Nothing Happening Here

[whatsitaboutnow]

Look i know this is mostly a quiet tarot and prayer blog and I swore this one would not get political but:

If you are a cis woman who thinks that you know better than trans men what trans men need, take this as a sign from your ancestors to sit the fuck down and think about your transphobia.

[whatsitaboutnow]

Also got me a FitBit Versa clock face that shows me the phase of the moon.

[whatsitaboutnow]

New fountain for the altar. I’ve wanted running water for a while (since I moved back to the city and am not near a natural water source). Not a huge fan of the tea lights that came with it but it’s not splashy and I like it.

[gatheringbones]

“But why are trees such social beings? Why do they share food with their own species and sometimes even go so far as to nourish their competitors? The reasons are the same as for human communities: there are advantages to working together. A tree is not a forest. On its own, a tree cannot establish a consistent local climate. It is at the mercy of wind and weather. But together, many trees create an ecosystem that moderates extremes of heat and cold, stores a great deal of water, and generates a great deal of humidity. And in this protected environment, trees can live to be very old. To get to this point, the community must remain intact no matter what. If every tree were looking out only for itself, then quite a few of them would never reach old age. Regular fatalities would result in many large gaps in the tree canopy, which would make it easier for storms to get inside the forest and uproot more trees. The heat of summer would reach the forest floor and dry it out. Every tree would suffer. Every tree, therefore, is valuable to the community and worth keeping around for as long as possible. And that is why even sick individuals are supported and nourished until they recover. Next time, perhaps it will be the other way round, and the supporting tree might be the one in need of assistance. When thick silver-gray beeches behave like this, they remind me of a herd of elephants. Like the herd, they, too, look after their own, and they help their sick and weak back up onto their feet. They are even reluctant to abandon their dead.”

— The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World Peter Wohlleben,

[woolandcoffee]

I finally managed to get my hands on a copy of The Well of Five Streams and it is such a lovely work. Without a doubt this book will end up changing my practice going forward.

[whatsitaboutnow]

Can you give a little more detail?

I was wildly disappointed by her Ogham: Weaving Word Wisdom and her treatment of conjecture/personal gnosis as academic or historical fact.

[whatsitaboutnow]

Arthurian Tarot by John and Caitlin Matthews

*

Well that’s creepy. This is pretty much the exact same reading I got last week.

The Seeker (the Fool) fell out as I shuffled so I used it as a Significator. The White Hart (the Lovers - Gereignt and Enid) was stuck to Sword Seven. If they are here to clarify, I suppose I am on the right path and moving toward something bigger. The White Hart is about marriage of the the otherworldly sovereignty to a sovereign of this world so that’s an interesting thought.

The Ogham I drew was coll:

Fairest tree, friend of nutshells, sweetest tree

Hazel

[whatsitaboutnow]

Yoga in the park this morning

[cithaerons]

A version of the desert standard for culpability, requiring that the criminal make a choice to inflict harm, has been used by courts and lawmakers for generations. Modern politics has largely abandoned, however, the broader system of political ethics that Dante accepted, in which care for others, including for their place in the world, was a chief value, and the worst crime revealed the ill will that was the antithesis of that care; where reason was the supremely human faculty and choosing the crime through the abuse of reason was a source of culpability. […]

The break with Dante’s view of ethical obligations is most dramatic in the work of Hobbes. In Leviathan (1651, ch. 13-14) men are, apart from circumstance, of approximately equal abilities and seek their own aggrandizement; selfishness is essential to human nature. Hobbes’s self-seeking model of man has since been absorbed in law and politics, as well as in the ethics of the marketplace. The imaginative power of the image of the self-interested individual, pursuing aims that may be in conflict or even incommensurate with the aims of others, remains undiminished and has probably increased in recent decades. He is economic man, seeking to satisfy his desires to the maximum; the same figure has been adapted to politics as the actor who rationally pursues his personal aims through voting or other sources of power in institutions.

Paul G. Chevigny, From Betrayal to Violence: Dante’s Inferno and the Social Construction of Crime (2001)

[whatsitaboutnow]

Ohh.

This is why my Catholic school education and then medievalist undergrad made me an anarchist.

[whatsitaboutnow]

Arthurian Tarot by John and Caitlin Matthews

Sword Hallow surrounded by Stone Five And Sword Seven.

The way is confused, unstable, or lonely but the only way forward is forward.

[howpeoplelived]

[bluart106]

Two men dancing, Harlem, 1920s.

According to George Chauncey’s eponymous Gay New York, the Harlem Renaissance of the ’20s provided an opportunity for gay men to create their own social and cultural spaces within the burgeoning nightlife in the neighborhood. 

[jumpingjacktrash]

ohh this is lovely

i mean i like the subject matter, but also, it’s just an objectively beautiful photograph. the composition, the gentle sense of motion, the smile on the dancer’s face, his partner’s face in shadow, the central focus being on their clasped hands… honestly one of the best photographs i’ve seen.

[whatsitaboutnow]

The Arthurian Tarot by Caitlin and John Matthew

*

The spear that both wounds and heals, the forest guiding the seeker, and the grail maiden who offers from the well.

*

This is about starting and continuing to move in the right direction and trusting that I will receive help without taking what is not mine.

[whatsitaboutnow]

@greenwoodwitch and I celebrated today, safely, and it was so good to see her again

[thescreechingcrow]

who wants to run away to the woods with me and become mushroom + herb farmers and eventually obtain cryptid status by screeching at travelers and offering them concoctions that bring either good or terrible luck before disappearing into the shadows

[whatsitaboutnow]

The introspection of the High Priestess balanced bush the practical nurturing nature of the Queen of Pentacles and the charity and social responsibility of the Six of Pentacles.

Tarot of Prague

[themodernsouthernpolytheist]

“When Airmid’s herbs and Miach’s tricks Can’t heal the pain and relieve the sick, May I and Flidais comfort you With whisps of pink and streams of blue. While Brighid’s touch and loving caress Gathers and holds who loved you best, To the West, across the sea, Let Manannán mac Lir carry thee To Tech Duinn where Donn still dwells An isle of stone among the swells To rest yourself and mend your soul After this life has exacted its toll. And when it’s time to move again, For Tír na nÓg to let you in, Eat the fruit and draw your breath And never again know pain in death.”

— @themodernsouthernpolytheist, A Prayer for the Soul in my Arms

[whatsitaboutnow]

Borrowing this prayer.

[omghotmemes]

If April ends up worse I swear to God

[jackironsides]

Sure is something to read this post at the beginning of June.

[whatsitaboutnow]

I was raised i a multiracial familial.

This doesn’t change my rascism. I don’t ask for a call back for behavior.

But I saw and was taught about the difference between myself and my black cousins in the 80s. My parents aired the Rodney King riots when I was a kid.

I am not right. I am not just. I am not pure. But this is not my first time at this rodeo. I was committed to learning anti racism a long time ago and I stand by it.

This is not about today.