Zodiac's Grimoire

folk practitioner and greek polytheist rediscovering my english and japanese roots // sag/libra/sag // nonbinary, they + them // 22

[crazycatsiren]

Y'all still blaming disabled people for choosing survival and quality of life while corporations are causing climate change.

[skaianbruja]

"cascarilla" 🤝🏼 "smudging" 🤝🏼 "road opener"

terms that keep being appropriated within witchy and pagan circles because people don't realize they refer to specific things and are not just generic terms

[skaianbruja]

Your egg shell powder is not cascarilla

Your smoke cleansing is not smudging

Your oil that you mixed for the purpose of "opening doors" is not road opener

[birdwizardofficial]

I didn't even realize "road opener" is a closed term. :O

[skaianbruja]

The term "Road Opener/Abre Camino" originated from Santería and refers to a plant by the same name native to the Carribbean used in ATRs (particularly Santería) and Brujería. Again, Road Opener/Abre Camino is the name of a plant whose use is specific to ATRs and Brujería. Traditionally speaking, for a candle, oil, spell, etc to be considered a "Road Opener/Abre Camino" candle, oil, spell, etc. it had to contain/use the actual plant

[skaianbruja]

Now as highlighted by my mutual in the comments, practices and the meaning of words do change. And while Road Opener/Abre Camino originally referred to a specific plant, it has expanded. However, this doesn't change that the term "Road Opener/Abre Camino" is culturally specific. Moreover, the use of Road Opener oils, candles, and spells within modern witchcraft was largely appropriated from Hoodoo and (to a lesser extent) Brujería.

I've literally seen culture vultures fucking admit that their "Road Opener" oils, candles, and spells were directly appropriated from Hoodoo and Brujería. Obviously not directly but rather in the same way they admitted that their "egg tests" were appropriation of limpia con huevo, claiming they learned directly from an elder of the culture

[skaianbruja]

@friend-crow Sorry for tagging you, but I saw your tag about how you were wondering about "road opener." Here's an extended version of my original post where I talk about the origins of "road opener" and why the use of the term is appropriative within witchcraft and paganism

[friend-crow]

No need to apologize, I appreciate the info!

[brimstonexbitch]

i speak for the trees and the trees fucking hate the US government

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Saw this on Reddit today. Things just keep getting worse.

[thisislito]

Here’s a great article by Erin in the Morning about this.

Why the UK’s Autism “Tests” for Trans Youth Should Raise Alarms

Neurodivergence has been weaponized by bad faith, anti-LGBTQ forces in order to invalidate the existence of transgender people.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Thank you for sharing!

[that-cunning-witch]

UPG Chit Chat: Persephone

What are some of y'alls UPGs regarding Lady Persephone?

For me, it's that she's very helpful at finding lost items if you ask/pray to her about it.

(Pls don't bully others for their UPGs)

[enki2]

[medusaesque]

The death of Orpheus- Metamorphoses, Ovid (trans. David Raeburn)

[that-cunning-witch]

What are y'alls UPGs with Hestia? I'll go first:

Hestia loves cherry flavored sparkling water as a libation offering

[that-cunning-witch]

Some hellenic polytheists: nooo you have to be traditional in the way you practice!! you can't just bring modern crap to the gods!!

Me: hey Persephone do you want a Pringle?

Persephone: oh damn y'all were onto something with sour cream and onion--

[that-cunning-witch]

Hades: Hey. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY. HEY!!

Me: gimme a few minutes

*the next day a relative passes*

Me: how could I have seen this coming??

Hades: ...

[that-cunning-witch]

Just got three awesome books! Got a physical copy of Greek Religion by Walter Burkert and also got physical copies of the Illiad and the Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson!

Expect a storm of posts soon 👀

[problemnyatic]

by the way, quietly bottling your discomfort with someone and just hoping they'll "get the hint" until you can't take it anymore and then taking it to the nearest moderator isn't "setting a boundary" or "being victimized," it's actually called "being a huge piece of shit" and "expecting people to read your mind."

Sorry about your conflict aversion, but you actually need to tell people when they're making you uncomfortable. like, with explicit, clear, unmistakeable words that don't give you a safe cover of plausible deniability with which you can back out and "still be the good guy." It is kinder to let someone down face-to-face so they can hurt and move on knowing what went wrong than it is to lead someone on and then stab them in the fucking back, you know?

Also, I cannot stress this enough, it is not actually someone else's fault for making you uncomfortable when you literally make a point to lie to them about how much you like them by pretending you're enjoying their company more than you are. That's your fault. That's called making a bed to lie in. Maybe just desperately hoping someone who has already misinterpreted how close they are to you will just happen to pick up on the subtle signs of you desperately hiding your discomfort is, frankly, fucking stupid, and you need to get over yourself and say real words to them instead of getting some third party to punish them for your own inability to communicate.

Sorry this one isn't as nice as my other posts, but some of you need a wake-up slap. Stop fucking burning autistic people and trans women one-by-one because being a coward is easier than being a villain. It's not fucking nice, it's not cute, and the more I see it happen, the less forgivable it gets. Grow the fuck up and change in the scary but necessary ways.

Because it's kinder to tell someone when they're fucking up than it is to let them make the same mistakes in ignorance until you've secretly tallied enough transgressions to safely write them off as unforgivable, and thus disposable. Because I care about you, and everyone else, enough to give you a real chance to actually correct your harmful behaviors by being honest about the harm they cause. Because I believe people can make hurtful mistakes while still being genuine unintended mistakes, and that they can change.

Hint, hint.

[kyleblackpaw]

i feel like we as a digital society have forgotten the important rules of the internet

Don't feed the trolls

Never give out personal information

Anonymity is the best defense

Don't click suspicious links

Don't click popups and ads

Just because it's written doesn't mean it's true

You are responsible for your own experience

There is porn of everything, act accordingly

[that-cunning-witch]

Important Addition: not every post is meant for you or targeting you (aka Bean Soup Theory)

[unhistorical]

Cora Latz and Etta Perkins were a lesbian couple who met in 1972 and were together until Perkins’ death in 1998. In 1973, they held a commitment ceremony; in 1998, they privately renewed their vows with the staff who cared for them at the Jewish Home for the Aged.

GLBT Historical Society

[nudityandnerdery]

United States Postal Service to cut workforce by 10,000 by voluntary buyouts

The United States Postal Service is the latest federal agency looking to reduce its staff, according to a letter sent to Congress by the Pos

Next time you're around when the mail gets delivered, ask your delivery person if they're understaffed or not.

But don't hold them up too much, they have a lot of work to do.

[naamahdarling]

Y'all NEED to let your conservative family members know about this because the USPS is a LARGE employer of military veterans and has AMAZING benefits.

They employ over 100,000 veterans. Your conservative uncle needs to know those jobs are threatened.

[netherworldpost]

Your regular reminder the USPS does not use tax payer funds

The relevance of “should they” can be debated

The truth of “they don’t” cannot be in good faith

So I ask you — why does it need to be cut? To whom does that benefit? Do you agree with them benefiting?

[exponentialjest]

My daylight job is part of the legs of the shipping process but I don't want to get specific.

I see a lot of people who hate the post office because they had a package get lost or something came really late.

I don't think people fully realize that their mail carrier is also making last leg delivery for a lot of the carriers. If you ever get a shipping label that has multiple shipping companies listed or isn't really clear who's carrying it, it's usually has the USPS somewhere in it's journey.

Amazon contracts the USPS for a bunch of last-leg shipments because they are they only way to get them in rural areas. By last-leg, I mean that usually these will get sorted to the nearest regional facility for th carrier before it's passed off to the USPS for the last sorting and delivery.

They make it look like they work more with UPS but, frankly, they are just using UPS for package drop offs and returns. This could lead me into a whole other rant about QR codes and rural communities but not today.

They also have way more Amazon delivery drivers out now but in my rural ass area, we get both their drivers and USPS last-leg.

What I'm saying is that corporate America has already been leeching on USPS for a while. That's why the service has been bogged down like this for several years. Every USPS worker I interact with is tired and overworked.

And maybe this is a little bit of reach but these maga fucks have already poisoned like 75% of social media platforms. Seems like now their also going after the old ways of communicating with each other.

Like, you can send someone a postcard anywhere in the US for about $0.60 if you use a postcard stamp. You can get something like 80lbs-100lbs index cardstock, standard 8.5"x11", and split it into equal quarters. You could also do this with A4, if you have that, for some reason. Congrats, you now have 4 blank postcards that are the right proportions for a postcard stamp, which is far cheaper than an forever stamp.

Stamp goes in the right top corner; the recipients address goes in the middle but can be the middle left if you need space; Your return address (optional) goes in the top left corner.

Sure, the internet is free, but I am already seeing homemade postcards like this being sent to politicians. I've seen them going through the EDDM system to carpet neighborhoods.

Don't you think that's part of why they're targeting the post office?

[friend-crow]

Don’t forget that Trump began trying to dismantle USPS before the 2020 election, when a lot more people than usual were voting by mail.

I live in a state where that’s the usual way of voting, and they were pulling out drop boxes and destroying mail sorting machines to try to steal the election.

[k0sher]

jewish vintage social justice buttons - x

[depsidase]

[ralfmaximus]

The face-eating panther feast continues.

But seriously, if somebody says this in front of you? Don't point and laugh. Don't say "PATHERS ATE YOUR FACE" or "SERVES YA RIGHT YOU MAGA PIECE OF SHIT" or "BOO FUCKING HOO"

Instead, express sympathy.

Agree with them that yeah, what happened absolutely sucks. And yeah, it appears he maybe lied to get your vote? Politicians lie all the time, and it's a shame he took advantage of you this time.

Remember: deradicalized, ex-cult members are some of the angriest people on earth, and we need that anger. Because we need everybody we can get if we're gonna beat these fascist assholes.

[depsidase]

exactly. these people were consistently duped and the moment they stop denying that to themselves, they will want to fight back. not all of these maga weirdos are nazis or white supremacists or culty evangelists. many of them are just low information voters who got tricked by expensive rhetoric that was specifically designed to trick them.

[dduane]

What’s going to need to be done to improve this situation is deeply annoying to me (because I have to admit that I often sneakily enjoy watching the faces of the cruel and uncaring get eaten). And I’m sure others will share my annoyance. But when these people fall, and realize they’ve fallen… if the rest of us ever want such folks’ original behavior to change—to have a chance to shift toward something less toxic—somebody has to be there to catch them.

This approach has at least a chance of making meaningful change. And some people on the Other Side know this, and hate it… seeing it as a way they’ll lose power. They betray their true motivations by trying to discredit empathy and compassion—by characterizing them as weakness. And the language they use, trying to be clever, csn accidentally be most revealing.

“The ‘empathy exploit,’” Musk called it the other day. As if the manifestation of understanding someone else’s trouble, and feeling/expressing compassion for it, was somehow unfair, like using a cheat code in a game to get an unearned advantage. That’s the level such people are operating on: that the only thing that matters is winning the game—whatever they’ve decided the current game is—and (from their POV) fuck whatever human suffering’s being experienced on the other side. If those people weren’t weak, and losers, they wouldn’t be suffering, right?

(exasperated sigh) I know which side of this argument I prefer to come down on, even though it’s gonna really annoy me, sometimes, for years to come. Somebody in the room has to swallow her grim amusement and, when confronted by one of these people, move through into a mode that has a chance to make someone’s life less painful.

(shrug) Can’t be helped. Might as well get on with it, day by day: decreasing local entropy by increments…

Sometimes it’s all one can do. But it makes a difference.

[leebrontide]

Look you can giggle about panthers with your friends, but when you're faced with a real human in material distress, please choose to be effective instead of cynical and smug.