever “microplastics and screen time” panic is in the air at the time of conception. Who wouldn’t?

Anyway, parents playing the meta and trying to capitalise on the relative age effect have definitely skewed, and will continue to skew, astrology in very material and hilarious ways.



[mysharona1987]

[greyhina]

Same energy as that time in college I told a girl that “the tarot” says she needs to go call her mom and start going to therapy and she fucking did.

[tiruvenkadu]

absolutely a granny weatherwax moment. “you need to move the outhouse because its presence is bothering the forest spirits and they’re cursing you” because trying to explain about bacteria from the outhouse contaminating the well wasn’t working.

[teaboot]

I always want to chew through drywall when I hear about “science is a lie” “science is brainwashing you” “science is indoctrination” because science isn’t a BELIEF, it’s a SKILL, it’s a TOOL used to determine whether something is trustworthy.

“mathematics are corrupting the youth” “the Dewey decimal system is ruining society” “geometry is threatening our way of life” like listen to that shit

If your house has no right corners and you routinely buy Throckmorton quantities of dish soap par accident then math isn’t your enemy, David

[teaboot]

Receiving new information on Melvil Dewey and changing opinions accordingly. This does not change the science thing tho

[teaboot]

One of my fathers- who was a religious conservative republican but also not particularly academic with the latter being one of our bigger issue conflict-wise as it lended to a almost complete lack of critical thinking skills which branched out to nearly every other subject on earth, was very enlightening on this actually

He believed in God. And as my own relationship with faith is... ehhhh.... l'd ask him about his. And the impression I got was that "mustard-seed faith"-any faith at all- was the biggest thing. That at the end of the line, when you aren't certain of something, you do a trust fall with God.

And that's fine! That makes sense to me. I do similar leaps with the universe. Blind faith that things are as they are meant to be is sort of all you can have, sometimes.

The issue we had when conversing on academic topics was that he seemed to think SCIENCE worked the same way, which it does NOT

Science is not religion the same way that a teapot isn't a Ford F150. They're different things with different functions and applications and if you pour hot water into one and expect tea you're going to have a bad time.

One time we were talking about climate change and he tried very hard to convince me that as earth's atmosphere didn’t exist, the OZONE LAYER DID NOT EXIST, and as such, no amount of global warming could not be attributed to the greenhouse gas effect.

To which I contradicted that the atmosphere WAS real, and proceeded to explain WHAT the greenhouse gas effect WAS.

Which he rebutted with, “Well, science comes up with new things all the time. Give it a week and they’ll be telling us it’s something else.”

And that made me go like

OH

OH, you don’t trust Science because you think the rules change

You think you can’t trust anything said by a scientist because you’re USED TO THINKING that the world works by a handful of principals and ideas that are set in absolute stone and everything else is by God’s discretion, and trying to manipulate or predict or figure out those grey areas represents a lack of trust or a desire for control, which of course would seem disrespectful, it would be like trying to sneak out your window to go to a party when your Dad said not to

But Science isn’t your DAD, science is like. Safety rules in your Dad’s workshop

This is how you know the material is good. This is how you know the machinery works. This is how you figure out where the break is in an engine. This is how you figure out how to fix it

By my Father’s understanding of the world, his Dad said “eat your vegetables and don’t do murder”, and while he KNOWS murder will send him to jail, he doesn’t KNOW why he should eat his vegetables, so he just does it because he trusts his Dad knows sonething he doesn’t.

To contrast, by MY understanding of the world, my Dad said “eat your vegetables and don’t do murder” and I was like “well yeah wasn’t planning on murder but why Vegetables and not styrofoam” and then “Dad” handed me a book and said “eat styrofoam if you want to but there IS a reason vegetables are better and you can find out if you want to” and I spent the afternoon figuring out what a vitamin is

And maybe in a week or so “Dad” will be like “hey good job, here’s more on the subject” and hand out a more complex book, or a corrected version, but the point is that asking WHY wasn’t the issue

Science isn’t TRUTH. Science is figuring out the FACTS that truth is MADE OF

None of us fully understands what TRUTH is, NOBODY, but FACTS are the paints that make the picture, and it takes time to figure each colour out

I think

[teaboot]

Science isn’t about disrespecting God it’s about coming home with your shitty crayon art and going “I drew a picture of you at school today”

[friend-crow]

So this looks like a good read. Text: after half a year of work, my academic zine on the history of antisemitism & appropriation in western occult movements is done 🖤 a 22-page PDF full of citations, illustrated with historic & public domain images, pay-what-you-want (or FREE!): https://ezrarose.itch.io/fyma-a-lesser-key

twitter thread

Update (not that anybody is looking at the original post anymore): I have now read this and it is, indeed, very good.

Also, the author/artist is here on tumblr! Check out @sheydgarden

[friend-crow]

For day 2 of international zine month, I am once more sharing this awesome zine!

[byjove]

One of the funniest things about Mormonism is that I’m sure Joseph Smith never believed any of the bullshit he said. There are some religions and cults where you have faith the original prophet actually thought they were talking to angels or believed the set of principles they laid out for their followers were for the greater good. Joseph Smith was a dumbass but like PT Barnum he realized a sucker was born every day and he was one step above the average 1830s sucker. He went from making people pay him to look at a rock in a top hat and ‘locate buried treasure’ to receiving lost bits of scripture, through the rock and top hat method. His wife caught him cheating and he said an angel visited him and told him men should be allowed multiple wives and not obeying that would send her to hell. I’m fairly convinced that dude was an atheist. He was on that hustler grindset. Brigham Young might have actually believed some of the shit he said but I don’t think Joseph Smith genuinely had faith in Mormonism or gave a fuck about humanity in the slightest.

[byjove]

I mean, success is a relative term. He was shot to death by an angry mob at the age of 38 while running for US president, after inciting a riot by ordering a printing press to be destroyed because the ex-Mormon newspaper was saying true things about him. He was arrested for starting the riot, freed, tried to declare martial law and call out his own personal militia before fleeing. It was only when he was apprehended and brought back to Carthage that the people of Illinois resorted to mob justice. Truly Trump-esque behavior but that guy has gotten away with it for 79 years.

[byjove]

Also, I think it’s so funny that his Wikipedia lists him as the first U.S. presidential candidate to be assassinated kind of implying he was assassinated for presidential politic reasons and not because he was a career criminal who had been terrorizing Illinois for 5 years straight.

[unpretty]

god i’m not even through one episode of paranormal home inspectors and it rules, this lady thought she was being haunted by the wails of the restless dead but she was just listening to raccoons fuck in her attic

[unpretty]

psychic: these are hieroglyphics… the spirits are trying to communicate…

home inspector: you put new paint over old paint and now the old paint is bleeding through, that’s why you’re not supposed to do that

[unpretty]

homeowner: my daughter’s room is always cold… cold like the dead…

home inspector: you put furniture on top of her heating vent

[unpretty]

business owner: i got locked in the bathroom even though the door has no lock

home inspector: it has a lock. the lock is right there. on the knob.

[nevercure]

Fun fact a scientist who is very not spiritual or superstitious began seeing corner eye hallucinations and feeling intense fear and a presence in his lab around the same time that everyone else in the building was suddenly reporting it haunted.

Determined, he found that the “hauntings” stopped when the industrial air conditioning unit, that had just recently been installed, was turned off. We’ve found that measurable micro vibrations in a structure cause immense fear, and a feeling of a presence and corner eye hallucinations – just like when you watch a scary movie alone at night and you see things move in the corner of your eye or are afraid to go in the cellar because you’re convinced someone’s in there.

Why?

Because many members of our species built homes in and around cliffs and caves for tens of thousands of years. And it’s likely that these certain shaky vibrations give us intense fear and a need to move far away because that would have saved our lives if the cave were collapsing or unstable.

You’ll notice it’s always falling apart, dilapidated homes that are “haunted” - or very very old restored homes. These places might just be slightly structurally unsound. That’s all.

[rosetintmyworld84]

That’s infrasound, sounds that are below 20hz, or the limit of normal human hearing. Things that produce infrasound in nature include severe weather, earthquakes, volcanoes, tigers, alligators, rhinoceros; also known as things that can kill people. We developed an evolutionary sense of dread when our brains perceive sounds we cannot hear. The vibrations from infrasound can also vibrate the eye causing visual hallucinations. 

You know what also causes infrasound? A LOT of machines, especially large industrial ones. There’s a reason haunted house stories started popping up in post industrialization. That scientist was Vic Tandy and he wrote about it in a the paper Ghosts in the Machines

“Vic Tandy, experimental officer and part-time lecturer in the school of international studies and law at Coventry University, along with Dr. Tony Lawrence of the University’s psychology department, wrote in 1998 a paper called “Ghosts in the Machine” for the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Their research suggested that an infrasonic signal of 19 Hz might be responsible for some ghost sightings. Tandy was working late one night alone in a supposedly haunted laboratory at Warwick, when he felt very anxious and could detect a grey blob out of the corner of his eye. When Tandy turned to face the grey blob, there was nothing.The following day, Tandy was working on his fencing foil, with the handle held in a vice. Although there was nothing touching it, the blade started to vibrate wildly. Further investigation led Tandy to discover that the extractor fan in the lab was emitting a frequency of 18.98 Hz, very close to the resonant frequency of the eye given as 18 Hz by NASA. This, Tandy conjectured, was why he had seen a ghostly figure—it was, he believed, an optical illusion caused by his eyeballs resonating. The room was exactly half a wavelength in length, and the desk was in the centre, thus causing a standing wave which caused the vibration of the foil.“

[rabbitindisguise]

Okay I didn’t need my eyes to have a resonation frequency but thanks for that, science

[baddywronglegs]

Around the world today, the penumbra of the rising of the first sun of May is lined with onlookers and wellwishers, eyes on the eastern horizon to catch the first glimpse of a new season.

Because in our hearts, this is how summer returns to the northern hemisphere; this sun a baton passed in the annual relay as the south prepares for what winter may bring.

Among our number, where the hilltops flatten enough for people to trust their feet in the gloom, for over a century now morris dancers have set out in the fading dark to dance in the dawn, for the same reason we do anything: because it's what we do. That's all tradition is, after all.

And every year, alongside the bells, a passage from Terry Pratchett's Hogfather rings in my mind.

"The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"

NO.

"Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.

...

"Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"

A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.

And so, every year, follow the sound of bells and sticks, the chorus of voices singing Hal And Tow, and you'll find a bunch of knackered weirdos in the middle of nowhere in daft hats and a chill breeze, but proud of what they've done.

After all, we just made the sun rise.

[noctuamagna]

I am one of today's lucky 10,000.

I did not know until this moment that Morris Dancing existed as an irl phenomenon. I thought Pratchett made it up for his books. I was wrong. Apparently Englishmen will really get out of bed in the pitch black, stalk through the night in a costume with bells on, and dance to herald the dawn on the first of May.

Pratchett did not make this up. He didn't have to.

Dear OP, thank you for dancing in the dawn.

Morris dance - Wikipedia

[elodieunderglass]

Oh it gets weirder! There are different schools of Morris dancer. They have fun.

The Cotswold Morris dancer is usually an old white British man, extremely serious and would be the perfect uncle if you yearned for an uncle. They wear bowler hats with flowers, white clothes and bells on their legs. They do a symmetrical polite dance with a hanky. They are VERY spry, like alarmingly spry and athletic. There is usually an accordion. In addition to the hanky thing, they also carry small rounded sticks like spoon handles, which they gently tap against each other in a pattern (this is called rapping.) Their presence usually evokes the vibe of cricket grounds, mown grass and a speech from the mayor: the genteel English folk tradition whose pagan roots are endorsed enthusiastically by the history-minded vicar. I think the best thing about everything Cotswold dancers are is that they are doing something in public that is likely supposed to be incredibly embarrassing and they are completely immune to that. Because of the purity of their confidence and focus and the courage of their convictions, nobody can object to them or interfere with them or even mock them. If a straight old man wants to wear a flowery hat and strap ribbons and bells to his legs and high-kick in the middle of town, then that’s what men do, fuck off. The cringe factor is utterly dead in these men. The second best thing is that their mathematical focus and hypnotic autistic rizz DO make you think that they are doing something Significant and Important here. Clearly they ARE underpinning the seasons because why else this confident wizard behavior?

The Border Morris dancers are the goth ones, usually wearing some mixture of black, stompy boots, a decorated top hat and a “tatted coat” of colorful dark rags. They used to paint their faces black to disguise themselves, but as this began to collide unpleasantly with blackface and anti-Blackness, the progressive ones now use alternative makeup. Today they might do a black painted eye mask or other gothy looks. Women are more common in this tradition. Their dances often involve rushing at each other in mock battle and thwacking each other in ferocious patterns with sticks. There is whooping and howling and a sense of chaos and usually a Hobby Horse; they are going for a mad max witchy vibe. Clearly these rituals also do something.

You also get fusion ones…

And outliers like the extremely sexy topless young men with knives, who randomly broke out at the wassail this year and did a sexy knife dance with each other before shouting HUP and sprinting off into the dusk. I don’t know if anyone knew who they were, but they were great at it. I’m sure it did the apples a lot of good, and I’d like to study the effect further, please come back and try it again with a control group etc. Secretly hoping OP is one of those

[baddywronglegs]

I am on several criteria not a sexy topless young man with knives I'm afraid.

Most Maydays I've been a white-clad panama-hat-wearing hanky-waving Cotswold dancer, this year for a change I was in my Border black rags. And no face paint today - ours takes best part of an hour to do and you can bet that hour was for sleeping. (Especially as for the first time since 2019, it was a work day, and we didn't fancy either scrubbing it off before work or showing up in face paint.)

Interestingly the Cotswold kit evokes cricket vibes because that's pretty much what it is: the sides who the dances were collected from danced in their cricket whites.

A fair few sides these days dance Cotswold in the summer and Border in the winter - Border (and Molly, which is debatably morris, some Molly dancers insist it's not) was danced in the winter by out-of-season farm labourers to busk (and threaten, hence the disguise element) for money, while Cotswold was done at summer fairs and the like, and how warm the respective kits are still reflects that.

(Here speaks someone who's worn a black rag jacket and top hat in a heatwave and cricket whites in the snow and recommends neither.)

As for Pagan roots - if anyone tells you they know where morris started, either they're selling you a book or they've bought one. For one, what's called morris these days bears little resemblance to the dance that carried Will Kempe from London to Norwich around the time he fell out with Shakespeare's acting company. But as far back as we have record of it, it's been tied to the Christian calendar specifically (and not even the fun holidays we nicked off the Celts, even dancing on Mayday is a relatively modern addition that didn't get into the calendar till 1923). That's not to say it's divorced from Paganism in the modern day, as many particularly Border dancers are practising Pagans and I've been at dance outs on Beltane and Imbolc which were primarily religious gatherings.

Ooh also, on gender, the 2023 morris census (that's a thing) shows the tradition to be majority-female now:

Morris Census

Insights on morris dancing in the 21st century

Cotswold morris is now 40% female, 59% male and 1% non-binary, not so far from Border's 55/44/1 split.

(A note on the census though is that this is data collected per side, not per dancer, so dancers in multiple sides, colloquially known as tarts, will be counted multiple times and be statistically overrepresented.)

[shinyhappygoth]

@elodieunderglass @baddywronglegs So you're saying that Border Morris is

The Dark Morris

[baddywronglegs]

Hal an, I cannot stress this enough, tow

[an-ruraiocht]

i greatly enjoy the history lesson and info above

my local molly side looks like this:

they are very brightly coloured. they call themselves the technicolour terror of the fens, which i initially misremembered as "multicoloured menace", which also works

i think based on their website that they consider themselves to be morris dancers (although they also say "Inspirations for our dances range from Playford, contra and other folk dance traditions to a maths PhD in chaos theory" which is about the most cambridge™ approach to morris i can imagine)

but i do not think they were out raising the sun yesterday, unless they were doing it somewhere else. i feel like i would have seen them if they were. they're quite noticeable.

we also have a local cotswold morris group who are young and all-gender. they are more in the bells & hankies & trad costume vein of things

(the swan here, which their facebook page says is called kazoo, looks suspiciously like @elodieunderglass)

some of them were out yesterday, but in an unofficial uncostumed capacity

i think some of them are... whatever the morris equivalent of polyamorous is. dancing with several groups. [edit: i reread the above, these are the tarts, i see.] because some of them had come from a different morris event, but some of them hadn't, suggesting that some are members of another group, and others are not

but the ways of the morris dancers are mysterious to me. the main thing i've gathered is that they all seem to practise on tuesdays. very morrisy day, tuesday, apparently

[knottreally]

omg hi to the fairly local to me person above, I have come to drop some bonus characters to the morris vibes

If you stray from the Cambridge streets and go a little too far into the fens in the darkest days of winter, you'll come across the Straw Bear and a band of merry morris folk. From what I remember of attending these in my youth, they are generally green and yellow border morris types, but now there's a wide variety. The main thing though is a dancing straw bear...

...which eventually gets um set on fire...