queenofthespacesbetween - Tumblr blog

queenofthespacesbetween · 13 days ago

Text

0. The Fool (I am going.²)

Astrology: Uranus

"The bright originality of Uranus infuses the card with a fierce independence spirit. Everything is possible."⁴

Archetypal Understanding: Child

"The Fool is the archetype of the child."⁶

The Fool means starting a journey.

Each step brings you closer to your destiny.⁶

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."⁹

Keywords: innocence, beginnings, trust, hope, opportunity, faith, fear of failure, holding back, taking a chance without a full plan, seeing endless potential, risk

Affirmations⁵

I AM spontaneous.

I CAN take risks.

I WILL embrace new beginnings.

"I embrace the unknown because I learn more about myself each time I leap."⁷

The Fool has no knowledge or experience.⁸

You're at the beginning of a journey, a thrilling new experience into some aspect of adulting. In some area of life, you are a beginner.

The fool says the time is now. They believe that the worst possible thing is to live in gray, afraid to try because you might not succeed. They believe that the reward of glorious technicolor is worth the risk.

The Fool acts in her own best interest. The Fool is a whole and complete agent of herself. She operates outside societal norms. She is not affected by the opinions, judgments, or advice of others. She is blissfully unaware of irrelevant prying eyes and speculation. Her wholeness is sublime. Each step unravels her perfection.⁶

This card reminds us that hope isn't foolish at all.³

Imagine you saw the world again for the first time. This is a beginner's mindset, and it lets you see a vast array of possibilities without the limitations and rigidity of an experienced expert. You are guaranteed to make some mistakes at this point, but they are not setbacks; they're just lessons on how to take the next step more clearly. ¹

Historically, the fool is the only person the king will listen to. The gesture is a beloved character. The fool has no agenda, no hidden plans or shenanigans up his sleeve. He is guileless. He is honest. He is generally happy. He's going to move forward, to say what's on his mind. He's going to be honest and forthright regardless of circumstance. ²

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves." - Carl Jung

The beginning is the end, the end is a beginning. The fool is given number zero. Zero connects to the world card usually portrayed inside an oval shaped wreath. Describing the fool on the beginning of his journey Arthur wait says that "He will return to the sun behind him by another path after many days."

If you pull the fool during a daily draw, it likely means there is big new beginnings racing towards you (or perhaps already upon you)!⁵

Some questions to ask when you see this card; are you ready to take a leap? Are you hesitating on the premises of something new? What are you hoping for? What are you afraid of? Isn't it better to try than to hold yourself back? ³

The fool's experiences ever-changing and evolving, just like yours.

¹The Millennial Tarot by Scott Bergman, ²Kitchen Table Tarot by Melissa Cynova, ³Wild Card by Jen Cownie, ⁴The Magic of Tarot by Sasha Graham. ⁵Your Tarot Toolkit by Ru-Story, ⁶The Dark Woods by Sasha Graham, ⁷The Inner Tarot by Kare Van Horn ⁸Tarot Life Lessons, ⁹Tarot for the Hard Work

#tarot #the fool #learning tarot

1 note · View note

queenofthespacesbetween · 14 days ago

Text

Reddit’s even kicking that dead ceos ass

51K notes · View notes

queenofthespacesbetween · 14 days ago

Text

8K notes · View notes

queenofthespacesbetween · 14 days ago

Text

Just a note, this is my favorite part of the book “Hearth & Home Witchcraft” by Jennie Blonde. This quote is totally the sort of statement I’ve been waiting for a witch to make.

19 notes · View notes

queenofthespacesbetween · 15 days ago

Text

📷 Coyote.kaori

3K notes · View notes

queenofthespacesbetween · 18 days ago

Text

1K notes · View notes

queenofthespacesbetween · 18 days ago

Photo

Peacemaker 1.05 “Monkey Dory”

827 notes · View notes

queenofthespacesbetween · 20 days ago

Text

How to Memorize the Major Arcana

Follow The Fool’s journey, so you can keep in mind the arcana’s meanings and remember their order altogether.

0 - The Fool

Imagine that he is a new student at a university. He is foolish at the beginning of his journey. Because in many ways, he is still clueless, no matter how smart he actually is.

1 - The Magician

The Fool uses magic to adapt to his new environment. The magic of the intellect to do well in his classes. And the magic of extroversion to make some new friends.

2 - The High Priestess

College is challenging. More than making friends and passing classes, you have to be on the right path. Like a priestess, The Fool consults his higher self to ensure just that.

3 - The Empress

Having passed his classes and made friends, as well as change his major from Engineering to Architecture, The Fool now feels abundant and secure, just like an empress.

4 - The Emperor

Eventually, he makes a name for himself. The Fool gains recognition. Like an emperor, he is acknowledged as the leader of some projects and an authority in certain subjects.

5 - The Hierophant

No longer a clueless freshman, The Fool is now someone that the confused, younger students approach for advice and guidance. Just as they would a hierophant.

6 - The Lovers

He has the grades, the friends, the belief in himself, the abundance and the authority. And still, The Fool feels lonely. Because he needs a lover to truly be happy.

7 - The Chariot

Having found a kind and caring partner to share his burdens, thoughts and emotions, The Fool can now move forward, on his chariot, to gain even more triumphs.

8 - Strength

Through his acquired knowledge and experiences, along with self-love and the constant support of his lover and friends, The Fool has grown to feel truly strong.

9 - The Hermit

A leader for many and a favorite of all, The Fool is very happy but gets tired too. Every now and then, he would spend some needed time alone, like a hermit would do.

10 - Wheel of Fortune

Life is like a wheel. Sometimes we are on top. Other times, we are not. Until now, The Fool has been consistently climbing up. But now, he is about to be knocked down.

11 - Justice

It seems The Fool’s mother is facing financial difficulties. She did not make the deadline for this semester’s rent at the dormitory. The rules of justice dictate that he gets kicked out of the campus.

12 - The Hanged Man

So now The Fool has to commute from home every day. His schedule is disturbed. His studies are affected. His social life is put on hold. Everything hangs in the balance.

13 - Death

The Fool decides to take a loan and find a job so he can help himself and his mother. His happy-go-lucky life has suffered a death, but as a responsible adult, he has been rebirthed.

14 - Temperance

With his newfound maturity, The Fool is now at peace. His burdensome duties have been tempered by his acceptance of reality and his willingness to overcome obstacles.

15 - The Devil

But too much of a good thing can be devilish. Having experienced the high of earning his own money, The Fool acquired another job. He is now working endless shifts.

16 - The Tower

But The Fool can only take so much. A dozen classes and a dozen shifts a week do not a healthy body make. And so it collapses. And his life falls apart like a burning tower.

17 - The Star

His friends all visit him, bringing fruits and telling jokes. His girlfriend cheers him up with his favorite Netflix shows. The Fool feels like a star and hopeful about tomorrow.

18 - The Moon

Life’s lessons are not lost on him. The Fool meditates, looking up at the moon, reflecting on where he went wrong… feeling his pain but telling himself he will move on.

19 - The Sun

By sunrise, his fever is gone and his muscles are no longer aching. The Fool is ecstatic that he can live his life again. He really missed how it felt to be healthy and well.

20 - Judgement

Having learned the importance of balance, The Fool sets out into the world again, armed with better judgment. He now knows his priorities and stands by them.

21 - The World

As the year ends, The Fool feels on top of the world, grateful that he has gained his health back, along with a worthy romance, academic achievements, and faithful friends.

1K notes · View notes

queenofthespacesbetween · 20 days ago

Text

Toxins, Venom, and Poisons in Historical Western Medicine: How Are We Not Extinct From Doing Some Of This To Ourselves?

This piece is an involuntary piece inspired by @writing-with-sophia's awesome post "Poison list", which is an accurate and succinct list of commonly known (and ancient!) poisons, venoms, and toxins that have been and were used for causing poisoning in ancient and recent history. I wanted to write this because what struck me by their post crossing my dash was, the sheer number of poisons listed that were - and even still are - used as mainstays for healthcare around the world throughout the ages!

OBLIGATORY DON'T BE A DUMBASS PSA: If you're planning on incorporating these poisons into your HISTORICAL-era writing, it's also important to remember that many of them were used for medicinal purposes at one time, too, and it's great you're interested in learning about the subject! And also, you shouldn't try ANY of these! I will not tell you how to do it at home if you DM me, so don't! You are not appropriately trained to do it! You will harm or kill yourself and possibly your loved ones if you fuck around with any of these and it will be 100% your fault and you absolutely should feel bad bout it! I've seen some of you idiots believe 4chan posts about making home-grown crystals using recipes for actual mustard gas and seen you being wheeled into the ER on the news! I will not feel bad if you get yourself hurt if you screw around with any of these plants, elements, or animals!

Resource blog plugs and PSA over, now for the Hilariously Poisonous Medicines:

If you're writing something that's meant to take place prior to the advent of our more modern understanding of poisons, venoms, and toxins, factoring in "this is toxic to me NOW, but what about 500 years ago?" can add a lot of opportunities for interesting plot elements to your story.

These can include someone accidentally poisoning themselves with a toxic drug or substance that wouldn't have killed them if they'd handled it properly - like tansy? Grows all over the place in Europe and England? That'll kill you if you harvest it too late in the season, but it's good for intestinal parasites when it's harvested early in the year and processed right.

Did the lady's maid really kill her mistress with belladonna? Or was she trying to secretly help her mistress get rid of an unwanted pregnancy?

The protagonist's children can't survive to make it to weaning age! Is the wetnurse a poisoner, or does the milkman hide that he sells sour milk by pouring Borax into it so no one could taste it and has no idea he's killing his clients' babies?

Nuance and cultural mores regarding historical views about poisons and toxins can make writing even more fun, dynamic, and interesting! Explore 'em!

Just... please don't try any of this crap yourself. You will poison yourself, it will hurt, you will die, and you will hurt the entire time you're dying. Using OP's master list alone, here's the flip side of these lethal beasts through the eyes of our distant ancestors who believed illness was caused by "vapors", "bad air", and "imbalanced humors":

Hemlock:

Used across multiple different cultures in history. When properly administered to treat a disease, poison hemlock was used to treat asthma, whooping cough, bronchitis, joint/bone pain, muscle cramps, and insomnia. Hemlock was most often used as a sedative and antispasmodic.

Arsenic:

Arsenic is a heavy metal, and so has been used in everything from making specialty dyes for wallpapers (Scheele's green is the most infamous arsenic-based paint; Queen Victoria once had a guestroom in her palace redone with Scheele's green wallpaper. The first dignitary to stay there had to be carried out and taken to emergency care after breathing astronomical amounts of arsenic dust from the wallpaper's paint), to medicine. Arsenic was especially commonly used in history to treat skin ailments ranging from acne, to psoriasis, to syphilis sores. It was also sometimes prescribed for menstrual cramps, upset stomachs, colic, and arthritis, among many, many other things.

Cyanide:

Uh... I have literally never found any evidence of cyanide in medicine, outside of its use in modern medicine as part of certain chemical lab tests for measuring urine ketone bodies that involve no contact with a patient whatsoever. Cyanide literally works in less than a few seconds to render your entire body incapable of absorbing OR using oxygen in your lungs or already existing in your blood. Cyanide is really only good at making things that breathe not breathe anymore.

Nightshade:

There are a lot of different "nightshades", so being specific is essential here. Potatoes are nightshades. Tomatoes are nightshades. Calling anything a "nightshade" does not inherently mean it's lethally toxic. Belladonna is probably the most notorious of the "deadly" nightshades, but to this day, is still used medicinally, and would actually be seen as a health and cosmetic mainstay in historical fiction, especially if your setting is in Italy!

Belladonna is an Italian portmanteau for "beautiful woman", because tinctures (water-based drops) of belladonna were commonly used by Italian women as eyedrops to dilate their eyes and appear more attractive, aroused, and desirable. Today, belladonna's eye-dilating effects are still used by optometrists to dilate the pupils! Belladonna has been, and still sometimes is used as an NSAID, general painkiller, motion sickness treatment, asthma medication, and even as a treatment for IBS.

Ricin:

As OP said, Ricin is derived from the toxin found in Castor Beans, and is surprisingly new as an official "the only reason this is made is to make someone dead" poison. Not only is ricin a popular "nobody would think to test for this!" choice in mystery/thriller writing, but it has been used for political assassinations in real life before. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian anti-Communist dissenter and writer, was killed in 1978 with a 1.7mm diameter ricin-coated pellet shot into his thigh muscle by an unidentified assailant using a modified umbrella as a gun. He died 4 days later.

Historically, castor OIL has been used for medicinal purposes, especially for treating constipation, inducing labor in pregnancy, and as a topical skin moisturizer. If you've ever watched the opening scene in Disney's "Peter Pan", when the childrens' mother is trying to give them a spoonful of medicine each, she's actually giving them castor oil! Castor oil tastes really bad (so much so that flavorings like cinnamon were often added to try to muffle the taste), so the childrens' reluctance and disgust at their mom making them take their medicine is very realistic for the era the movie came out in!

Strychnine:

Another lethal poison that started life as a medicine/food additive. Strychnine is no longer used medicinally at all today, but historically, it was used to stimulate the heart, treat bladder and bowel incontinence, and limb palsy. Strychnine is a deadly-powerful muscle stimulant that, as a poison, causes horrifyingly painful full-body strictures (spasms) and destroys the cardiovascular system. (Fun fact: Strychnine and hydrochloric acid were historically mixed into cheap vodka to make knock-off gin, especially during the Georgian Era in England if the brewer didn't have or couldn't afford juniper berries!)

Snake Venom:

Seriously, do your research before you write an actual, real snake species using venom they don't produce! The Big 3 Forms Of Snake Venom are: Hemotoxic, Neurotoxic, and Cytotoxic. Specific snake species exclusively generate the same kind of venom (so a hemotoxic snake will ALWAYS produce baby snakes that also make hemotoxic venom). Aristotle himself wrote in 380 BC that certain snake venoms could be applied for treating fevers, smallpox, and leprosy, and there is even some evidence in the historical record prior to the 1800s that different cultures have experimented throughout the eons with using venom for converting into antivenom, but I've never found a source citing anyone making a successful form of antivenom until around the 1850s.

Digitalis:

OP really nailed the important thing about Digitalis, and that is it's cardiac benefits for certain people - particularly for treating congestive heart failure. Vincent van Gogh was actually prescribed epilepsy medication that likely contained Digitalis, aka Foxglove, and there are some prevailing theories about van Gogh's love of bright yellow paint as being either caused or exacerbated by the symptoms associated with digitalis use, which can cause an attraction to and increased visual sensitivity to the color yellow. In several portraits, including one of his own psychiatrist, van Gogh shows subjects presented alongside foxglove flowers. Digitalis is absolutely lethal if consumed or taken without expert guidance, however, because it's the mother ingredient of Digoxin. Digoxin isn't used as frequently as it used to be a few decades ago, but it's still used and prescribed today for certain forms of heart failure and heart disease. Digoxin was also, at one time, was also sometimes used to induce chemical abortions.

Lead:

Dear god, lead. Not only is it so slow to kill you that you'll think that the only way to manage your symptoms is with more lead, but lead poisoning can be a life-long crisis for a person who is regularly exposed to it. Humans have used lead for everything from plumbing, to paint, to our cutlery, to cosmetics, to medicine. While yes, it is very possible to ingest enough lead in a single sitting to die within hours or days, most sufferers of lead poisoning experience it for years or decades before the symptoms become obvious. Some archaeologists believe that the Romans used lead cutlery because lead has a unique reaction when we lick it: when you have lead coating your tongue, it makes EVERYTHING you eat suddenly taste 10x better. I learned this myself from going target-shooting with my mom at a gun rage as a teenager, inhaled gunsmoke (which contains lead), and went for lunch immediately after. Even though I was just eating a $5 meal from In-N-Out, my burger tasted so good I thought I was gonna have to change my pants. When I asked the rangemaster at the target place about it later, he literally said, "Oh yeah, lead makes the worst cooking taste like heaven."

The ancient Romans ate a lot of rotten, spoiled, and sour food, and so lead would've made it easier to eat it back then. But the neurological effects of lead poisoning are nightmarish. It's suspected that, in America, the #1 reason we had so many active serial killers in the country from the 1940s-2000s was because of leaded gasoline. Ever since leaded gasoline was banned? Serial and random violent crime rates have dramatically gone down, especially in metropolitan cities. Ancient Rome, too, gradually became an increasingly violent city as its population went up and its reliance on lead did. We're only just now starting to figure out how toxic lead actually is, so go nuts with using it as a plot element regarding subjects like "Why Are You Like This?"

Mercury:

Mercury is also known as quicksilver, because in spite of being a heavy metal, the temperature at which it melts into a liquid is very, very low compared to most other metals. The first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, was rumored to be so obsessed with the notion of immortality that he would send his doctors on doomed voyages around the world searching for a legendary substance that would, indeed, make him immortal. Legend has it that some doctors who were tasked with the job found out about the last guys, and produced mercury before Emperor Qin Shi Huang and cried, "Here it is! I got it!" so they wouldn't end up doomed to drown at sea. Qin Shi Huang became so obsessed with ingesting and medicating himself with mercury that, when his legendary tomb was being constructed, he had a small-yet-accurate-to-scale map of China+the known world about the size of a football field with every body of water full of fountains of running mercury in his burial chamber. His tomb was rediscovered in the last couple of decades after archaeologists found suspiciously high levels of mercury in the soil on top of a "hill" that had been sitting in the countryside untouched for thousands of years. It turned out to be Qin Shi Huang's long-lost tomb.

Since those days, mercury has closely been associated in early medicine as a sort of cure-all, since it literally kills anything it touches (including people). Captain Blackbeard himself, the most notorious pirate in Western history (Western specifically; google who Zheng Yi Sao was), was known or widely believed to be a syphilis sufferer, and desperately sought infusions of mercury from ships he'd capture (and the doctors onboard) to treat it, believing like everyone did that mercury could cure syphilis. It can't. They just didn't understand back then that syphilis starts off surface-level, and then eats your brain years after the initial infection.

Aconite:

Again, ridiculously toxic outside of specific medicinal applications that still aren't safe today! Aconite, or wolfsbane, has historically been used as a heart sedative (for slowing the heart), diuretic, painkiller, and even used to induce sweating. Evidence of wolfsbane being used for medicinal purposes has been spotted here and there over thousands of years throughout the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Empires, but its original use came about in Ancient Greece for hunting and culling wolves by poisoning bait-food with it. That form of hunting died out long before the European Middle Ages, but the name "wolfsbane" stuck. Mostly because in the Middle Ages, a lot of people believed werewolves were a huge problem, and kept wolfsbane handy to deter said werewolves.

Thallium:

Today, thallium is mostly used in the production of camera and eyeglass lenses. Before its toxicity was known about, it wasn't strange to hear of thallium being used topically to treat fungal infections like ringworm. Thallium was also sporadically used in treating typhus and tuberculosis, along with a wide array of sexually transmitted diseases.

This list doesn't even touch the tip of the toxic iceberg when it comes to the sheer quantity of hilariously dangerous toxins people have, or still continue, to use for medicinal purposes! In a Victorian-era English London middle-class townhouse setting alone, there were dozens and dozens of ways to poison or otherwise harm yourself just by going about your daily life. So, if you've got a period piece you're working on, or are just bored, you can pick an exact date and time in our history and learn just how terrifyingly comfortable our ancestors were with upsettingly dangerous substances and home remedies. You can also watch a massive docuseries, called "Hidden Killers" and hosted by historian Suzannah Lipscomb, among other historians and archaeologists, which deep-dives into the hidden and unknown dangers of living in eras from Tudor-Era England, to the Post-WWII Reconstruction Age.

As a final note: I am NOT bashing Chinese or Eastern medicinal practices here, and in fact deliberately have gone out of my way to not include any references toward culturally-sanctioned medicinal practices in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. This post is specifically related to the history of WESTERN medicines and their associated history. I am not, nor have I ever been, a doctor of any traditional Eastern medicinal practices, and do not pretend to know better. Sinophobes are unwelcome in my blog space.

114 notes · View notes