Suzi Light

SuziLight: Art since Feb 2011 MovingToTheFarm: Architecture & Gardening SpotlightStory: News & Stories

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[nobrashfestivity]

Unknown, Praise the Sun, 1999 Student graffiti art and messages inscribed on carrel walls in the new stacks, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, prior to the renovation of the building

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Dance It Out

I'll watch this every time it pops up. No idea what the song is about. The whole thing makes me happy.

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Time to dance?

Fugitive Religion

A bird’s-eye look at the Ghost Dance, the first instance of modern, collective racial self-consciousness for Native peoples in the United St

"A bird’s-eye look at the Ghost Dance, the first instance of modern, collective racial self-consciousness for Native peoples in the United States

From the Sand Creek Massacre (1864) to the Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890), Indigenous religious practices—legally banned after 1883—took on new meanings as acts of defiance against colonialism and white supremacy. By reexamining the familiar story of the Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee Massacre and placing it into the context of resistance by Black and Native peoples during Reconstruction and Redemption, historian Tiffany M. Hale explains the Ghost Dance not just as a religious movement but also as a complex social phenomenon that enabled Indigenous people to maintain their identities and communities despite the pervasive force of colonialism and the challenges of modernity.

Chronicling how individual Native people, their families, and communities navigated the fraught post–Civil War conditions of the United States, Hale suggests that Ghost Dances hold something in common with blues traditions of working-class African Americans. By giving Ghost Dance participants a chance to reflect on their lived experiences of warfare, deracination, and diplomacy, “fugitive religion” helped create modern racial self-consciousness in the United States."

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In 2026 I think I am closer to understanding why the Ghost Dances empowered native people.

Religious Crimes Code of 1883 bans Native dances, ceremonies

"Congress bans all Native dancing and ceremonies, including the Sun Dance, Ghost Dance, potlatches, and the practices of medicine persons. The Code gives Indian agents authority to use force, imprisonment, and the withholding of rations to stop any cultural practices they deem immoral or subversive to federal government-mandated assimilation policies."

(*potlatch is same as potluck; a shared meal; community meal)

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The cost of the 'cozy pioneer': unmasking genocide in the Pacific Northwest

Underground History host Chelsea Rose talks with Marc James Carpenter, author of "The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in

"Host Chelsea Rose speaks with Marc James Carpenter about the research behind his recent book "The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in the Pioneer Northwest." The book explores the many ways historians have erased, overwritten or morphed the atrocities of settler colonialism into what Carpenter calls "cozy pioneer histories." (15 minute interview)

Carpenter investigates the Rogue River War as part of a larger War on Illahee, which allows for a more nuanced and honest view of the violent settlement of the American West. The audiobook version, narrated by the estimable Rick Adamson, was just released by Tantor Media."

History is more than hero stories.

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Daylight Savings Is Fucking With Your Brain

2026 Congress ignoring science. Again.

Morning sunlight sets your circadian rhythm, the body clock.

Your circadian rhythm affects:

sleep-wake cycle

hormone release

appetite and digestion

body temperature

mental state

alertness, mood and overall health

How Your Brain’s Nightly Cleanse Keeps It Healthy

Washing waste from the brain is an essential function of sleep—and it could help ward off dementia.

Sun Ceremony is a functional practice with measurable benefits. Do it. Every morning. Wake & Look at the sun.

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Father of the Western Novel

How archaeologists restored Zane Gray's century-old Rogue River cabin

Learn how BLM archaeologists restored Zane Gray's historic Rogue River cabin as it marks its 100th anniversary and why preserving it matters

15 minute podcast interview about the Oregon cabin

Zane Grey's Books in Order

Zane Grey Bio & Museum link

"Pearl, as he was known to friends and family, was an imaginative, active boy who loved the outdoors but didn’t like school. As a child he developed a love of hunting, camping, and, especially, baseball and fishing. His father discouraged each of these pursuits as time- wasters. Most of all, Lewis Gray scorned his son’s enjoyment of crafting exciting adventure stories.

As Pearl got older, he stopped using his first name and began calling himself by his middle name, Zane. He also changed the spelling of his last name from “Gray” to Grey to distance himself from a family scandal."

"...his more than 80 books yielded 110 movies."

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— Bertrand Russell, from “What Desires Are Politically Important?” (via letsbelonelytogetherr)

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Actually, you are enough. Even if you don’t work. Or study. Or go out. Or have friends. Or have family. You’re enough because you exist and your existence is enough to be enough because you are not a product. You are not a sum of output. You are not a task to complete. But because you are something the universe wanted and put here even if you’ll never understand why. Somewhere in the cosmos your existence makes a difference, even if it’s not the way others existences do.

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[more-than-ideas]

found

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“In the years ahead, Donald Trump would accuse the entire Democratic Party of being demonic. Tucker Carlson would claim that he had been mauled by a demon in his sleep. Steve Bannon would call Lutheran and Catholic activists who help immigrants demonic. A federal emergency-management official would speak of being teleported to a Waffle House 50 miles away, elaborating that he was not sure whether the transporting forces were “good” or “evil.” J. D. Vance would say of UFOs, “I don’t think they’re aliens. I think they’re demons.” And the same apostles and prophets who’d claimed that God had anointed Trump to be president would encourage him to see his war with Iran as a cosmic showdown with a demonic entity known as the Prince of Persia.”

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Excerpt From

“This couple wanted to cast demons out of Tennessee. They targeted a bookstore across the street.”

Stephanie McCrummen

The Atlantic (August 2026)

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Holy shit. Sometimes I forget how bizarre it's been.

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Wearing a silk gown she designed and hand stitched in 140 hours, Claire goes to a ball at Versailles. Stunning! Beautiful!

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František Kupka, 1906