#1972 Observer

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Children's Dialogue

Language is extremely complex, yet children already know most of the grammar of their native language(s) before they are 5 years old.

BABBLING

Babbling begins at about 6 months and is considered the earliest stage of language acquisition

By 1 year babbles are composed only of the phonemes used in the language(s) they hear

Deaf babies babble with their hands like hearing babies babble using sounds

FIRST WORDS

After the age of one, children figure out that sounds are related to meanings and start to produce their first words

Usually children go through a holophrastic stage, where their one-word utterances may convey more meaning

Example: "Up" is used to indicate something in the sky or to mean “pick me up”

Most common first words (among the first 10 words uttered in many languages): “mommy,” “daddy,” “woof woof,” “no,” “bye,” “hi,” “yes,” “vroom,” “ball” and “banana”

WORD MEANINGS

When learning words, children often overextend a word’s meaning

Example: Using the word dog to refer to any furry, four-legged animal (overextensions tend to be based on shape, size, or texture, but never color)

They may also underextend a word’s meaning

Example: Using the word dog to refer only to the family pet, as if dog were a proper noun

The Whole Object Principle: When a child learns a new word, (s)he is likely to interpret the word to refer to a whole object rather than one of its parts

SYNTAX

At about two years of age, children start to put words together to form two-word utterances

The intonation contour extends over the two words as a unit, and the two-word utterances can convey a range of meanings:

Example: "mommy sock" = subject + object or possessive

NOTE: Chronological age is NOT a good measure of linguistic development due to individual differences, so instead linguists use the child’s mean length of utterance (MLU) to measure development

The telegraphic stage describes a phase when children tend to omit function morphemes such as articles, subject pronouns, auxiliaries, and verbal inflection

Examples: "He play little tune" or "Andrew want that"

Between 2;6 and 3;6 a language explosion occurs and children undergo rapid development

By the age of 3, most children consistently use function morphemes and can produce complex syntactic structures:

Examples: "He was stuck and I got him out" / "It’s too early for us to eat"

After 3;6 children can produce wh-questions, and relative pronouns

Sometime after 4;0 children have acquired most of the adult syntactic competence

PRAGMATICS

Deixis: Children often have problems with the shifting reference of pronouns

Children may refer to themselves as "you"

Problems with the context-dependent nature of deictic words: Children often assume the hearer knows who s/he is talking about

AUXILIARIES

In the telegraphic stage, children often omit auxiliaries from their speech but can form questions (with rising intonation) and negative sentences

Examples: "I ride train?" / "I not like this book"

As children acquire auxiliaries in questions and negative sentences, they generally use them correctly

SIGNED LANGUAGES

Deaf babies acquire sign language in the same way that hearing babies acquire spoken language: babbling, holophrastic stage, telegraphic stage

When deaf babies are not exposed to sign language, they will create their own signs, complete with systematic rules

IMITATION, REINFORCEMENT, ANALOGY

Children do imitate the speech heard around them to a certain extent, but language acquisition goes beyond imitation

Children produce utterances that they never hear from adults around them, such as "holded" or "tooths"

Children cannot imitate adults fully while acquiring grammar

Example:

Adult: "Where can I put them?" Child: "Where I can put them?"

Children who develop the ability to speak later in their childhood can understand the language spoken around them even if they cannot imitate it

NOTE: Children May Resist Correction

Example: Cazden (1972) (observation attributed to Jean Berko Gleason) – My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. – Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? – Yes. – What did you say she did? – She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. – Did you say she held them tightly? – No, she holded them loosely.

Another theory asserts that children hear a sentence and then use it as a model to form other sentences by analogy

But while analogy may work in some situations, certainly not in all situations:

– I painted a red barn. – I painted a barn red. – I saw a red barn. – I saw a barn red.

Children never make mistakes of this kind based on analogy which shows that they understand structure dependency at a very young age

BIRTH ORDER

Children’s birth order may affect their speech.

Firstborns often speak earlier than later-born children, most likely because they get more one-on-one attention from parents.

They favor different words than their siblings. 

Whereas firstborns gabble on about animals and favorite colors, the rest of the pack cut to the chase with “brother,” “sister,” “hate” and such treats as “candy,” “popsicles” and “donuts.” 

The social dynamics of siblings, it would appear, prime their vocabularies for a reality different than the firstborns’ idyllic world of sheep, owls, the green of the earth and the blue of the sky.

MOTHER'S LEVEL OF EDUCATION

Children may adopt vocabulary quite differently depending on their mother’s level of education.

In American English, among the words disproportionately favored by the children of mothers who have not completed secondary education are: “so,” “walker,” “gum,” “candy,” “each,” “could,” “wish,” “but,” “penny” and “be” (ordered starting with the highest frequency).

The words favored by the children of mothers in the “college and above” category are: “sheep,” “giraffe,” “cockadoodledoo,” “quack quack,” the babysitter’s name, “gentle,” “owl,” “zebra,” “play dough” and “mittens.” 

BOYS / GIRLS

One area of remarkable consistency across language groups is the degree to which the language of children is gendered.

The words more likely to be used by American girls than by boys are: “dress,” “vagina,” “tights,” “doll,” “necklace,” “pretty,” “underpants,” “purse,” “girl” and “sweater.”

Whereas those favored by boys are “penis,” “vroom,” “tractor,” “truck,” “hammer,” “bat,” “dump,” “firetruck,” “police” and “motorcycle.”

Tips for Writing Children's Dialogue (compiled from various sources cited below):

Milestones - The dialogue you write should be consistent with the child's developmental milestones for their age. Of course, other factors should be considered such as if the child has any speech or intellectual difficulties. Also note that developmental milestones are not set in stone and each child is unique in their own way.

Too "Cutesy" - If your child characters are going to be cute, they must be cute naturally through the force of their personality, not because the entire purpose of their existence is to be adorable.

Too Wise - It’s true kids have the benefit of seeing some situations a little more objectively than adults. But when they start calmly and unwittingly spouting all the answers, the results often seem more clichéd and convenient than impressive or ironic.

Unintelligent - Don’t confuse a child’s lack of experience with lack of intelligence. 

Baby Talk - Don’t make a habit of letting them misuse words. Children are more intelligent than most people think.

Unique Individuals - Adults often tend to lump all children into a single category: cute, small, loud, and occasionally annoying. Look beyond the stereotype.

Personal Goals - The single ingredient that transforms someone from a static character to a dynamic character is a goal. It can be easy to forget kids also have goals. Kids are arguably even more defined by their goals than are adults. Kids want something every waking minute. Their entire existence is wrapped up in wanting something and figuring out how to get it.

Don't Forget your Character IS a Child - Most of the pitfalls in how to write child characters have to do with making them too simplistic and childish. But don’t fall into the opposite trap either: don’t create child characters who are essentially adults in little bodies.

Your Personal Observation - To write dialogue that truly sounds like it could come from a child, start by being an attentive listener. Spend time around children and observe how they interact with their peers and adults. You can also study other pieces of media that show/write about children's behaviour (e.g., documentaries, films, TV shows, even other written works like novels and scripts).

Context - The context in which children speak is crucial to creating realistic dialogue. Consider their environment, who they're speaking to, and what's happening around them. Dialogue can change drastically depending on whether a child is talking to a friend, a parent, or a teacher. Additionally, children's language can be influenced by their cultural background, family dynamics, and personal experiences. Make sure the context informs the dialogue, lending credibility to your characters' voices.

Sources and other related articles: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Writing Notes: On Children ⚜ Childhood Bilingualism More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[corneille-moisie]

for real, like for all the movie with dracula in the title, about 1/4 are actually based on carmilla and dont involve dracula at all

also there is barely any movie about carmilla titled carmilla

isnt that funny ?

[perisexpeoplebullshit]

i will drop kayfabe really quick - i think it's inappropriate as fuck for perisex people to use asab (assigned sex at birth) or casab (corrective or coercive assigned sex at birth) and while i am aware that you cannot "stop" people from doing whatever the fuck they like, i like to pretend that if i explain myself really well, people will have the empathy, sympathy and compassion required to make simple changes to their vocabulary.

because asab was termed as such by the medical practitioners mutilating our bodies in the name of normalcy and science. we are referred to as "a societal emergency" by surgeons because of our ambiguous genitalia or mix of sex characteristics.

and casab was our attempt at making new language when trans people decided that asab = observed sex at birth and populated it like crazy.

if this is confusing: if you are observed a sex at birth, they do nothing. if they have to assign you a sex, they correct you until you fit that assignment.

we came up with corrective assignment because that placed more emphasis on what the "ASSIGNED" part of assigned sex is.

i know it seems complicated but i promise that it isn't.

but if you're pretty sure you didn't get corrected medically, you weren't fucking assigned a sex. you were just looked at and deemed normal. not all intersex people have an assigned sex. the "assigned" sex you see in these old med textbooks is talking about the literal process of IGM (infant genital mutilation) and HRT (hormone replacement therapy) as well as blockers, because it was determined that you were abnormal and required sexual correction.

also? "i'm afab! i'm amab!" no, you're not. i mean, unless you're undergoing medical intervention to correct your intersex condition?

the correct use is "i was afab" or "i was amab" because it is a course of action(s) that happened to you, not a freshly printed laminated label they slap to your fucking forehead.

an assigned sex is active, an observed sex is passive.

i don't think many people will listen to this at all, and i do think our language has been so over-written that trying to get people to stop misappropriating terms is a lost cause. but just fyi, i'm intersex, and every single time someone says "i'm assigned sex at birth!" i go "oh yay i didn't know there were any other intersex people here!!!" and if you can feel things like shame and embarrassment then maybe be careful about what you're saying around other people

i have met people who use asab, and i have said "what do you think that means" and i have come away from conversations with people who now know more about the world, and that's great, but i'm tired and google is fucking free and how the FUCK are you taking "assignment of sex" from a book full of pictures of mutilated intersex infants and going hmm... i think this is for me! like... the colonizer jumped out idfk

and like, if you didn't know, you didn't know, right. we all learn and unlearn, all the time. but if you're not open to that then i can't help you. no amount of pleading or being nice or fucking painstakingly breaking everything down step by fucking step will not get you to listen anyways. so if you're angry that my tone is aggressive, consider perhaps the several decades of bullshit i have dealt with on the topic of my body and then consider that i might be entitled to that grief.

here's the book, by the way.

Neonates with Abnormal Genital Development Assigned the Female Sex: Parent Counseling 1994

"The assigned sex at birth based on the external genitalia of the newborn and the influence of the conviction of the parents that the child belongs to the assigned sex (Roeske & Banet, 1972; Money & lewis, 1979; Slijper, 1983)."

Moeny and Lewish 1979? oh, like John Money? if you don't know who john money is i never want to hear another word out of you about intersex people point blank. you're gonna learn today, if you don't already know.

"A team consisting of an endocrinologist, an urologist, a surgeon and a psychologist, all specialized in pediatrics, counselled eight pairs of parents of neonates with a 46XY karyogram and an external genital organ that was either completely female or hermaphrodite. These were children whose genotype was not in accordance with their phenotye. The authors discuss policy in regard to counseling and support of the parents from the time when the child's genital abnormality is first observed to its adulthood. The aim of the policy is to create the conditions required to achieve a good female gender identity for the child."

so.... tampering with someone's internal and external reproductive systems to make sure they're a female? i sure hope john money isn't a literal pedophile who mutilated and tormented his clients until they committed suicide

A 1997 academic study criticized Money's work in many respects, particularly in regard to the involuntary sex-reassignment of the child David Reimer. Money allegedly coerced David and his brother Brian to perform sexual rehearsal with each other, which Money then photographed. David Reimer lived a troubled life, ending with his suicide at 38 following his brother's suicide.

oh great. yeah we should definitely misappropriate the language of this group that is overwhelmingly sexually abused in the medical fields! i think it would be great to take language from the oppressors of a group you don't even fucking belong to. please rethink your lexicon, friends, because this language is loaded for people like me, people who were cut open repeatedly at their genitalia to be "cured" or "fixed". i have scar tissue, lack of feeling and i am unable to have sex.

He screened adult patients for two years prior to granting them a medical transition, and believed sex roles should be de-stereotyped, so that masculine women would be less likely to desire transition. Money is generally viewed as a negative figure by the transgender community.

so why are we still using language he helped write in blood?

Believing that gender identity was malleable within the first two years of life, Money advocated for the surgical "normalization" of the genitalia of intersex infants. Money proposed and developed several theories related to the topics of gender identity and gender roles, and coined terms like gender role and lovemap. He popularized the term paraphilia (appearing in the DSM-III, which would later replace perversions) and introduced the term sexual orientation in place of sexual preference, arguing that attraction is not necessarily a matter of free choice. Although often misattributed to him, Money did not coin the term 'gender identity'. Despite the pain and turmoil of the brothers, for decades, Money reported on Reimer's progress as the "John/Joan case", describing apparently successful female gender development and using this case to support the feasibility of sex reassignment and surgical reconstruction even in non-intersex cases.

In one paper, Money described trans women as "devious, demanding and manipulative in their relationships with people on whom they are also dependent" and “possibly also incapable of love.”

read his wiki page because this isn't half of it. he was an openly out pedophile. and they let him rape and abuse children because they needed to be "corrected".

watch Intersexion for free on YouTube, because it is by us, about us, FOR YOU. TO LEARN FROM.

tldr; if a doctor cuts your fucking genitalia open as a minor you're probably asab. if you are perisex and have no idea you're not actually supposed to call intersex people "hermaphrodites" anymore, you're most certainly not asab. you were observed at birth or in utero via an ultrasound, but nobody assigned you anything because nothing had to be assigned.

[auroraluciferi]

Our Breakfast for Children program is feeding a lot of children and the people understand our Breakfast for Children program.

We sayin’ something like this—we saying that theory’s cool, but theory with no practice ain’t shit. You got to have both of them—the two go together. We have a theory about feeding kids free. What’d we do? We put it into practice. That’s how people learn.

A lot of people don’t know how serious the thing is. They think the children we feed ain’t really hungry. I don’t know five year old kids that can act well, but I know that if they not hungry we sure got some actors.

We got five year old actors that could take the Academy Award. Last week they had a whole week dedicated to the hungry in Chicago. Talking ’bout the starvation rate here that went up 15%. Over here where everybody should be eating. Why? Because of capitalism.

What are we doing? The Breakfast for Children program.

We are running it in a socialistic manner. People came and took our program, saw it in a socialistic fashion not even knowing it was socialism.

People are gonna take our program and tell us to go on to a higher level. They gonna take that program and work it in a socialistic manner. What’d the pig say? He say, “Nigger—you like communism?” “No sir, I’m scared of it.” “You like socialism?” “No Sir, I’m scared of it.” “You like the breakfast for children program?” “Yes sir, I’d die for it”. Pig said, “Nigger, that program is a socialistic program.”

“I don’t give a fuck if it’s Communism. You put your hands on that program motherfucker and I’ll blow your motherfucking brains out.“

And he knew it. We been educating him, not by reading matter, but through observation and participation. By letting him come and work our program.

Not theory and theory alone, but theory and practice. The two go together. We not only thought about the Marxist-Leninist theory—we put it into practice.

This is what the Black Panther Party is about.

You Can Murder a Liberator, But You Can’t Murder Liberation

- Fred Hampton (1972)

[spencewalterreid]

Family Tree (Intro)

part 1. part 2.

Summary: Deeply religious 6-year-old Ethel Cain grapples with her turbulent home life with the help of her best friend, Spencer Reid.

Pairing: Spencer Reid / Ethel Cain (p, young age)

Category: Angst, hurt/comfort. Some fluff.

Warnings: brief sexual scene but not exactly smut, cigarettes. Please see master list for overall warnings for the whole series.

Word Count: 4.5k

Author's Note: Those of you that have been paying attention to my recent posts know I'm starting a new series: Preacher's Daughter. Essentially, a chronological account of Ethel Cain's life, with the addition of best friend Spencer Reid. First couple chapters are going to be strictly from Ethel's point of view, but once we get to Western Nights, it'll start flipping between Ethel's POV and Spencer's POV, which will be trying to solve the case of the adrenaline-fueled murders of Willoughby and Ethel as they traverse the west coast. I understand this probably won't be as popular as the Spencer-centered fics, but I hope you guys stay with me!! This was really fun to write and I have a feeling it will only get moreso <3 Please let me know what you think!! Leave as much feedback and as many suggestions as you please, they really help me out. Feedback from you guys is what keeps me going. With all that being said, enjoy the first chapter!

July 8, 1972

It gets hot in Alabama. Blistering, really. Ethel writhed in the grass, trying to find a spot that was still cool, damp from the morning dew. She’s lying under an oak tree in the yard in front of her father’s farm house, mud pressing itself into her white sundress. She’s drenched in sweat, which she thinks might be contributing to the ever-increasing dirt patch under her. The grass tickles the backs of her shoulders as she turns on her side toward the boy beside her, folding her hands under her head.

Spencer had been her best friend since she could remember. She met him when she was two, her mother would tell her. Back then, his hair was always combed back, the curls politely laying into one another. Now, eyes closed and a faint smile on his lips, his hair was wild, brown chunks across his forehead and the ground behind him. His arms were out next to him, fingers splayed against the soft greenery. He’s gotta be hot in that, she thinks, observing his short-sleeved button-up shirt and long, tan pants.

Hearing the shuffle of the grass, Spencer turns toward his companion and attempts to open his eyes, but quickly squeezes them shut again to shade himself from the sunlight with his left arm, then cautiously tries again. He succeeds, gaze landing on the gaunt girl.

“What are you thinking about?” Ethel asks, voice soft.

Spencer shuffles back into his previous position for the most part, but leaves an arm across the upper half of his face. “I dunno,” he sighs. “I’m thinking I don’t wanna get up tomorrow morning.”

Ethel frowns. “What do you mean? We have to. Church is tomorrow.”

“I know that,” he groans. “But I have school on Monday, and it sucks to cut the weekend short,” Spencer replies. “Just because you get to sleep in every day…”

“I don’t sleep in,” she counters with a pout, admiring the soft slope of his chin and the bristle of his shirt in the passive breeze. “Daddy gets me up every morning no later than 8.”

“I have to get up at 6,” he whines, “and my mom never wakes me up in the mornings.”

“That’s because she’s got the devil in her,” Ethel whispers solemnly. “His voice keeps her up at night, so it’s hard for her to wake up.”

Spencer turns over completely this time, still shielding himself with his hand, but looks hard at Ethel. He fights the urge to roll off of his shoulder which is now digging into the hard ground. “I wish you’d quit saying that.”

“Daddy says she’s got the devil in her,” Ethel repeats reasonably, nodding to herself. “It isn’t her fault, Spence, Lucifer can tempt anybody.” She reaches a hand out to touch his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she smiles. “I’ll keep praying for her, and-”

“Ethel!”

She snaps upward and Spencer quickly follows suit, catching sight of her father looming at the end of the porch, frightening and large, thick arms folded across his chest. “You have no right to be touching my daughter like that, boy,” he shouts, stomping down the steps and crossing the yard to the tree. Spencer scrambles up to his feet, glancing back at Ethel for a moment before her father’s firm hand is covering Spencer’s small bicep.

“He didn’t do anything, Daddy!” Ethel cries, standing up as well to try to pull Spencer back.

“It’s okay, E, I’ll-”

Her father shoves a hand against her chest, knocking her to the ground. “You mind your business, child, I’ll deal with you shortly,” he spits, glaring down at her before dragging Spencer behind him, across the street to his house.

***

July 9, 1972

The church is packed like a can of sardines. In a town like this one, everyone goes to church. It’s non-negotiable. Ethel sits in the second row back, twisting in her seat to try to get a look behind her. Spencer isn’t here yet. On any other day, Spencer would attend with the Cain family, but given her father’s impressive ability to hold a grudge, it didn’t surprise her when he failed to offer this morning. It’s 9:32, two minutes past the time Pastor Dan would start service.

“Quit ‘yer squirming,” Dad demands, a tight hand on her shoulder to pull her back down to her seat.

“Spencer is late,” she whispers, talking to herself more than her father.

Dad screws up his face in disgust, scoffing. “Don’t you worry yourself about that heathen. He’s where he belongs, with his filthy mother.”

“Please don’t talk about him like that,” she frowns. “He’s nice.”

“He’s a sinner,” Dad growls, “Now hush.”

Ethel folds her hands in her lap, defeated. Undoubtedly, she’s worried about her friend. She didn’t see him after his front door slammed behind him and her father yesterday afternoon. She assumes his mother was probably asleep, she usually was these days. Spencer said she hasn't been feeling well recently, but if she’s honest, Ethel can’t remember a time where his mother was feeling anything but lousy. She barely hears the words leaving the pastor’s mouth until her father pinches her harshly on the arm. 

“Pay. Attention.”

She bites her lip and tries to listen.

“It is our duty as God’s children to take in those who need to hear the Word. Those who put themselves above the Lord, those who lie, those who cheat, those who commit adultery. Those who do not repent for their sins shall surely perish, Amen?”

A chorus of agreement amongst the crowd rings out. Ethel worries her bottom lip. Her father shoots her a pointed look, but says nothing.

“Romans 6:23,” he begins, spreading a bible across the podium in front of him. There’s an opaque rustling up and down the aisles of parishioners hunting for the verse. “‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ God expects us to sin, for we are all imperfect; however, when you admit this in the face of our Lord, you shall surely be forgiven. Amen?”

Again, a mindless repetition of the word. Ethel has never liked that part of church. Every Sunday, the same speech more or less, and she doubts anyone in the room thinks twice about it aside from herself. She doubts anyone in the room disagrees with anything he’s ever said. Like last week, when the sermon denounced all who lie, even when it is to save themselves. She recounts all the lies she’s told, or at least tries to.  There are far too many to catalogue, even if she wrote them down each time. When Spencer threw a rock at her window a few weeks ago, scratching a nick into it when he tried to get her attention after her father kicked him out. She’d blamed it on a falling branch. Or when his mother called that morning, demanding he be sent home immediately, though he was at school at the time. Ethel insisted his mother was overseas and got confused about the time zones. When her father asked why his mother would need him home if that were the case, she didn’t have a good answer. She wore long sleeves for a long time after that, and that was the second time one of her sisters let her use makeup. When her father asked where the bruises had gone, another lie: you hadn’t left any in the first place.

Ethel is pulled out of her thoughts when the entire room falls silent at the creak of the door. She whips around in her seat, ignoring her father’s warning hand on her thigh. She grins when she sees her friend, but her face falls pretty quick after that. He’s wearing a sweater, and she’s worried about his warmth even if it is his Sunday best. He catches sight of her and tries to yank a smile onto his quickly-reddening cheeks, but fails miserably. He tugs his sleeves further down his hands.

Spencer is a small boy as it is, but he looks downright tiny swallowed up in his second-hand clothes. His oxford shoes pad dully against the old, scratchy carpet as he travels up the aisles. He sits in the pew behind Ethel, next to a stately old woman who immediately recoils and scoots as far away from him as she can. Ethel smiles at his proximity, and he offers a shy wave.

The pastor remains silent for another few seconds for emphasis before continuing. “You know, in all my years of preaching, there’s one thing I’ve noticed,” he says, closing his bible and leaning his elbows against the podium, left ankle crossed atop the right. “Those who do not attend church regularly are often the ones with something to hide.”

Spencer feels so hot he may catch on fire at any moment.

“I’ve seen people – heathens,” he looks at Spencer, then away just as quickly, “--show their face in the house of God knowing damn well that they are representing the Devil. Do you know what happens to those… individuals?” he continues haltingly, as if it were a tall order for him to refer to Ethel’s friend as a human being. Her stomach twists at the thought. “God strikes them down.” He opens his bible again, rifling through it. “Psalm 28:3: ‘Do not take me away with the wicked and with workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors, but evil is in their hearts.’” He slams it shut. “That means,” he presses on, and now Ethel thinks he’s purposely looking anywhere but their direction, “that those who lie to God’s children and worship their own false deity in private are not to be considered one of us. The Serpent is cunning, and will try to convince you his cause is just; do not be fooled. These… these creatures… will say anything to make you believe they are of God. Do not believe their lies.”

Ethel glances back toward Spencer, a look of apology in her eyes. Her father pops her in the back of the head. “Eyes forward,” he hisses. She obliges. Spencer sinks further into his pew, wishing the ground would swallow him whole. 

***

The fresh breeze blowing through the valley the church house resides in isn’t as refreshing as Ethel hoped it would be as she shuffles out the door, accompanied by the other youths, the adults trailing a bit behind. As much as her father would abhor it, he can’t see her in the throng of people, and her hand finds Spencer’s as she falls into step next to him.

“Hey,” she whispers, squeezing encouragingly. He chances a glance at her.

“Hey back.” He looks sad. She tilts her head.

“What happened yesterday?” Ethel looks behind her subtly to make sure no one’s paying attention. She concludes they’re in the clear. 

Spencer kicks a rock out of his way and lets go of Ethel’s hand, opting to shove his own into his pockets. “I’m just glad Mom wasn’t roused enough to hear it,” he says.

“I’m sorry.” She tilts her head down and forward to try to catch his eye under his thick curtain of hair, and notices for the first time a red-blue splotch of colour next to his nose. “I didn’t know he’d do that to you.”

“Really? You didn’t see that coming at all?” he scoffs, shaking his head. “I’ve seen what he does to you. It was only a matter of time.”

Ethel sighs, pulling Spencer out of the crowd and to the side of the building, hidden by the shrubbery. “Daddy is nice to me,” she insists, a trying expression on her face. “He loves me.”

“I don’t believe you,” he replies, squinting his eyes. “Your dad loves you just about as much as God loves me.”

She doesn’t quite know what he means by that, so instead of saying anything actually reassuring, she says, “God loves you. He loves all of his children.”

Tears well up in Spencer’s eyes. He crosses his arms and slumps against the dirty panels on the side of the church. “Why, then? Why is he keeping my mom sick, why does he let your dad be mean to you?” He yanks his arms out of the position they were in, in favour of digging the heels of his palms into his eyes, roughly shaking the tears loose.

Sometimes words were futile, Ethel realizes, even if she hadn’t learned how to describe that to herself yet. Making the best choice she could think of, she takes a step forward and gathers her friend into her short arms. “I’ll pray for you,” she says into his ear. Spencer hesitates before placing his hands gingerly onto her back. He nods, even though he knows her prayers are redundant. If he’s a heathen, God probably wouldn’t even take a second glance at Ethel. No one who associates with someone like him is worth God’s time, probably.

“Thank you,” he says anyway. Sometimes you just need to let people think they believe in something. Even if they’re lying. Spencer has learned it makes people feel better to lie, they find it comforting, even if he hasn’t learned why yet.

***

December 13th, 1972

Ethel squints at the mirror, cross-legged on the carpet of her bedroom floor. She studies the red on her lips, garish if she’s honest, and tries to convince herself it makes her look pretty. She tilts her head this way and that, and considers if a different shirt might compliment it more.

At the sound of a knock on her door, she just about jumps out of her skin. “Um- Hang on!” she shouts, rubbing the back of her hand against her mouth to remove the lipstick. The door opens. “I said-” she looks up and sees her big sister, Joanna. “Oh.”

Joanna grins, pearly white teeth matching perfectly with her long, wavy blonde hair. Ethel always admired, maybe envied, her sisters. They were all beautiful. Slim, but not skinny like Ethel. They always looked happy, their joy contagious in its exuberance. They were kind, godly girls. All three of them. Joanna was the oldest, 19. She presses the door shut behind her.

“Oh, honey,” she coos, kneeling down on the carpet next to Ethel. “You can’t just wipe off red lipstick.” She gets on her hands and knees to lean past her little sister and pick up a box of Kleenex, pulling a couple tissues out before setting it down again. She wets it with her saliva. “Tighten your mouth,” she instructs, pulling her lips taut against her teeth. “Like this.”

Ethel complies, and Joanna sets to work pulling the pigment away from her skin as best as she can. “You really shouldn’t be using my makeup, you know,” Joanna chides. “If Dad saw this-”

“Please don’t tell Dad!” Ethel pulls away to sqeak, putting her hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to- I’m sorry, I won’t-”

Joanna puts a soothing hand on Ethel’s shoulder. “Hush. I’m not gonna tell Dad.”

Cautiously, Ethel returns to her previous position and her sister continues her work.

“All I’m saying, you could get yourself into a lot of trouble. You have a knack for that lately.” Satisfied with the result, or at least as satisfied as she was gonna get, Joanna crumples up the Kleenex tissues and conceals them between her palms. “You’re very pretty just as you are, you know that?” she leans in just a bit, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Very pretty.”

Ethel giggles. “Not as pretty as you,” she replies, dragging out the last vowel. Joanna smiles that perfect smile yet again, ruffling Ethel’s hair.

“I’m going to the store, do you want to come with me? I’m gonna get some ice cream,” she says with a wink. In a hurry, Ethel scrambles onto her feet, eager to get out of the house.

Passing through the living room, they’re stopped by the news on the TV.

“Earlier this evening, Dan Sanderson was found hanging in the front yard of his Nebraska home. The Sanderson family is not disclosing-”

The TV is shut off before it can continue. Ethel glances at the couch to investigate the loss, and notices her father for the first time since leaving her room. “Daddy?” she inquires, tears filling her eyes. “Isn’t that-”

“Pastor Dan,” Joanna interrupts, reaching for Ethel’s hand. “Oh, my God,” she gasps, pressing her free hand to her mouth.

Ethel sniffles, a hiccup bubbling in her throat. Dad exhales sharply, rubbing his face. “Church should be interesting,” he comments with a chuckle, before bringing a glass of whiskey to his lips. “Where are you girls going?”

“The store,” Joanna replies, voice distant and distracted.

“Leave Ethel here.”

The two glance at one another from behind the couch. Their father still hasn’t even bothered to spare them a well-meaning look.

“But-”

“No. I’m not asking. Be back in 20 minutes, Jo,” Dad demands, and knowing better than to argue, the older girl concedes.

“Yes, sir,” she sighs, letting go of Ethel’s hand. She leans down to kiss her younger sister’s head. “I’ll be back soon with some chocolate chip, okay?” Joanna asks, fingertips against Ethel’s cheek.

“Okay,” she nods.

Ethel stays put until a few moments after the door clicks shut, processing the death of the pastor. She’s never known anyone who was dead before.

Dad looks at her for the first time today, sitting up and poking his head over the couch. “Come here, darlin’.”

She crosses the room with tiny, shuffling steps, coming to stand next to the soft leather sofa. Dad takes her wrist, not unkindly, and pulls her toward him, and she has to get onto the furniture to comfortably follow his tugging. He nestles her under his arm, fingertips rolling the hem of her dress distractedly as he unpauses the TV.

“Do you want to watch cartoons?” he offers, knuckles against her lower thigh, just above her knee.

Ethel doesn’t reply, eyes glued to her father’s heavy, broad hand on her dress. 

“I asked you a question.”

“Okay,” she says, for the second time in the last two minutes.

Satisfied, Dad lays his head back against the arm of the couch, and Ethel nestles herself into his side. They stay like that for a while, bold two-dimensional colours casting an uncomfortably blue glow over the room. Joanna comes home unceremoniously, puts the ice cream in the freezer, and trudges back to her bedroom. Ethel assumes the other two are probably also in their bedrooms. She realizes she hasn’t even spoken to them in a couple of days. They’ve been distant lately.

“Daddy?”

“Hm?”

When she looks up, she sees his eyes are closed and at some point, he’d finished his glass of whiskey; it’s sitting empty on the side table.

“Can I go see Spencer?”

Suffice it to say, Ethel does not leave her bedroom for the rest of the evening and the better half of the next day.

***

December 17, 1972

Dad took over for Pastor Dan the very Sunday after his death. Ethel wondered if they’d take a week off to mourn, but honestly, she should have known better. It was silly, in retrospect.

Her sisters actually happened to like Spencer, which was very lucky for Ethel. That meant while Dad was in front of the congregation, she got to sit next to her friend. They walked together today, a nice change of pace from driving with Dad. The only reason Dad let them go together was the promise that Joanna, Hope, and Allison would go with her. They were considerate enough to walk a good distance behind Ethel and Spencer.

The sermon made Ethel sick. The look on her father’s face as he talked about a father’s duties was… personal. He watched her and her sisters for most of it. She sank under his unforgiving stare as he spoke about protecting your brood, about keeping them close, and keeping them pure. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she liked that it made Spencer hold her hand.

***

March 23, 1980

“Aren’t you- worried- your dad- will come in?” the boy asks between presses of Ethel’s lips to his. She isn’t sure of his name (William? He said Will, she thinks?), and she’s less sure she cares.

Ethel shakes her head. “No,” she mumbles, hands firmly on the boy’s shoulders, knees on either side of his hips. “He’s out cold.”

She slides her grip down his biceps, then to his waist, and pulls the hem of his shirt up his abdomen. He obediently lifts his arms to allow her to yank it over his head, then makes quick work of removing her own top. 

For a moment, she has the instinct to cover up. One of her biggest insecurities (aside from the evil, ungodly thoughts in her head) is how skinny she is. She’s all leg, skin and bone from head to toe. She tries to eat more, really she does, but she’s nauseous so often that it’s hard to keep it down. She wonders fleetingly why Dad hasn’t said anything about her continuously dwindling figure.

Her spiral is interrupted when the boy groans, going to grope her chest. He drags his thumb across a stick-n-poke tattoo, a cross just below her collarbone. Ethel’s stomach lurches, sending a rush to her head. I shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be doing this. This is a sin. I can’t take this back. God will know I’m not a virgin. He’ll know I’m not pure anymore. What if Daddy can tell? What if he doesn’t love me anymore? What if he stops-

She groans when he rocks his hips into her, making his erection very apparent. In that moment, she really could not give a damn about her father – for that matter, either of her fathers.

***

March 29, 1980

“You sure you don’t want a puff?” Ethel offers, cigarette dangling from between her index and middle fingers. Spencer shakes his head, which is currently resting on his interlocked fingers, elbows bent out to the sides as he stares at the night sky.

She finally got Spencer to come over again for the first time in a long time, considering the last visit ended with Dad damn near strangling him in an alcohol-fueled stupor (which is becoming more and more common), insisting he “had the devil in him”. 

“Suit yourself,” Ethel shrugs and takes another drag. “Do you ever think about having sex?” she asks bluntly, snuffing out the cigarette on a shingle and turning her head toward Spencer. He chokes on a breath, sitting up slightly to get a better look at her.

“What?”

“Don’t what me. Don’t act like you haven’t considered it,” she says, sitting up on her elbows. “I mean, seriously, Spence. Have you even had your first kiss?”

He deflects expertly. “Have you?”

Ethel holds a puff of air in her cheeks then blows it out sharply, laying back down and interlocking her fingers over her stomach. She considers telling him. For the last week, she hasn’t stopped thinking about her night with that boy. It felt nice to finally go all the way, felt nice to not walk away from a sexual encounter feeling positively filthy. To be able to call the shots for once, not worry about the stakes of your performance quality. Ultimately, she decides against it. “How’s college?” she asks bitterly.

“No, E, what were you gonna say?” Spencer sits up completely, crossing his ankles under his shins.

“Spence, drop it, please?” Her voice is soft, almost scared. It sounds like a prayer, breathy and secretive, like if she said it too loud, the request was sure not to be granted.

“What happened?” he matches her tone, sweet and calm, just as he always has been. Ethel thinks she’s never heard him raise his voice before, even minimally.

“I snuck a boy in,” she replies before she can stop herself. “We, uh. We did it.”

She wanted to use the word. The dirty one. She wanted to use the word she couldn’t use while that boy was inside her, no matter how hard he tried to get her to. She wanted to swear, really she did, but she couldn’t. Funny, the lines a 16-year-old-girl draws.

“How do you feel?” Spencer picks up her hand, toying with the couple of rings on her fingers.

“A little chilly, and the roof isn’t very comfy,” she replies, wiggling to emphasize her point, but careful to keep her hand in his grip.

Spencer glares. “You know what I meant.”

Ethel sighs, deep in her chest. “I don’t know,” she replies. “I mean, I liked it. It felt good. I just…”

“You can’t stop thinking about him,” Spencer adds delicately, not managing to meet his friend’s eye.

“Yeah.” Ethel swallows thickly, dragging her fingertips of the hand Spencer has held captive against his palm.

Spencer shifts a bit to get closer and adjust his grip, commencing a massage on the back of her hand. “I’m always here with you. If it gets to be too much…”

“I know,” she whispers, voice cracking. She drops her chin to her chest. “Thanks.”

Ethel lets Spencer keep her hand but lays back against the roof, closing her eyes with a sigh at his nimble fingers working the muscles.

“He was pretty, you know? Real pretty. Sharp,” she says, and she imagines the pinched expression on Spencer’s face; eyebrows knit tightly, lips pursed. “I like him a lot, Spence. I think I could fall in love with him,” she continues with a dazed smile.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” he says. “For that matter, you shouldn’t have even been having sex before you got married. It’ll be hard to go to confession when the preacher is your father.”

She knew he wasn’t judging her. It wasn’t unkind, the way he spoke to her. She’s grateful for that.

“I know,” she mutters, smile falling. “I just…” She opens her eyes to find Spencer watching her carefully with exactly the expression she expected. “I wanted to believe someone could find me beautiful.”

“I find you beautiful.”

She could cry at the sincerity, and almost does. She swallows the lump in her throat.

“Yeah, but not beautiful enough to make love to me, right?” Ethel scoffs, shaking her head.

Spencer stops his ministrations on her hand, laying it gently on his knee, still carefully clasped in his own. “Maybe,” he whispers, eyes downcast. Ethel perks up at this, sitting up and leaning on her elbows.

“Really? I mean, maybe I should just strip now,” she says with a grin. Spencer returns it.

Ethel lays back down, a giggle bubbling up in her throat. Spencer remains quiet and lets the smirk play against his mouth for a while.

“Are you getting cold?” he asks, rolling his shoulders.

“A little. Sleepy, for sure.”

Spencer stands up and pulls Ethel with him. Before ducking back in through the window, he stops her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Be careful with that boy, okay? Take it slow, keep your eggs in different baskets.”

Ethel rolls her eyes. “Screw off, virgin.”

Spencer goes home that night with a flurry in his stomach and an uncomfortable tension in his pants.

Tag List: @darkmatilda @lizzys-sunflower.

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[namu-the-orca]

Why have orcas never attacked humans in the wild, but other dolphins have? If interactions with orcas were as common as interactions with bottlenose dolphins, would there be incidents?

That's an interesting question!

First of all it's important to note that killer whales have shown negative behaviour/attacks towards humans in the wild. Most famously, Californian surfer Hans Kretschmer was bitten by a killer whale in 1972. The original news article is down, but he is interviewed in this more recent article.

It is probably the only known documented incident of a wild killer whale biting a human. However, quite some other, albeit less direct, cases of aggression have been reported. Antarctic killer whales have tried to tip people off ice floes, or wash them out of their boat, reported in both 1910 and 2010 coincidentally (when the Frozen Planet crew in their zodiac apparently were the target of a wave-washing attack). Cetacean researcher Bernd Würsig was attacked in 1989 by one of the Peninsula Valdes killer whales. He was observing sea lions from 200 metres away, hoping to photograph a hunt, when a killer whale beached to grab him and only missed him by a metre. And of course there's numerous incidents of killer whale damaging boats, not just the recent ones off Iberia, but also going back several decades.

However, attacks are not nearly as numerous or physical as those documented for wild (bottlenose) dolphins. I think number of encounters certainly plays a role there. Bottlenoses can live very close to shore in warm waters, so ideal places where people bathe and swim. Bottlenoses are highly sociable but live in much looser societies, meaning solitary animals may happen more frequently, and then look to humans for companionship. I believe most attacks come from such solitary animals, that are (too) accustomed to humans. Add to that that bottlenose dolphins are quite a sexually aggressive species too. They can be boisterous and rough when demanding attention, especially with a frail human. However, bottlenoses are not the only "culprits" - through personal communication I've heard of quite some stories of other species being rough with or injuring people who swam with them, or viewed them from a boat.

Killer whales generally live in colder waters and further offshore. Small chance of meeting one when going for a swim in the shallows. It seems solitary killer whales also happen much less frequently, and when they do, they rarely end up seeking human companionship. One notable exception is of course the young killer whale Luna. He did seek out extensive human contact for a long time. I don't believe people swam with him, but there was also no documented aggression from him as far as I know. Perhaps this is due to the generally calmer nature of killer whales, but it's hard to say with just one example.

So I think it is a combination of factors. Mostly the much greater number of interaction people have with (smaller) dolphins vs killer whales. I think in part also due to differences in behaviour/levels of aggression. And maybe people also act more stupid around smaller dolphins? Because those are always portrayed as so friendly, and cute, and of course this wild animal wants a full body hug from me! While for killer whales people (hopefully) have a little more respect.

Interesting topic for sure, if anyone wants to pitch in!

[kenyatta]

But for all its virtues, “Days of Rage” provides little historical context, or explanation for the forces that produced and shaped the left’s terrorist turn. Burrough quotes an F.B.I. agent to the effect that in 1972 there were over 1,900 domestic bombings in the United States, the implication being that they were all committed by left-wing groups. But for many decades before, right-wing groups were responsible for much, perhaps most of the nation’s political violence. The militant anti-­Communist Minutemen organization was founded in 1960 by Robert DePugh, who published a pamphlet a year later entitled “Principles of Guerrilla Warfare”; indicted in 1968 for conspiracy to commit bank robbery, he went underground before being captured the following year. Anti-­civil rights bombings by Klansmen were so common in Birmingham, Ala., in the early 1960s (including the one in 1963 that left four young girls dead in the 16th Street Baptist Church) that the city was derided as “Bombingham.” In the early 1970s the right-wing Jewish Defense League was planting bombs and engaging in other violent ­anti-Soviet and anti-Arab activities. As the black militant H. Rap Brown famously observed in 1967, violence was “as American as cherry pie.” Left wingers like Weatherman and the Black Liberation Army didn’t invent political violence in the late 1960s and ’70s.

- From a 2015 NYT review of “Days of Rage” by Bryan Burrough

[haggishlyhagging]

The more women are paid, the less eager they are to marry. A 1982 study of three thousand singles found that women earning high incomes are almost twice as likely to want to remain unwed as women earning low incomes. "What is going to happen to marriage and childbearing in a society where women really have equality?" Princeton demographer Charles Westoff wondered in the Wall Street Journal in 1986. "The more economically independent women are, the less attractive marriage becomes."

Men in the '80s, on the other hand, were a little more anxious to marry than the press accounts let on. Single men far outnumbered women in dating services, matchmaking clubs, and the personals columns, all of which enjoyed explosive growth in the decade. In the mid-80s, video dating services were complaining of a three-to-one male-to-female sex ratio in their membership rolls. In fact, it had become common practice for dating services to admit single women at heavily reduced rates, even free memberships, in hopes of remedying the imbalance.

Personal ads were similarly lopsided. In an analysis of 1,200 ads in 1988, sociologist Theresa Montini found that most were placed by thirty-five-year-old heterosexual men and the vast majority "wanted a long-term relationship." Dating service directors reported that the majority of men they counseled were seeking spouses, not dates. When Great Expectations, the nation's largest dating service, surveyed its members in 1988, it found that 93 percent of the men wanted, within one year, to have either "a commitment with one person" or marriage. Only 7 percent of the men said they were seeking "lots of dates with different people." Asked to describe "what concerns you the day after you had sex with a new partner," only 9 percent of the men checked "Was I good?" while 42 percent said they were wondering whether it could lead to a "committed relationship."

These men had good cause to pursue nuptials; if there's one pattern that psychological studies have established, it's that the institution of marriage has an overwhelmingly salutary effect on men's mental health. "Being married," the prominent government demographer Paul Glick once estimated, "is about twice as advantageous to men as to women in terms of continued survival." Or, as family sociologist Jessie Bernard wrote in 1972:

“There are few findings more consistent, less equivocal, [and] more convincing, than the sometimes spectacular and always impressive superiority on almost every index—demographic, psychological, or social—of married over never-married men. Despite all the jokes about marriage in which men indulge, all the complaints they lodge against it, it is one of the greatest boons of their sex.”

Bernard's observation still applies. As Ronald C. Kessler, who tracks changes in men's mental health at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, says: "All this business about how hard it is to be a single woman doesn't make much sense when you look at what's really going on. It's single men who have the worst of it. When men marry, their mental health massively increases."

The mental health data, chronicled in dozens of studies that have looked at marital differences in the last forty years, are consistent and overwhelming: The suicide rate of single men is twice as high as that of married men. Single men suffer from nearly twice as many severe neurotic symptoms and are far more susceptible to nervous breakdowns, depression, even nightmares. And despite the all-American image of the carefree single cowboy, in reality bachelors are far more likely to be morose, passive, and phobic than married men.

When contrasted with single women, unwed men fared no better in mental health studies. Single men suffer from twice as many mental health impairments as single women; they are more depressed, more passive, more likely to experience nervous breakdowns and all the designated symptoms of psychological distress—from fainting to insomnia. In one study, one third of the single men scored high for severe neurotic symptoms; only 4 percent of the single women did.

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[darklingbatsy]

Theory about the Magnus Institute in Protocol

[Warning: Spoilers for TMAGP (older episodes, not recent) and S2 of TMA]

Okay, so I’m on my first relisten of TMA (trying to fuel the empty space in my heart as I wait for new TMAGP episodes) and I came across something I thought was really interesting!

In MAG60, Observer Effect, Rosa Meyer was being watched by a creature that came from a mirror, and had eventually gone on to give her statement to the institute. She mentioned specifically that the feeling was worse while she was there. Quite a few years after this, she went on to kill a delivery driver, steal the truck, and fill it with petrol.

The interesting part of this is that the truck belonged to a company that supplied the Magnus Institute with its stationary, as heard in the clip below:

Now this could be literally nothing, but we know that the institute in TMAGP burned down in 1999. Rosa Meyer’s statement was given in 1972. If the years match up properly (it was mentioned that she had killed the driver about two decades after the statement was given) then it’s very possible that somehow, in the TMAGP universe, she had been successful (the only reason she hadn’t been in TMA was because she had gotten into a collision and arrested).

Again, this could be complete coincidence, but I’ve learned not to take coincidences in TMA very lightly lol.

[livingforstars]

The Barren Moon - October 31st, 1996.

"The above photo, taken as the Apollo 17 astronauts orbited the Moon in 1972, depicts the stark lunar surface around the Eratosthenes and Copernicus craters. Many similar images of a Moon devoid of life are familiar to denizens of the space age. Contrary to this modern perception, life on the Moon was reported in August of 1835 in a series of sensational stories first published by the New York Sun - apparently intended to improve the paper's circulation. These descriptions of lunar life received broad credence and became one of the most spectacular hoaxes in history. Supposedly based on telescopic observations, the stories featured full, lavish accounts of a Moon with oceans and beaches, teeming with plant and animal life and climaxing with the report of sightings of groups of winged, furry, human-like creatures resembling bats! Within a month the hoax had been revealed but the newspaper continued to enjoy an increased readership. Though barren, the Moon remains a popular setting for science fiction stories and extra-terrestrial adventures."

[the-cosmic-cauldron]

The Astrology of Edmund Kemper: The Co-Ed Killer

Edmund Emil Kemper III (born December 18, 1948) is an American serial killer convicted of murdering seven women and one girl between May 1972 and April 1973. Years earlier, at the age of 15, Kemper had murdered his paternal grandparents. Kemper was nicknamed the "Co-ed Killer", as most of his non-familial victims were female college students hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, California. Most of his murders included necrophilia, decapitation, dismemberment and possibly cannibalism. ( source Wikipedia)

Edmund Kemper was Earth dominant. The thing about Earth signs—especially in heavy concentration—is that they tend to think in black and white. This polarity works well when they possess clear knowledge of what they’re focusing on. But what they don’t understand haunts them.

When Earth signs experience rejection and can’t comprehend why, they may spiral. Their stability is rooted in facts, logic, and tangible understanding. Anything beyond that realm becomes maddening. This destabilization is amplified when fire is also strong in the chart. What they know keeps them intact. What they don’t understand unravels them—and when that unraveling strikes the fire element, it ignites rage. Not a rage born of reason, but one born from a lack of it—pure, motive-less RAGE.

This is especially true when Capricorn runs through the veins of the chart, as it did in his. Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn, is a karmic loop. Its pain repeats and repeats. So does its rage. Kemper once spoke of his murderous urges and the words in his mind repeating, unrelenting. That is Saturn. Cold, and at times, cruel. His rage didn’t come with hesitation; it arrived as an overwhelming, persistent urge to act.

He said he wanted to “understand” what it felt like to kill. Again—the urge to understand. I believe he stopped, not out of remorse, but because, as he put it, he finally reached a place of both understanding and exhaustion. He had uncovered the source of his inner torment and simultaneously burned out from the sheer weight of it.

He was a precise killer, and I associate that with Virgo. It’s likely part of what helped him get away with his crimes for as long as he did. Virgo studies, observes, refines. He studied people—intensely. He knew how to build trust, but his trust was a social mask, not a genuine bond.

The fire in his chart was Sagittarius (ruled by Jupiter), and this, I believe, is where the obsessiveness took root. Jupiter expands. He didn’t just want to kill—he became obsessed with it. His intelligence was sharp, and Sagittarius, being the seeker of truth and meaning, gave him a deep desire to understand, to learn.

Virgo kept him emotionally detached. He didn’t connect with people—he analyzed them. He built personas (mutable Virgo) to adapt and blend in. But his Capricorn placements made him lonely, burdened, and mentally rigid. His thinking was either-or. He lacked emotional nuance.

Ascendant and First House

His first house was in Virgo. Virgo ascendants carry a serious look—not mean, but focused, observant, often caught in thought. Their expressions can be unreadable, almost like a poker face.

Kemper had Saturn Conjunct his Ascendant in Virgo. This amplified his cold, distant aura. Saturn here isolates. It creates a presence that feels heavy or emotionally unavailable from birth. It also overlapped with Mercury, stifling his ability to express himself. He was not just observant; he was critical—of others and of himself. Socially, he came across as cold, blunt, or emotionally barren.

His chart ruler, Mercury, layered his detachment from a young age. Not just in behavior, but in cognition. Mercury in Capricorn is deeply serious, logical, and prematurely aged. He was likely emotionally out of sync with peers. Where other children were still discovering joy, he was already burdened with the weight of thought. Saturn made sure of that.

Mercury in Capricorn in the 4th house speaks to an early environment consumed by family—and not in a nurturing way. It suggests a need to control family dynamics, especially the mother. Saturn’s presence here implies a dominant maternal figure—rigid, perfectionistic, perhaps humiliating him when he failed to meet her standards. There may have been cruel verbal exchanges. His Sun conjunct Mercury in the 4th house suggests his identity was also wrapped in this conflict. His every assertion may have been met with criticism or dismissal.

The Sun in Sagittarius often represents a father who is instinct-driven—quick, volatile, and potentially absent. Sagittarius flees when overwhelmed. His father may have brought either excitement or abandonment into his early life. The 4th house holds the psychic soil we grow from. In his case, it was filled with dominance and emotional suppression.

2nd House in Libra – Possession and Projection

His second house, in Libra, reveals romanticism laced with possessiveness. He likely admired beautiful women—faces, bodies, allure. But he wanted to possess them. Neptune’s presence here blurred reality. He idealized women, projected fantasies onto them, and mistook longing for love.

Mars in Capricorn squared Neptune, intensifying his obsession. He could become fanatical about women—fantasizing, longing, idealizing. Yet Capricorn Mars needs control. His reality clashed with his fantasy: he didn’t love women—he wanted to dominate them.

3rd House in Libra – Charm, Conflict, and Communication Wounds

With Libra ruling his third house, he was capable of charm and social finesse. He picked up cues well, knew how to speak with grace when he chose to. But his Mercury in Capricorn (in the 4th) brings us back to his mother. Communication with her may have been sharp, cold, even abusive. He wanted harmony, but instead received harshness. This built a quiet, seething resentment.

4th House in Sagittarius – The Inquisitive Child Wounded by Control

He was likely an energetic, inquisitive child—asking questions, trying to make sense of his family. His Sun and Chiron in the 4th house show deep focus on identity through home life, and equally deep wounding.

Chiron square Saturn signifies pain that doesn’t soften with time. His mother likely shut him down for his curiosity, viewed his independence as a threat, and trampled his self-worth. With Saturn in the 1st, she may have even criticized his appearance. Her judgments left him feeling alienated, unloved, and worthless. His desires were punished. And since Saturn was retrograde, he internalized everything—leading to a self-concept soaked in guilt, shame, and powerlessness.

5th House in Capricorn – The Twisting of Desire

Pleasure was never simple for him. The 5th house in Capricorn often means childhood was consumed by responsibility. His mother may have overridden his natural joy with control. Mars, Jupiter, and Vertex in Capricorn here suggest his desires were fixated on domination. He didn’t just want—it was fated that he pursue what he wanted ruthlessly.

Mars conjunct Vertex in the 5th is chilling. Once his desire was corrupted, it moved with fated force. He could’ve been successful—but his ambition, starved of love and twisted by pain, turned destructive.

6th House in Aquarius – A Detached Routine

With Aquarius ruling the 6th and no major placements or aspects, daily structure, responsibility, or order was not his focus. He lived on his own terms. Unstructured. Unbound.

7th House in Pisces – Shadowed Sensitivity

Pisces in the 7th reveals how deeply he longed for connection. He appeared hard, but was sensitive—especially to rejection or lack of connection. His Lilith in Pisces adds shadow. Women were both his longing and his torment.

Lilith sextile Mars shows a strong sexual drive, potentially volatile. Instead of integrating his wildness, he projected it. Women became the mirror to his wounds, the outlet for rage and repression.

8th and 9th Houses in Aries – Unactivated Fire

Neither house was activated by major placements, suggesting these deeper spiritual and psychological realms remained unintegrated. He couldn’t access transformation (8th) or meaning (9th). This may explain why he stayed psychologically tied to his mother and never evolved beyond her. The fire of Aries burned without direction or awareness.

10th House in Gemini – The Double Life

Gemini ruled his public image. Uranus retrograde here brought sudden shifts. One moment he was the polite, helpful man. The next, a celebrity serial killer. Sun opposite Uranus only heightened the duality—who he was at home vs. who the world saw.

His confession by phone—Gemini rules communication—was the climax of this opposition. Uranus’s shock, Gemini’s speech.

11th House in Cancer – Longing for Belonging

Cancer here suggests tenderness and longing for friendships, but the house wasn’t activated. Likely, he had few true bonds. He may have felt isolated, despite craving connection.

12th House in Leo – The Hidden Need for Recognition

His unconscious (12th) was driven by Leo’s hunger for recognition. Pluto here, in Leo, buried his darkness deep in the unconscious. He didn’t understand it—and that made it more dangerous. With few aspects to Pluto, he had no conscious access to his own destructiveness.

Neptune sextile Pluto means he saw his darkness through fantasy, distortion, or delusion. Even in confession, he mythologized himself. Interviews, FBI consultations—it was all a twisted grasp for recognition. Popularity, even.

Why Did Edmund Kemper Kill? An Astrological Perspective

From an astrologer’s point of view, Edmund Kemper’s actions were driven by unconscious forces. He wasn’t connected to himself on a deeper, soul level. Instead, he was caught in his mind and consumed by fantasy. There was an unconscious desire to be recognized and known—yet, because his inner destructiveness ruled over him, that recognition was sought through violence, not through earned effort or meaningful contribution.

With no planets activating his 8th or 9th houses, the energies of transformation and deeper philosophical meaning were weakened in his chart. This made it incredibly difficult for him to evolve or integrate his experiences into any higher framework of understanding. His soul had no obvious outlet for rebirth. For this reason, it’s highly likely that if released from prison, he would kill again. His desires for dominance and control, rooted in his volatile childhood, would quickly overpower him. Killing became a reactive obsession—one that fused power, fantasy, and unmet emotional needs, especially his idealized and twisted views of women.

His Lilith in the 7th house reveals a compulsive, shadowy longing to connect, but without boundaries. He didn’t know how to love—he only knew how to claim, control, and possess. Relationships became a battlefield for unmet needs and repressed urges.

With Saturn in the 1st house, it’s no surprise he’s lived a long life—now over 70 years old in prison. Saturn grants longevity, but it also carries the burden of karmic repetition. He is still reliving the same internal pain over and over. Saturn, after all, is a loop: it doesn’t free you until you learn the lesson. And I don’t believe he has.

Despite his monstrous acts, Kemper possessed notable social skills and intelligence—enough to work with the FBI and help profile other killers. Yet, his unconscious darkness still holds power over him. That darkness is not integrated; it is managed through intellect, not healed through the soul.

His mother—who played a central role in his psychological torment—is gone, after he murdered her. But her presence lingers. The wounds she left behind, shown in his Chiron in the 4th house, will never truly disappear. His Chiron placement speaks of deep, unhealed pain in the roots of his being—pain from which he never escaped.

He also never had children of his own, a symbolic manifestation of Capricorn in his 5th house. That house speaks of joy, creativity, and offspring—yet Capricorn restricts and burdens. His potential for warmth and generativity was frozen by control, shame, and a need to dominate rather than nurture.

Edmund Kemper is a tragic example of what happens when raw intelligence is overtaken by inner darkness. He had ambition. He had the capacity for refinement. But he was overcome by the shadows he never learned to face. In many ways, he was destined for destruction—if not through murder, then through internal decay.

Being Earth-dominant, he needed logic and structure to feel safe. He tried to make sense of his killings—sought to understand them, even. But with Neptune in aspect to Pluto, he likely never truly saw the full truth of his own nature. Neptune fogs. It mystifies. And when it dances with Pluto, the darkness becomes mythologized—romanticized, distorted, or veiled in delusion.

Some serial killers do not fully comprehend their own violent urges. Their actions are not always premeditated in a rational sense. They are driven by overwhelming compulsions that erupt without warning. And when the urge arrives, they cannot resist it.

This is not just a story about Kemper. It is a chilling reminder that the framework for darkness exists within many souls. But the foundation—the early home, the emotional soil (4th house)—can be what activates it. Without love, without healing, without connection, intelligence can twist itself into something monstrous.

Notable Discoveries in Edmund Kemper’s Natal Chart

• Kemper was overwhelmingly a Saturnian and Capricorn-dominant man. With Saturn in the 1st house and a Capricorn stellium, he was stoic and serious—someone who carried the weight of the world. Though capable of socializing when necessary, he was fundamentally a loner. With hardly any water placements, his emotions ran deep but were largely inaccessible. He was rational, cold, and logical. Saturn in the 1st house suggests he encountered cruelty early in life. He bore the weight of karma and the existential pain of simply being. Capricorn energy gives tremendous drive and ambition, but with Saturn’s heaviness, his ambition may have been redirected toward control and dominance rather than accomplishment.

• His formative years had a profound impact on him, evidenced by a 4th house stellium. His home life was a major focus, but with so little water in his chart, he didn’t experience the tenderness often associated with the 4th house—only its burdens. With the Sun in the 4th house, his identity was shaped by his mother and the women in his life. Mercury in the same house suggests his mind was deeply affected by his early upbringing. This wasn’t a minor influence; those wounds shaped his cognition. Jupiter in Capricorn expanded his hunger for dominance and control, creating an obsessive appetite for violence and possessiveness. The Vertex in Capricorn turned these energies into fate. Once his urges became violent, his fate followed suit.

• Uranus in Gemini in the 10th house represents his public image. To this day, many remember him as an intelligent, articulate man rather than a killer. He had the capacity to speak convincingly—enough to make you doubt his crimes. Uranus gave him the shock factor and the ability to surprise. He was the local “nice guy,” not the archetypal necrophilic killer.

• His Pluto in the 12th house is chillingly revealing. His unconscious was steeped in darkness, trauma, and shadow material he never fully understood. He acted from the depths, living in psychological isolation and ultimately sabotaging any chance at transformation.

• Notably, Kemper recorded audiobooks and collaborated with the FBI while in prison. With his Midheaven in Gemini, his insatiable curiosity and need for intellectual stimulation may have contributed to his good behavior in prison.

• His South Node in Scorpio suggests a past life drenched in darkness. Saturn in the 1st house supports the idea that he was a karmic child—his life was never going to be easy.

• The Sun opposite Uranus in his chart represents a shocking abandonment by his father, who left to pursue his own life. This sudden severing likely left deep psychological scars.

• His Ascendant square Chiron and Saturn in the 1st indicates profound self-esteem issues. He felt ugly, unwanted, ostracized, unintelligent, and worthless. These wounds only deepened with age. It’s likely he never felt truly deserving of a woman, only feeling safe when he had total control—driven by a deep, paralyzing fear of rejection.

• Chiron conjunct Venus, Saturn in the 1st, and the Ascendant square Chiron all point to a man living in the depths of his insecurities. His pain was woven into his very identity.

• In his declinations, Mars opposite Pluto suggests an internal war between desire, lust, power, and darkness. He wrestled with these forces but never integrated them in a healthy way.

• Venus in Scorpio, combined with his South Node also in Scorpio, implies past-life struggles with women and intimacy. He may have been meant to make peace with love in this lifetime—but ultimately, he failed.

[germanpostwarmodern]

He was a pioneer of ecological architecture: Frei Otto, architect, engineer and inventor of lightweight structures like the German Pavilion at the Expo in Montreal 1967 and the roofs for the Olympic games in Munich 1972. To mark his centennial in 2025, Prestel recently published the present volume as both tribute to his achievement and a reminder of his topicality for a present in the wake of a climate crisis: „Frei Otto - Bauen mit der Natur“, edited by Anna-Maria Meister and Joaquín Medina Warmburg, brings together Otto’s most important works and new expert essays.

At the heart of the book lies the overall development of his innovative tensile structures and the application of principles observed in nature. Accordingly, the book is organized along the themes nature, technics and, interestingly, society. The latter aspect has received significantly less attention in the context of Frei Otto’s Gesamtwerk but indeed is an integral part of his architectural concept. This becomes clear in Georg Vrachliotis’ essay in which the author proceeds from the brochure „Wohn-Be-Reiche im Garten“, published in preparation for the 1987 IBA building exhibition in Berlin, and demonstrates how Otto connected questions of cohabitation with living in the green and lightweight constructions. It was an ongoing research that, in various guises, sought for ecological ways of life for the future. With the brochure, after all 150 pages long, Frei Otto presented a complex, multi-layered reflection of his own research and references that proved his prismatic thinking: depending on the viewing angle different theoretical approaches, ideas and concepts come to the fore and document his ability to capture and reflect the challenges posed by ecology and architecture alike.

This intellectual versatility characterized Frei Otto and it is the presentation of it that makes the book such a compelling read: by juxtaposing built work and theoretical considerations it documents that his open thinking and ability to synthesize various aspects of architecture, technology and nature are core aspects of his continuing relevance and a glowing example of how to tackle contemporary problems in architecture!

[marauders1971-1978]

Newt/Remus and how it slots into 1971-1978 'canon' and my other canon compliant fics (trying to create a metaverse here lol)

1946 (Autumn) Theseus is born

1953 (February) Newt is born

1957 (September) Theseus starts Hogwarts

1960 (March) Remus is born

1963 (June) Theseus finishes Hogwarts (September) Newt starts Hogwarts (Fic; Little Badger)

1964 (January) Theseus starts Auror training (Spring) Remus is bitten (Fic; Puncture Repair)

1967 (Autumn) Theseus becomes Jr Auror at DMLE

1968 (May) Newt is expelled in his 5th year (June) Dumbledore arranges Newt's apprenticeship at DMC/DDC (July) Newt and Remus meet for the first time (Fic; All Month Long)

1969 (June) Newt sits his N.E.W.T.s (September) Newt joins DDC Beast Division

1971 (September) Remus starts Hogwarts (Fic; 1971-1972)

1972 (September) Remus starts Second Year (Fic; 1972-1973)

1975 (Autumn) James, Sirius and Peter become animagi

1976 (May) The Prank (June) SWM

1978 (June) Remus finishes Hogwarts and joins the Order

1979 (Autumn) Remus goes undercover in a werewolf colony (Fic; Hunter's Moon)

1980 (Summer) Dudley and Harry are born (Fic; Same as it Ever Was Chapt 1)

1981 (October) James and Lily die (Fic; Same as it Ever Was Chapt 2 & 3)

1983 (Spring) Remus and Newt meet again (Fic; Facsimile of Kin & As Observed by Newt Scamander) (Summer) Remus and Newt go to Snowdonia (Fic; Our Paths Might Cross)

1985 (Summer) Dudley's 5th birthday (Fic; Same as it Ever Was Chapt 3 & 4)

1991 (Autumn) Harry starts Hogwarts

1993 (Summer) Sirius breaks out of Azkaban

1998 (Spring/Summer) Battle of Hogwarts

[wackywatchdotcom]

i made the joke in like my 3rd ever post on this blog so im not rbing it bc of Older Art reasons, but i still think its soooo fucked up that queenie wasnt around to use inaturalist... she wouldve loved it she wouldve had a username referring to a highly specific species of skippers and wouldve spent way too much of her free time id'ing bugs. she wouldve uploaded as many images of insects she possibly could have all often with correctly identified families at LEAST immediately. kinger wouldve had his own account too but it just wouldve been named [his first name]1972 and bunches of pictures of bugs he finds that sometimes get to research grade but often linger a little before that. he would dabble in id'ing others' observations but wouldnt get as into it as queenie does

[bremser]

Eggleston’s Slideshows

I’ve seen a lot of William Eggleston prints over the last few decades and own a handful of the books published during that time. Going to the “Last Dyes” exhibit at Zwirner LA, I wasn’t expecting novelty, but there it was: a gallery with a slide projector. 

a man taking a photo of the projected Eggleston slide (untitled 1970). Two Breuer Wassily chairs were set up to enjoy the slideshow.

The gallery with the slideshow was relegated to a room under the stairwell. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of the wall text, but it describes a period in the early 1970s when Eggleston was shooting a lot of slide film, but had not yet figured out an acceptable way to print from it. Stephen Shore visited Eggleston in Memphis and experiencing this body of work as a slideshow, says in it he recognized Eggleston’s genius. 

Wondering if other Eggleston exhibits have featured slideshows I found Anna Kivlan's 2007 MIT thesis, which featured a quote from an interview she conducted with Eggleston’s wife Rosa, specifically about seeing the work as a slideshow:  "It was so saturated and so intense," she said. "It was astounding to see color like that.” 

Stephen Shore Eggleston in Memphis, Tennessee, December 1973 (perhaps during the visit described above)

Michael Almereyda's "Winogrand Color" describes how Winogrand had a slideshow in the highly influential 1967 "New Documents" exhibit at MOMA that also featured Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander (who used color for portraits of musicians). But the projector malfunctioned and burned eleven slides. The slideshow was removed and after this meltdown Winogrand shot very little color.

installation view of MOMA 1967 exhibit "New Documents" showing Winogrand's slideshow: is it possible housing the projector in the custom box caused the meltdown? In 1974 MOMA had an exhibition of 40 color Helen Levitt photographs, presented as a slideshow (“Projects: Helen Levitt in Color”). The documentation for this exhibit is sparse, the MOMA site offers a single short press release. Levitt had been shooting color slides as early as 1959, but her studio was robbed and she was forced to shoot new work ahead of this exhibit. That same year Eggleston, then teaching at Harvard, discovered the dye transfer process - which gave him the ability to take his own Kodachrome slides and make deeply saturated color prints. He made a portfolio of these prints ("14 Pictures"). 

Untitled, 1972

Despite Levitt’s earlier exhibit and the fact that her color work is great, Eggleston’s 1976 exhibit at MOMA was considered groundbreaking and established him as co-king of “new color” (along with Stephen Shore, who was the first living photographer to have a one-person show at the Met, in 1971).  Hilton Kramer of the Times fell for the bait and solidly panned Eggleston’s show, telling on himself by calling it "perfectly boring."

Helen Levitt, early 1970s - the color of cars is prominent in both Eggleston and Levitt's work from this era

A mix of factors beyond blatant sexism explains passing over Levitt in the crowning of the new color photographers. She had established herself with black and white, while Eggleston appeared on the scene as color first. Winogrand's color work was similar to Levitt's in this regard. Levitt was 63, Eggleston 37. The regional content Eggleston captured (along with William Christenberry) was more exotic to the art establishment than NYC streets. Perhaps most importantly, the new color photographers had a detached mode of observation, a pop sensibility. Kramer even uses the phrase "snapshot chic" in his negative review. 

from soup cans to Wonder Bread - Eggleston, Untitled, 1970

Perhaps the slide projector made it easy to overlook Levitt's exhibit. The Kodak Carousel was connected to the experience of family vacation photos. It’s unlikely that Kramer was aware that Eggleston had been doing slideshows for years, but "snapshot chic" fits. If the art world's embrace of color photography was a decade-late concession to pop (a teenage Shore at Warhol’s Factory comes to mind), the carefully printed dye transfer print was more conservative than the slideshow.

installation view of Helen Levitt slideshow from a 2012-2013 MOMA exhibit recreating the 1974 slideshow

Understanding the "new color" of the 1970's involves a specific set of films. Kodachrome produces a positive (you can hold it up to the light and see the image). When you hold color negative (C-41) film up, it’s inverted. Sebastian Siadecki’s blog post on the myth-making around Eggleston carefully dissects often repeated half-truths by lazy art writers about both Kodachrome and dye transfer prints. He points out that, while a lot of well-known Eggleston is Kodachrome, he was using Ektachrome positive and later mostly C-41 negative film (as Eggleston felt it had improved). 

Stephen Shore describes his Met exhibit prints (presumably shot on C-41 film) as created like most snapshots of the time: "a machine in the big Kodak processing plant in Fairlawn, New Jersey, and stuck to the wall with double-sided tape." Siadecki points out Shore's early color work was shot with a Rollei 35 (a new version of this camera has been released) with Kodak Vericolor film.

Kodachrome was a superior film (in sharpness and color rendering) to the C-41 films and Ektachrome, but its limitations were less available locations to develop it, slower speed and the difficulty in printing. Kodachrome’s pleasing chiaroscuro is often a result of the slow speed, iso 25 or 64 (iso 200 arrived in 1986). Shooting an indoor scene without a flash was pushing the boundary of what could be hand-held without motion blur. While sitting in a Howard Johnson's Eggleston uses his Leica glass, shot wide open, the shadows go deep and he plays with light glinting through glass, like Dutch artists did 300 years earlier.

Untitled, 1972 / Pieter Claesz, 1643

Dye transfer printing materials have been discontinued and the printers are winding down their work in the medium. Zwirner produced an in-depth 18 minute video along with the exhibit to show how the prints were made. It shows how involved and time-consuming the process is.

This last set of dye transfer prints are fairly uniform at about 20 x 24 inches, or the reverse. This process can be fetishized like audiophiles with vinyl. After spending an hour with them, I circled back on a handful of the prints that were staggeringly perfect in tone and detail. Others could be done at this size in ink jet by a talented printer, with most viewers not being able to tell the difference. A few felt too enlarged, making the older print size (with max width at roughly 20 inches) seem preferable. 

untitled, 1972 - in person this print was the most full-tilt, perhaps over the top, example of dye transfer

The content of the slide show and the prints heavily overlapped, but there were a handful of frames in the slide show that were not hung as prints (including the famous tricycle).

Using a slide projector is harsh on slides (a very hot light bulb can fade colors and fuse dust), so the exhibit slides were reproductions, with the original tricycle safe in a temperature-controlled location. 

Some of the exhibit slides did have faded colors and dust (most obviously the abandoned airplane). I didn’t time the interval set on the Carousel, but recall it was at least 30 seconds. The gallery was not dark enough to fully experience the contrast and color saturation that Rosa Eggleston describes seeing 50 years ago.

There was no indication that the Carousel with a set of slides was for sale, but an edition of slides would represent this significant early period in Eggleston’s history. Sitting there for 15 minutes or so, I considered downloading the jpegs from the exhibit site and making an Eggleston slideshow with a modern LED projector to enjoy in my own home. I would just need the sound of a whirring fan, the clunk of the wheel advancing and cigarette smoke to complete the experience. 

[talonabraxas]

“Life is nothing but the expansion of love. We can cultivate divine love by entering into the Source. The Source is God, who is all Love.” – Sri Chinmoy Surya ॐ Talon Abraxas The cosmic gods — Surya Surya is one of the Vedic Gods. Surya is the sun, the solar deity. At the same time, he is the god of illumination and liberation. Surya wears a golden robe and his chariot is drawn either by one steed or by seven mares. Surya, the Sun-God, is extremely important and significant in our spiritual life, although there are very few hymns to him. Only ten hymns are offered to the Sun-God, in comparison to more than two hundred and fifty hymns offered to Indra. The sun is far, very far from our planet, the earth. When we observe the sun from here, we see a tiny disc, but we know how vast it really is. Similarly, the inner sun, the sun that we have deep within us, is far, very far from us. But when we approach our inner sun we are illumined, we are transformed, and we enter into the effulgence of transcendental Light. The physical sun, the sun that we actually see, is the eye of the Gods Agni, Varuna, and Mitra. I shall not speak today on Varuna and Mitra except to say that the physical sun, the great star whom we call the sun is the physical embodiment of the spiritual light of Agni and the two other cosmic gods. Surya is the eye of the gods. Dawn is the harbinger of Surya, the Sun-God. In Sanskrit the dawn is called Usha or Ahana. Usha is the goddess of dawn. She invokes the presence of the Sun-God and when Surya appears, he seems to be following her. The Sun-God has boundless divine love for the Goddess Usha and he wants to offer all his inner divinity to her. She receives it joyfully from him. The sun is the creator and from the sun our creation came into existence. Unlike the outer sun, the inner sun moves; that is why the inner light moves and illumines. Again, the inner sun can remain silent. When the inner sun is silent, we are also silent. That is why in the Isha Upanishad, one of the most famous Upanishads, we have a description of something that moves and at the same time moves not: Tad ejati tan naijati… That moves and that moves not. That is far and that is near. That is within and that is without. Each of us, each human being, has an inner sun. The physical sun we observe every day, but the inner sun, the sun of divinity that we have inside us, unfortunately we do not see, in most cases, even once during our lifetime. Again, if I say that each individual is blessed with only one inner sun, then I am mistaken. The spiritual seekers who are advanced in the field of spirituality have more than one spiritual sun. And the spiritual Master, in his highest transcendental Consciousness, is the possessor of the entire universe. He possesses the outer sun and countless inner suns. Aum bhur bhuvah svah tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat This is the Gayatri mantra. Many composers have set tune to it. Its meaning is: “We contemplate on the most brilliant light of the Creator-Deity, the Sun-God, for inner understanding, to illumine our intelligence, to stimulate our understanding, to transform our earthbound consciousness into the boundless light of the inner Sun, the Sun-God." Sri Chinmoy, AUM — Vol. 8, No. 3, October 1972, AUM Centre Press, 1972