Clay Child's Musings

Constructing a modern (somewhat) Gaulish practice on the Mississippi. Alix, 33, they/them/theirs, INFJ. I have a tea problem. Ask me about my knitting.

[expressions-of-nature]

Grande Traversata delle Alpi, Italy by Toni Burkhardt

[nettlepin]

I’ve been seeing this post floating around with these handsome pretty photoshop brushes and decided to see if I could mimic the effects in SAI. I didn’t get all of them perfectly, but I did what I could, while also bringing some unique SAI-ishness to the table that you can’t get in PS. Hope you guys find these useful! 

[biologizeable]

did you seriously just say we should let pandas go extinct to save other animals or am i misinterpreting because that is a very questionable judgement

ALRIGHT MY FRIEND I have received about six messages in this vein since yesterday, but I worked for thirteen hours today and I have no time for this nonsense. Short answer: YES. 

I’m gonna summarize some salient points on why pandas are awful from a conservation standpoint:

PANDAS LITERALLY CANNOT MATE IN CAPTIVITY. IT’S UNBELIEVABLE

Artificial insemination and hand-rearing of cubs are basically standard practice, and still they usually die. At what point is it reasonable to give up because I think we hit it DECADES AGO

In 35 years, only 90 cubs have been born in captivity outside of China

Wild panda numbers have increased a bare (bear?) 200 individuals in 10 years, despite literal billions of dollars being poured into conservation

NO OTHER AREA OF ANIMAL CONSERVATION EVEN COMES CLOSE TO THE MONEY BEING POURED INTO PANDAS. NONE

And yet we’ve managed to literally rebuild populations of black-footed ferrets, oryx, and California condors with exponentially less money

Despite all of this, only 10 pandas have been released since the 80s, and all but two died

I bet you wouldn’t have guessed that it’s because their habitat is destroyed and fragmentary and barely protected!!!!!! 

The only good thing about panda conservation is that protecting their range is also protecting tons of other species. Which would be great, if more of their range was being protected effectively.

There is way more money in keeping captive pandas captive than in releasing them!! surprise!!!!!!

Zoos pay a lot of money to get pandas on loan because people just LOVE looking at pandas and they can’t afford to house and care for their other animals without people coming to visit! Or do any kind of conservation whatsoever!! Panda-economics! (this is kind of a pro as opposed to a con but its the kind of pro that makes me feel like I need a shower)

Pandas are endangered and sort of have a role in spreading bamboo seeds around, so they get billions of dollars. Every shark ever is MORE endangered, and without them the entire ocean ecosystem would collapse, but that’s fine they don’t need money (I’m not bitter) ((I am bitter))

I’m gonna be frank with you. We are in the middle of a mass extinction event, caused by us. Not to be a downer (jk, I’m gonna) but we’re already driving so many species to extinction that we cannot afford to save them all with the money and interest that is in conservation right now. 

Instead, we have to do some kind of awful extinction triage and assess which animals will do the most good to work to conserve - and getting into keystone species, ecosystem engineers, and other truly integral species is a whole other can of worms I’m not gonna touch on - but there are animals that are “more important” in a certain sense than others, in that they can support or affect a much wider range of other species than another. 

People only care about big, cute, fluffy animals - a common lament heard from conservationists, but it’s so true. There are thousands, if not millions of species that don’t fit this mold that conservation work would benefit eons more than pandas. It’s like fixing a pretty, stained-glass window in a house whose foundations are collapsing and thinking you’re helping. 

Pandas have always been the face of conservation, and they continue to be one of the biggest and most expensive ongoing failures. 

[Sources/ stuff to read to make sense of my incoherent response!]

Keep reading

[podkins]

So lovely.

Andorra Wrap

by Jocelyn Tunney -  This pattern is available for free. Found on Ravelry.

[awitchandhersecrets]

Where the Veil is Thin

Suggestions for liminal, in between spaces where we can hedge witch and open up to the spirit realm contacting us:

*in doorways *at midnight or better, 3am *truck stops *at the turn of the season, between seasons *crossroads

Additions welcome!

[frizzywitch]

*abandoned train tracks *hallways *tunnels *gateways *hospitals - life, death, and birth

[gettheetoarookery]

Oh man, this is my JAM.

*Rivers (both water and land) *Roads (neither here nor there but in between); in general but extra oomph from specific kinds *Dawn/dusk *County roads *“Old [road name]” Exists as past and present *Window sills (like doorways) *Beaches *Cave mouths

[childofthewanderer]

* Swamps and marshy places * Old, somewhat seedy diners * Railroad stations * War monuments and memorials * Nature parks in the middle of cities

[kemetstuck]

- roofs and basements - cul de sacs - empty public restrooms - large warehouse hardware stores, the furthest corners where you’re unlikely to run into anyone else - the subway - waiting rooms - median parks (hard to describe, but if you’ve ever been to a big city, you know the ones - tiny triangles of park space between heavy-traffic roads) -libraries

[roguesareth]

-abandonded buildings or lots overgrown with plants in the middle of heavily industrial/urban areas

-any place between a point A and B really. Walking/driving/bus/ect

-abandonded anything, the more reclaimed by nature the better

[alien-cafer]

Dude this is giving me tingles reading

[samuelandthewilburbots]

Minneapolis and the Sum of it’s Parts

[shevyvision]

muir woods national monument

this is california!

[spindle-witch]

love that this place has become instantly recognizable to me <3

[dpcphotography]

Sheep in the snow

[spindle-witch]

TFW you sort of realize you’ve been mentally referring to a deity as “my lord” for a while now, and you don’t even know how this changes things, if at all? Is this the part where you like...do something? of some import?

[pachipachiworld]

[thegodthief]

The corollary is what is between a god and you is between you and your god. If what you have is working and all signs point to that god giving affirmation to continue, then no one has the right to police your private relationship.

It is Unverified Personal Gnosis, not Universal Personal Gnosis.

[spindle-witch]

mneh whine whine

passive aggressive complaining about community things below the cut

I don’t want to make a big ~thing~ of this because I know that this idea is something that a lot of people find value in, and it’s going to do good for those people, but it’s reeeeally clear to me that I’m not one of those people and I don’t know how to feel about it?

Like, okay, this umbrella tribe organization that the gaulish polytheism facebook group is setting into motion is, on the one hand, potentially a great source of concentrated information, to make things easier to find for people interested, and that’s great. I like information resources. I don’t think that like, getting involved in religion needs to be individuals blazing trails through the information wilderness every time, and it’s good to have a place for introductory materials. 

I just...tribes, man. And I guess this is one more signpost for me that Wow Recon Is Not My Thing, but it really just gives me the creeps. I don’t see the appeal in wanting to bring back ancient social worldviews, and call it a kneejerk reaction but I am a little leery of people who do? Simply because /so often/ that idea goes hand in hand with racist and exclusionary ideologies. I don’t like wandering through pagan social circles eyeing everyone because they could be schroedinger’s racist but it feels so much safer that way. 

And okay I’ve never been a joiner. I’ve always been a lurker. I’ve always been the weird kid over here on the fringes doing my own thing and feeling slightly sorry for myself that my headcanons about characters (or gods, or music or movies) weren’t what it seemed like everyone else believed, and I don’t want to throw myself a pity party over that because I’m a grown-ass adult. (oh wait ha ha what am I doing /right this moment though/)

I don’t see the need for tribes. I don’t mean that in a woobly “I don’t see color, labels are dividers” way, I mean, my whole outlook is that I live in the modern world, and there are a shitton of problems with the modern world, /particularly/ in regard to modern social structures, and for most of my life I have had the opinion that those social structures need to be Torn Down. Establishing a different social structure, one that is still hierarchical, as if it is going to be an improvement, doesn’t make sense to me. 

And like yeah I know that the fb group isn’t setting out to create their own Gaulish Recon society like nova roma or whatever with their own passports and government but...idk. I just don’t like tribes, man. I’ve never thought dreamily about the way things were, and small communities of people living a rougher existence closer to nature and relying on each other more therefore and like, errrrgh.

I’m not going to stop blogging about my religious stuff, I’m not going to stop tagging it gaulpol either, but like, Please Note that I’m not recon, and honestly eclectic is the most accurate word for my practice Even Though it comes with all that baggage but, it’s still the best I’ve got. and tbh I’ll probably lurk on whatever site the fb group comes up with because again, information accessibility is good, I just really feel like I don’t have a place in anything that could remotely be called a Tribe. 

[deuognatos]

Re: Belenos as solar deity

[thebloodybones]

enfant-argile:

Keep reading

[spindle-witch]

Jesssss please share your thoughts when you can!

I'm at work rn but I still need to write another post about this because some of my thoughts on this have become a bit more concrete!

[dpcphotography]

Fading Away

www.danielcasson.com

[wanderthewood]

Seealpsee, Appenzellerland, Switzerland by pboehi

[stayfr-sh]

The Last Light

[stunningpicture]

So proud of my mother for doing her own research after I sent her that meme. A sign she hung in her car window.

[jettestblack-deactivated2017080]

Stay woke

[pual1010-deactivated20150723]

Is this true?

[mallninjacode-deactivated201812]

Not only is it true, it gets worse. The Susan G Komen For The Cure Foundation has actually successfully sued “competing” charities, because (paraphrasing) their “message or branding was infringing.”

You read that correctly: they took money that people had donated to cure cancer, and hired attorneys with it, to sue ANOTHER group of people trying to find a cure for cancer, who, in turn, had to us their donated money to hire their own legal counsel to defend themselves.

[redbloodedamerica]

[spacemohawks]

Yeah signal boost because not enough people know about this and seriously FUCK SUSAN G. KOMEN THEY ARE THE ACTUAL WORST

[beanmom]

Some links…

http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/

http://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/for-the-cure/

http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/132728/susan_g_komen_foundation_has

(reblogged in honor of my mother, who died of breast cancer, 11/13/97)

[hello-missvixy-deactivated20160]

Reblog every time I see it. Roughly once a month.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Especially important as we come into prime “buy it for breast cancer!” month.

[officialweatherwax]

Don’t forget the time they cut ties with Planned Parenthood and only uncut them after the massive backlash.