I’ve had a big realisation recently that I’ve been desperate for the longest time to believe in deities.
Because I want to belong somewhere. I want to be loved. I want to have been created for a purpose. I have a need for authority complex, that I think a lot of people have too. Wouldn’t it be easier to do what we were told to do? Anyway…
But I think I was just pretending and mindlessly studying without checking in with my values and morals. I’m anarchist-leaning, but why was I so determined to believe in deities? Maybe because I want justice to rain down on oppressors like something out of the bible…I don’t know.
Personally, I don’t believe in hierarchy. I believe that each person should be in charge of themselves. I believe that there’s no higher authority than yourself. We’re also here to care for each other and help each other through the cycles of life. I also have lingering resentment that deities do not step in to help people suffering worldwide, this is probably leftover hatred I have for the Christian God as a former Catholic.
That said, I am in awe of nature. Nature has always made me feel things that I can’t describe (something I’d normally ascertain to spiritual). I see what us humans are doing the earth and it hurts me deeply. We were born on this amazing, unique planet and that’s all we have. We have to protect it and all life on it.
I think my path is not theistic. I think it is reverence for nature and life itself. If deities are archetypes and metaphors for human experiences, that’s okay. If deities are nature itself, that’s okay.
I think I’m agnostic based on my own experiences I have had. I think I need to look inwardly to understand why I feel “presences”. I think I need to be in nature more often. I think I need to be more present in my body. I think I need to allow myself to be human and change.
That said, I still respect different religious beliefs.
- It was mostly Wicca that popularized the concept of witchcraft as a religion. But witchcraft in general has always referred to an extremely loose and vaguely defined set of practices and nobody owns that word.
- You don't have to believe in any supernatural powers or entities to make your spells and rituals powerful. You can call on energies that can very much be considered part of nature, or on your own willpower and capacities.
- You can consider and work with gods and spirits not as actual independent entities but as archetypes, metaphors and human conceptions linked to the human psyche/experience or for elements of the natural world. (Still be respectful, do your research and don't appropriate from closed traditions though!)
- You can have a very strong spirituality without believing in any gods, and be moved by a strong sense of awe for the universe, connection to nature, or other values and principles, and link your magic to that. You can also have a more animist approach and work with natural spirits without considering them to be gods.
- There is a trend for instance in modern paganism (or other paths) to say that rituals without the belief in a superior power are empty, or self centered. That does not have to be true! Spells and rituals can have powerfully transformative effects on those who participate in them, expanding consciousness, helping you process emotions and feel connected to a larger whole, and helping you be a better person/group, and that is already more than enough.
- Humans have always needed rituals and they, just like spells and other workings, can be considered a form of poetic language or art, and don't need a 'higher purpose' to be worth something. There is incredible beauty in setting aside a space for intentful action ; in a sense it's a form of meditation in action, and to me an essential part of a harmonious life.
- Working with the elements of nature can help you connect with the living world, and expand your way of being and your perspective : working with fire to cultivate your inner flame of transformation, sitting near a running stream and feeling your thoughts detangle and fluidify as you watch the water...our ability to think in metaphors and in ways linked to the environment has always been an incredible part of the human brain.
- Also, witchcraft done in small groups can create a wonderful space of intimacy and safety to help each other work through obstacles and reaffirm each other's worth and power. It's an incredibly lovely way of socializing, honestly.
☆ Long story short : it is important to respect people's beliefs. But that also includes the right not to believe. Witchcraft is fundamentally about experience and action, the rest is up to you. ☆
Feel free to download, share, etc. I found most everything through open access journals, JSTOR, Anna's Archive, sci-hub, pdfs shared on other sns, etc.
One of our biggest hurdles for justice in Palestine is forgetfulness and indifference, which are the cornerstones of Israeli impunity.
Take a look at just the first hospital bombing since October 7, when the Al-Ahli hospital was bombed in October, and people were rightfully outraged for days. Israel then bombed a second hospital, a crime that was now just a headline. Then Israel bombed a third hospital, and now, over 20 hospitals later, this has become "what Israel does".
And I am seeing this now too, where just within one month, people went from literally screaming their lungs out on TikTok about the massacre Israel committed in a displacement camp on May 28, to yesterday, when Israel committed another massacre at another displacement camp, the third within one month, and I can visibly see the difference in response between the first time this happened (May 28) and the third time (June 21).
This has always been the plan as evidenced by Israel's founder saying "the old will die and the young will forget." But when it was clear this was not going to happen and Palestinians would not forget, the selective amnesia of the west became the basis of Israel's strategy.
Genocide experts warn that India is about to genocide the Shompen people
Who are the Shompen?
The Shompen are an indigenous culture that lives in the Great Nicobar Island, which is nowadays owned by India. The Shompen and their ancestors are believed to have been living in this island for around 10,000 years. Like other tribes in the nearby islands, the Shompen are isolated from the rest of the world, as they chose to be left alone, with the exception of a few members who occasionally take part in exchanges with foreigners and go on quarantine before returning to their tribe. There are between 100 and 400 Shompen people, who are hunter-gatherers and nomadic agricultors and rely on their island's rainforest for survival.
Why is there risk of genocide?
India has announced a huge construction mega-project that will completely change the Great Nicobar Island to turn it into "the Hong Kong of India".
Nowadays, the island has 8,500 inhabitants, and over 95% of its surface is made up of national parks, protected forests and tribal reserve areas. Much of the island is covered by the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve, described by UNESCO as covering “unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems. It is home to very rich ecosystems, including 650 species of angiosperms, ferns, gymnosperms, and bryophytes, among others. In terms of fauna, there are over 1800 species, some of which are endemic to this area. It has one of the best-preserved tropical rain forests in the world.”
The Indian project aims to destroy this natural environment to create an international shipping terminal with the capacity to handle 14.2 million TEUs (unit of cargo capacity), an international airport that will handle a peak hour traffic of 4,000 passengers and that will be used as a joint civilian-military airport under the control of the Indian Navy, a gas and solar power plant, a military base, an industrial park, and townships aimed at bringing in tourism, including commercial, industrial and residential zones as well as other tourism-related activities.
This project means the destruction of the island's pristine rainforests, as it involves cutting down over 852,000 trees and endangers the local fauna such as leatherback turtles, saltwater crocodiles, Nicobar crab-eating macaque and migratory birds. The erosion resulting from deforestation will be huge in this highly-seismic area. Experts also warn about the effects that this project will have on local flora and fauna as a result of pollution from the terminal project, coastal surface runoff, ballasts from ships, physical collisions with ships, coastal construction, oil spills, etc.
The indigenous people are not only affected because their environment and food source will be destroyed. On top of this, the demographic change will be a catastrophe for them. After the creation of this project, the Great Nicobar Island -which now has 8,500 inhabitants- will receive a population of 650,000 settlers. Remember that the Shompen and Nicobarese people who live on this island are isolated, which means they do not have an immune system that can resist outsider illnesses. Academics believe they could die of disease if they come in contact with outsiders (think of the arrival of Europeans to the Americas after Christopher Columbus and the way that common European illnesses were lethal for indigenous Americans with no immunization against them).
And on top of all of this, the project might destroy the environment and the indigenous people just to turn out to be useless and sooner or later be abandoned. The naturalist Uday Mondal explains that “after all the destruction, the financial viability of the project remains questionable as all the construction material will have to be shipped to this remote island and it will have to compete with already well-established ports.” However, this project is important to India because they want to use the island as a military and commercial post to stop China's expansion in the region, since the Nicobar islands are located on one of the world's busiest sea routes.
Last year, 70 former government officials and ambassadors wrote to the Indian president saying the project would “virtually destroy the unique ecology of this island and the habitat of vulnerable tribal groups”. India's response has been to say that the indigenous tribes will be relocated "if needed", but that doesn't solve the problem. As a spokesperson for human rights group Survival International said: “The Shompen are nomadic and have clearly defined territories. Four of their semi-permanent settlements are set to be directly devastated by the project, along with their southern hunting and foraging territories. The Shompen will undoubtedly try to move away from the area destroyed, but there will be little space for them to go. To avoid a genocide, this deadly mega-project must be scrapped.”
On 7 February 2024, 39 scholars from 13 countries published an open letter to the Indian president warning that “If the project goes ahead, even in a limited form, we believe it will be a death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide.”
How to help
The NGO Survival International has launched this campaign:
Take action for the Shompen now!
The Shompen are one of the most isolated tribes on Earth. They live on Great Nicobar island in India, and
From this site, you just need to add your name and email and you will send an email to India's Tribal Affairs Minister and to the companies currently vying to build the first stage of the project.
Share it with your friends and acquittances and on social media.
Sources:
India’s plan for untouched Nicobar isles will be ‘death sentence’ for isolated tribe, 7 Feb 2024. The Guardian.
‘It will destroy them’: Indian mega-development could cause ‘genocide’ and ‘ecocide’, says charity, 8 Feb 2024. Geographical.
Genocide experts call on India's government to scrap the Great Nicobar mega-project, Feb 2024. Survival International.
The container terminal that could sink the Great Nicobar Island, 20 July 2022. Mongabay.
[Maps] Environmental path cleared for Great Nicobar mega project, 10 Oct 2022. Mongabay.
THIS IS IMPORTANT YET WHY PEOPLE ARE TURNING BLIND EYE ABOUT THIS?!
It was broadcasted that Americans only sees Philippines as a 'tool. We are in a verge of war with China yet why are you people turning a blind eye about this? They are literally invading our seas, and our fisherman cannot even fish. China claims that it's their territory and even harassed our vessels, and they used the water gun to shoot our flag. This is outrageous. We considered America as an ally yet they publicly denied us calling our country a 'tool'. This means that they only sees us filipinos a pawn for their strategies and if ever we are no longer needed, they will surely toss us away.
China's aggression towards the Philippines.
one Filipino navy had lost his fingers and others comrades are injured (17) after China vessel boarded the boat of Philippine navy. They stole the firearm of the navy, yes they grab the guns from the hands of the navy. The Filipino can't do much, because of the fear of escalating the tension. Reports from news outlets revealed that the personal mobile phones and other usable equipment was also stolen. This really saddens me a lot considering that many people are turning a huge blind eye about this issue.
We may have different race, cultures, religions but we are all same species.
PLEASE SPREAD AWARENESS WE ARE IN DESPERATE NEED OF HELP
You should be starting a recipe book. I don't give a shit if you're only 20-years-old. The modern web is rotting away bit by bit before our very eyes. You have no idea when that indie mom blog is going down or when Pinterest will remove that recipe. Copy it down in a notebook, physically or digitally. Save it somewhere only you can remove it. Trust me, looking for a recipe only to find out it's been wiped off the internet is so fucking sad. I've learned my lesson one too many times.
this applies to everything you find on the internet: if you care about anything enough that you will miss it or have regrets if it disappears, then it is your responsibility to ensure you have a safe copy of it
For the witches and pagans who need to hear it, connecting with nature is supposed to be about like, actually observing nature over long periods of time, not doing stuff like hoarding endangered bird feathers and beach sand, or just meditating out in aesthetically-pleasing locations. Can you tell me exactly when your wildflowers and weeds start blooming? When do your bugs come out of hibernation? When do migratory birds come and go? How does the air feel during different times of year? If you can't do stuff like that, you aren't connecting with nature.
It's my genuine opinion that people who find insects or reptiles ugly looking are choosing to do so, even if they don't realize it. If you look at anything in nature, anything at all, with the intention of seeing beauty you will see it immediately. That goes for dirt and decay and diseases or deformed things too, there's beauty in all organic formations. Some people are just black hearted and stubborn about things they're culturally conditioned to identify as weird.
This is in response to a post that disappeared off my dash where someone in a screenshot was grossed out by cute weevils, and someone I talked to on here just yesterday DISGUSTED by..... axolotls
I'm not talking about fear here, but people seeing "aesthetic ugliness." Like hating opossums or bats or crabs because somehow a scaly tail or spooky wing or jointed armor is supposed to be unpretty. I've met people who hate so much as pigs or cows for this nonsense concept. Or snails or moths or, I shit you not, whales. I saw a little girl once cringe at a SLOTH and say it's ugly. If you think any of those sound arbitrary and unfair I feel the very same of all organisms.
Master doc that contains different resources and support for many countries including Palestine, Congo, Haiti, Hawai’i, etc ((the creator is underneath the link))
Master Document
Link to the tweet: https://x.com/seaweedlagoon/status/1772449954046279818?s=46&t=s8SsfXh2OjpNRAj1OBxwqg
idk what traumatized or mentally ill person needs to hear this but dreams (especially the really disturbing ones you dont want to talk about to anybody) arent some deep peek into your psyche or a sign of your True Desires or whatever theyre quite literally your brain making fruit salad with whatever it can find on the shelf. just putting all that shit in a blender and hitting obliterate. its fine, youre fine, youre not a weirdo for it
waters so amazing because you can drink it really sloppy style and like spill it all over yourself and it doesnt even leave a stain. you dont even have to wash it out/ . because its already washed
While there are hundreds of possible cloud descriptions, most clouds fall into 10 basic types, determined by the level of our atmosphere in which they appear:
Cumulus - The typical cloud shape drawn. White and fluffy tops with a flat, dark underside. Appear on clear, sunny days. Nicknamed "fair weather" clouds.
Stratus - Flat, featureless, uniform layer resembling fog. Overcast days, often with light mist or drizzle.
Stratocumulus - Patchy, puffy clouds that almost look like honeycomb. General cloudy days
Altocumulus - Looks like sheep wool, dotting the sky in white or grey patchy round masses, sometimes aligned in parallel bands. Mistaken for stratocumulus. Altocumulus is smaller and higher up. Warm humid days, can signal thunderstorms and can appear ahead of cold fronts.
Nimbostratus - Dark, thick, grey layer of cloud that can blot out the sun. THE rain cloud.
Altostratus - Grey or blueish-grey sheets of cloud, but still partially transparent.
Cirrus - Latin for "curl of hair." Thin white whispy strands. Appear in fair weather, but also before large scale storms and tropical cyclones.
Cirrocumulus - Small white patches of clouds in rows at high altitude, called "cloudlets." Usually in winter, in fair but cold weather.
Cirrostratus - Transparent, whiteish clouds covering the sky in a veil. Can produce a halo effect around the sun or moon. Moisture in the upper atmosphere ahead of a warm front.
Cumulonimbus - Spans all three layer of the atmosphere. Bottom resembles cumulus but towers above like a cauliflower plume. Thunderstorm clouds, also heavy but short rainfall or hail. Possibly tornadoes.
"Mares' tails (cirrus) and mackeral scales (altocumulus) make lofty ships to carry low sails."
-sailor's proverb warning of incoming rainy weather
☁️
Nephelai
The Nephelai are Okeanid nymphs of clouds and rain depicted as young, beautiful women pouring water from pitchers or flitting across the sky with billowing robes
They are the daughters of Okeanos, the river that encircles the earth, and sister to the Potamoi, river gods, whose streams they feed with their earth nourishing rain.
🏺 Devotional act to Zeus and the nephelai 🏺
Sources:
