#in life's name...

[soilrockslove]

I swear and pray I go either with my teeth sunk into your throat, or my hand tangled in your hair. drawing you closer.

I pray it to be both.

-

Ich geloben und bete, ich vergehe entweder mit den Zähnen in die Kehle oder mit der Hand verwirrt in den Haaren... wie deine Lippen meine finden. Ich bete, es ist beides.

[soilrockslove]

The other thing that really upsets me about the Rat Park experiment that seems to get glossed over a lot?  Is that the standard environment for rats involved in medical testing is a lot closer to the bad “isolation chambers”. :/  Which besides having implications for humans, the Rat Park experiment just proved that many rats would rather OD on opiates than live in those conditions. :( 

I don’t think that’s right.

Btw, if you want to help Animal Welfare Institute is the primary organization that’s been fighting for better conditions for rodents, and less experimentation.

[soilrockslove]

The Ami’s Oath

A Group version of the Oath based on the Wizard’s Oath from the Young Wizard’s books.

(It is rare that a whole group shares an Oath in common, but it does happen.)

~

Enjolras: In Love's Name,

All: and for Love's sake, we swear...

Combeferre: to employ those Arts and Sciences which are it's gift in it's service.

Courfeyrac: Embracing all usages by which we may reveal it in the world, no matter how great or trivial they may seem.

Jehan: To nuture growth, and ease pain. Or at least to embrace that pain so it can transform itself in us.

Bahorel: To fight fiercely to preserve what lives and grows well in it's own way.

Feuilly: And to change no object or creature against it's will unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. No matter how foreign it may be to us.

Musichetta: To these ends, and in the practice of my Art.

Bossuet: I will put aside fear for courage.

Joly: and death for life.

Grantaire: ...when it is right to do so. ;)

All: Looking towards L'avenir - the heart of things that will be, where all people sing as one and where our sundered world lies whole.

Enjolras: Until our very end.

[soilrockslove]

“Love stands against death” is not just flowery language.  How we care for eachother matters.

[soilrockslove]

Happy Birthday Victor Hugo!

Because it is Victor Hugo’s birthday today...

and because I saw this post

                                                                                           montparnasse-the-arse:

happy birthday asshole thanks for the french encyclopedia that you call a novel

~

I started thinking of these quotes from So You Want to Be a Wizard -

“What is the Naming of Lights?” Kit said to Tom. “We tried to get Fred to tell us last night, but it kept coming out in symbols that weren’t in our books.”

...Tom took a drink. “It’s a book. At least that’s what it looks like when it’s in or near this Universe. The Book of Night with Moon, it’s called here, since in these parts you need moonlight to read it. It’s always been most carefully accounted for; the Senior wizards keep an eye on it. If it’s suddenly gone missing, we’ve got trouble…”

“Why?” Nita said

“Well, if you’ve gotten even this far in wizardry, you know how the wizards’ symbology, the Speech, affects the things you use it on. When you use it, you define what you’re speaking about. That’s why it’s dangerous to use the Speech carelessly. You can accidentally redefine something, or someone, change their nature.” He paused, took another drink of his mineral water. “The Book of Night with Moon is written in the Speech. In it, everything’s described. Everything. You, me, Fred, Carl…this house, this town, this world. This Universe and everything in it.”

Kit looked skeptical. “How could a book that big get lost?”

“Who said it was big? You’ll notice something about your manuals after a while,” Tom said. “They won’t get any bigger, but there’ll be more and more inside them as you learn more, or need to know more. Even in plain old math it’s true that the inside can be bigger than the outside; it’s definitely true in wizardry. So there’s no problem with the Book of Night with Moon having everything described in it. In fact, it’s one of the reasons we’re all here—the power of those descriptions helps keep everything that is in existence.” Tom looked worried. “And every now and then the Senior wizards have to go get the Book and read from it, to remind the worlds what they are, to preserve everything alive or inanimate.”

“Have you read from it?” Nita said, made uneasy by the disturbed look on Tom’s face.

Tom glanced at her in shock, then began to laugh. “Me? No! And I hope I never have to.”

“But if it’s a good Book, if it preserves things—” Kit said.

“Oh, it’s good, all right. It preserves, or lets things grow the way they want to. But reading it, being the vessel for all that power—I wouldn’t want to. Even good can be terribly dangerous.”

and later...

He began to read, and for all her fear Nita was lulled to stillness by wonder. Kit’s voice was that of someone discovering words for the first time after a long silence, and the words he found were a song, as her spell to free the trees had seemed. She sank deep in the music of the Speech, hearing the story told in what Kit read.

Kit was invoking New York, calling it up as one might call up a spirit; and obedient to the summons, it came. The skyline came, unbesmirched by any blackness—a crown of glittering towers in a smoky sunrise, all stabbing points and jeweled windows, precipices of steel and stone. City Hall came, brooding over its colonnades, gazing down in weary interest at the people who came and went and governed the island through it. The streets came, hot, dirty, crowded, but flowing with voices and traffic and people, bright lifeblood surging through concrete arteries. The parks came, settling into place one by one as they were described, free of the darkness under the night—from tiny paved vest-pocket niches to the lake-set expanses of Central Park, they all came, thrusting the black fog back. Birds sang, dogs ran and barked and rolled in the grass, trees were bright with wary squirrels’ eyes. The Battery came, the crumbling old first-defense fort standing peaceful now at the southernmost tip of Manhattan—the rose-gold of some remembered sunset glowed warm on its bricks as it mused in weedy silence over old battles won and nonetheless kept an eye on the waters of the harbor...

And started thinking about how Victor wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame in part as an attempt to save the life of the Cathedral of Notre Dame by showing it in an age when it was in use and full of vitality. (And it worked!  People started coming to see the “great cathedral” and asking why it  was in danger of falling down.  They eventually renovated it!)

And how Les Miserables really does read like an encyclopedia or guidebook or description of Paris sometimes.  All the terrible and wonderful and mundane parts laid out.  (and who’s to say those three aren’t the same)

So thank you Victor Hugo for reading/writing the parts of the world you loved (mostly Paris) into continued existence, in the way you knew how.

And I’m so glad you were alive.

Happy Birthday. <3

(Image by Daniel Vordran with minor cropping by me.)

(my Les Miserables blog)

[soilrockslove]

Heaven-blue leaves strewn on Clear water, the sweet taste of Light from distant star.

Or the Koi thank Carmela for thinking of them while visiting the crossings.  Fish like blue food too, sometimes. ^.^

a Secret Sker’ret present for @tptigger - Hope this winter goes well for you!

[soilrockslove]

Dear Everyone,

And especially dear feminine or mlm or otherwise queer men and boys.  (And Trans and disabled people of all stripes.)

Beauty is for you if you want it to be.  Since the first cloud of gas glowed with color, warmed by the light of  a nearby star - beauty has existed and has been the birthright of all made of atoms.

Softness is for you if you want it to be.  Since the first patch of lichen left the ocean and softened the hard edges of some rock - softness has existed and has been the birthright of all that is alive and all that is touched by life.

Kindness is for you if you want it to be.  Since the first microscopically smol little creature found it could make life a little better by cozying up to another smol creature - kindness has existed in the world and is the birthright of all that live among other living things.

You may at times, need to tone down or hide your beauty, your softness, your kindness in order to keep from getting hurt.  Because unfortunately being hurt is another birthright we all have, from a universe where stars burn out or blow up.  But it’s not because you don’t deserve these things, or because you’re doing something wrong.  The wrongness is in the ones who hurt you, not in you.

(And of course, you don’t have to focus your life on these things if you don’t want to. The fruits and the branches are both important.)