#Something something ''I am my ancestors'' etc etc

[toosmallformyowngood]

Can confirm here that the answer to that is very much a resounding yes! I'm a nerd and could actually go super in depth about this but to spare everyone around me I'll can it down.

^ This Wikipedia article goes into some minor detail about birch bark school notes from the 13th century that were discovered in Russia. They belonged to a child named Onfim, and include various doodles (incl. the artist drawn as a knight, and one of himself drawn as a mythical beast presumably from his own imagination), notes passed to friends, drawings of his parents and teacher, and much more! The article itself doesn't elaborate that much but it's a good jumping off point if you feel like researching (and probably getting emotional over it all at some point).

Do y’all think siblings in medieval times would look at the little beasts in illuminated manuscripts and point at each other like ‘ha! ‘Tis thou!’

[coinandcandle]

Thoughts on Offerings

The thing about an offering is that it has to come from you for the being you're offering it to. It is specifically FROM YOU meaning it has to be something within your power to give.

This could be something more easy or more difficult, but gods, spirits, ancestors, etc. aren't stupid--they know what you can and can't do.

They know if you're a minimum wage worker, or a broke college student. They know if you're well off financially but maybe you've burnt out and can offer expensive gifts but not much time or energy.

An offering shouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to give, but it never is, because if it was then you could do it without thinking about it. Even offering a prayer or words of veneration is an offering. If you can do more then do it!

The point behind an offering is intention and the means to give the offering. However that manifests for you is almost always gunna be good enough!!

For example: Hunting may be one way you could give offerings to the god Lugh--who I follow. Or taking part in competitive games, but I am asthmatic and trans and organized sports don't tend to like people like me very much.

And he has never asked this of me cuz he knows that's not my vibe!! Nor would it be much of an offering since it's not much within my wheelhouse, lmao. But did I spend 2+ hours painting my nails as perfectly as I could and offer that creative energy and time to him? YES!

TL;DR - Sometimes offerings are like:

"I'd like a coke." "We don't have coke, is pepsi ok?"

[seat-safety-switch]

If you can't weld well, then weld a lot. That's the advice my mentors have given me. They're probably proud of me, in whatever heaven or hell it is that dirtbag bodyshop techs go to when they die. Maybe some of them are still alive, I don't know. Don't go on LinkedIn much, not since it tried to steal my thoughts and give them to thought leaders. Oh, I'm weirding you out. This happens sometimes, I'm sorry. Can I start over?

As I've complained about on many previous occasions, I am not a particularly good welder. This shouldn't be surprising: the ability to melt multiple pieces of metal together using lightning is simply unnatural. Thousands of years ago, the village elders would have demanded your destruction for wielding such a power in their presence. Even so, I try, and I hope that my ancestors will forgive me when I fix this dodgy rocker panel.

Experience, though: that's what will make me a kind of okay welder. Unfortunately, I only have so many shitty cars, and I don't want to do my worst work to the things I have to keep for years, and drive around all day. What will the society papers think, etc. So I'm looking for alternative things to practice on. Once in awhile, I'll come across a pedestrian bridge with a spotty railing. Grind, zap, fog it with the $5 Princess Auto special spray paint that they're afraid to sell now. If you wear a high-visibility vest, nobody will even call the cops. Good practice.

So if you see me out there, repairing municipal infrastructure without permission, don't look directly at the spark, for one thing. Afterward, come say hi, and let me know if there's something in your neighbourhood that needs a booger weld. We're all in this together.

I'm hoping to work my way up to playground equipment one day, but that's a tough goal. Not just for safety reasons, but because parents these days are expected to actually watch their kids, and they'll get upset at all the swearing when I have to re-do the same bead for the fifteenth time.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Hi Derin!

Recently I came across one of your long posts about clothes, and it was a long long branching thread but it basically amounted to " the only way to stop humanity from man-made extinction caused by the fashion industry is to start wearing outfits made of many high-quality layers where every single piece down to your bra is made out of high quality materials that are EXPENSIVE but designed to last for decades, and in order to do that we need to start wearing underwear that covers bigger percentage of our skin than just a bra and a g string ,the way our ancestors did" and while I agree with that, I am wondering about something- JUST HOW do we adapt this kind of underwear that our ancestors wore to modern fashion, bc there are some very big differennces between " modern fashion" and " the fashion of yore" namely

Modern fashion includes many, many different styles of "tops" and "bottoms" ,from long jackets to tank tops cropped just under your nipples and full length trousers to miniskirts, while the fashion of yore was basically " you wear a cultural equivalent of a nun's habit every single day of your life, from the day you were born until the day that you die, no ifs or buts" (yeah yeah a MASSIVE oversimplification but bear with me here)

Modern fashion "strives" to be gender neutral, while the fashion of yore was basically like " there are two sexes, and if you wear clothes designed for the 'wrong' sex we're legally allowed to murder you with extra cruelty" ( YES I KNOW EVEN BIGGER OVERSIMPLIFICATION)

so yeah that's something that I was wondering for the past couple of days and I was wondering if you have any good ideas about how to solve those problems

My opinion on the matter is that fabric was just fine twenty years ago. Those clothes can last a long time under normal use and washing without being painstakingly hand-spun and woven to be part of a wardrobe that costs as much as a small home.

But if you did want to go back to protective layering, it's not hard. I do it, mostly because I can't stand the cold, so if you live in a cold climate you don't even have to change your fashion; just put the softest, thinnest tracky daks and long-sleeved tshirt you own on under your other clothes. Boom, skin layer. If you live in a warm climate, then do that with smaller clothes, I guess, shorts and skivvies or whatever, whatever fits under the clothes you like to wear.

To answer your broader question, you've got it entirely backwards. Never once in the history of clothing have the materials and industry adapted to the fashion. The fashion is an expression of the materials and the industry. The creation of the industrial loom alters the fashion, not the other way round. The availability of elastic changes the fashion, not the other way around. The changing climate and changing needs of the wearer (hard-wearing clothes for labourers, etc.) changes the fashion, not the other way around. Fashion is an intersection of culture, environment and industry; it can be used as a tool for politics and market demand, same as any cultural artefact, but it needs to be practical within its environment. If wearing barrier layers became popular again, then the clothing that people wore would be clothing that they find comfortable and good looking over barrier layers.

From the context of this post I assume you're alluding to European feudal and pre-industrial clothing, although high quality fabric has existed for most of human history in societies that did and did not wear barrier layers, but I'm not sure what you mean by 'the cultural equivalent of a nun's habit'. A nun's habit had the cultural equivalent of a nun's habit. I'm not a historian but I can't think of any society of the type you're alluding to where everyday clothing would be equivalent to a nun's habit in any way beyond being, y'know, clothes. What do you mean by this? (Also, people back then also wore a great many styles of clothing; I'm not sure why you list that as a specifically modern thing.)

Modern fashion, on the whole, absolutely does not strive to be gender neutral, but if it did, this would not in any way restrict fabric quality or the use of barrier layers. Men's and women's clothing of yore were both looked after.

[bucephaly]

Reconnecting Cherokee Masterpost

I’ve had a few Cherokee posts blow up on here and as a result I’ve gotten lots of ‘my grandma said she was cherokee’ ‘I’m supposed to have Cherokee roots I wish I knew anything about it’ ‘I was never taught anything about my Cherokee ancestry’ type sentiments in my activity. So! I wanna make a little masterpost with some resources on how to verify or disprove these types of family stories and how to get started for those interested in reconnecting!

A little about me and a disclaimer. I’ve not been reconnecting that long, about a year and a half, and before that I didn’t know I was Cherokee. I did not grow up Cherokee and I am white. What I’m going to be talking about is simply resources for genealogy, language, good places to connect online, etc. these are all things I’ve dealt with as I reconnect, but I am not any sort of authority on Cherokee issues or culture. The purpose of this post is to get people who know absolutely nothing about Cherokee identity and community started in learning more and seeing what needs to be done before reconnecting. And I acknowledge that the genealogical records and resources available for Freedmen descendants and Afro-indigenous people may not be as conclusive, and I simply urge Afro-indigenous people to do what research you can. I am also only Cherokee, I can’t speak for how any of this works for other tribes. Now, to get started

I’ll be talking about

Genealogy

Enrollment

Basic info about Reconnecting

and Language

Genealogy

Genealogy is the most important first step for anyone wanting to reconnect, or even just wanting to claim Cherokee ancestry at all. Unless you have done genealogy research that has shown ancestry connecting you to ancestors on the accepted Cherokee rolls or you are or have family who are citizens of one of the 3 federally recognized Cherokee tribes, please do not make claims of Cherokee identity or ancestry.

Fake ‘granny stories’ of Cherokee ancestry are very common, particularly in the South / Appalachia. These stories often go something like ‘my great-grandmother was fullblood Cherokee. She hid out from the soldiers rounding the Cherokee up for the Trail of Tears.’ There are many many variants, such as children being adopted by a white family, being traded away, or just otherwise being left behind or abandoned. I also frequently see ‘they escaped and hid in the mountains,’ ‘they pretended to be white / black,’ etc. Remember, the Trail of Tears happened in 1838, 185 years ago. My ggg grandfather was 2, so unless you are 60+ it would be unlikely that a great grandparent was alive during that period. This mythical great-grandmother is also occasionally an ‘Indian princess.’ There are many excuses for why ancestors might not show up on known Cherokee records, such as ‘the records were burned in a courthouse fire’ or ‘they were intentionally removed from the records,’ etc. Physical features are also claimed to prove stories, such as high cheekbones, dark hair, darker skin, etc. Old family photos showing grandparents with tan skin, etc, are also brought up pretty frequently. None of those prove anything, as many people of European or mixed ancestry can have these traits. Stories like this are also not exclusive to white families, they can definitely be present in Black families as well. These stories are most often entirely fabricated or resulting from a misunderstanding. It’s pretty common to have someone be familiar with the fake stories but convinced that their family story is the one exception and has to be real, which ends up being instantly caught as fake by anyone that knows the history, you’d be surprised haha. Here is a post I’ve made talking about fake stories in more depth.

DNA testing cannot prove descent from any specific Native tribe. An ‘indigenous American’ result on a DNA test does not prove native ancestry, as DNA tests are frequently wrong especially when it comes to ‘trace ancestry’. Nor does a DNA test showing 0 native DNA prove that one doesn’t have native ancestry. DNA tests are a novelty and irrelevant to native genealogy. The only time they are useful is in finding cousins through DNA matches, which can be especially useful for adoptees. Here is a post where I go more in depth on this

Now, getting into actual genealogy, the main process with Cherokee genealogy is fairly simple. I’m not going to go in depth on the process of genealogy in general, there are plenty of resources for that. Get what info you can from your family [names, birthdates, places people lived] of your recent ancestors, then find their census records [census records from 1950 and earlier are publicly available] or what records you can, and go back, finding their parents, etc. The goal is to get around to 1900. See where they were living at that point, as that will effect what rolls they might be on. There are three main Cherokee rolls that are looked at for determining ancestry [but there are other rolls as well]

The Dawes Rolls taken between 1898 - 1914 recorded the Cherokees living in the Western Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory before Oklahoma Statehood. This roll came with allotments, parcels of land given to the Cherokees. Cherokee Freedmen are also recorded on this roll, along with Intermarried and Adopted Whites. This is the roll that CNO and UKB uses for enrollment. Here is where it can be searched.

The Baker Rolls taken between 1924 - 1929 recorded the Cherokees living on the Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina. This is the roll that the EBCI uses for enrollment

The Guion Miller Roll taken between 1906 - 1911 recorded Cherokees living anywhere and was associated with a cash payout.

I can’t find free searchable databases of the Baker or Miller rolls, but you can find them on some ancestry sites like ancestry.com with a membership or free trial. Also, be aware that these rolls all have “Declined” sections of people who applied and were declined for having no proof of ancestry, mostly just applying to try to get money or land meant for Cherokees. This is especially true of the Miller roll, where 2/3rds of the applicants were declined.

If your ancestors aren’t on any of these rolls, can be found in US census records before 1900, or aren’t living in the Cherokee homelands in the early 1800s, they are almost surely not Cherokee. Also, be wary of results on ancestry sites that start cropping up in the 1700s where the only evidence is another person’s family trees. There are many people claiming descent from Dragging Canoe, Chief Moytoy, and others that put these things on their ancestry trees when none of these people have any descendants. And people will just make up entirely fictional people. Just be sure there are actual documents tying them to the Cherokee and to your ancestors [as people will make up fake children of real figures like Nancy Ward as well]

There is a fantastic resource for Cherokee genealogy in the Cherokee Research and Genealogy Facebook group. The researchers are experts on Cherokee genealogy and will run your lines for FREE and determine conclusively whether you have Cherokee ancestry or not. When they find someone with Cherokee ancestry, they will also find your ancestors’ enrollment applications, allotment locations, etc. they’re really fantastic and I highly recommend checking them out and saving yourself the trouble of doing the research yourself. Just read their rules thoroughly. Even if you did do some research, if you hit a wall or just want confirmation, check them out! Especially if you think you found legitimate ancestry, getting them to double check will remove any doubt.

Enrollment

There are three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes. Each has their own community, resources, and different requirements for enrollment. These are: the United Keetoowah Band [UKB] located in Tahlequah, OK, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians [EBCI] in Cherokee, North Carolina, and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma [CN or CNO] in Tahlequah, OK. Each of these have distinct histories. Cherokee Nation is the largest by far.

Be wary of fraudulent state-recognized Cherokee tribes. If a Cherokee tribe is not one of the three mentioned above, then it is not recognized by the others as legitimate. These state tribes often take resources that are supposed to be going to legitimate native communities [such as school funding], spread misinformation, etc. These communities often have obviously fake non-Cherokee traits such as ‘naming ceremonies’ and members with laughably stereotypical names like ‘spirit wolf’ and ‘white owl’ lol [also, this is specifically about state tribes claiming to be Cherokee, I can’t speak to the legitimacy of other groups.]

Two of the three Cherokee tribes have a blood quantum requirement. Blood quantum [BQ] is how much ‘native blood’ one has, depicted as a fraction. BQ is a very complex topic in native communities, which I won’t get into here. EBCI has a 1/16 BQ requirement, so to be a citizen you must has 1/16 Eastern Cherokee blood, as well as have an ancestor on the Baker Roll. UKB has a 1/4 BQ requirement, so citizens must have 1/4 Cherokee blood and an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls or the 1949 UKB roll. CNO has no BQ requirement, if an ancestor is listed as By Blood on the Cherokee Dawes Rolls, or listed as a Cherokee Freedman, then you are eligible for CNO citizenship.

Do not come into Cherokee spaces just asking what sort of benefits enrollment can get you. It’s pretty disrespectful and makes it seem like you only care about what you can take from us.

Reconnection

So you did your genealogy and found that you have documented Cherokee ancestry, what next? Reconnection is a long and difficult process and I’ve barely even started, but I’ll try to give what resources and info I can.

Reconnecting is a difficult process, especially if you are far from any Cherokee communities. You cannot reconnect alone. You aren’t reconnecting to some distant past, or to stories in a book, you are reconnecting to a living community. This can be tough for people who are far from Oklahoma or North Carolina, and there are some things that are not really possible to learn except in person. But you can still learn, and there are some online spaces. I particularly find the ᎠᏂᏣᎳᎩ ᏍᎦᏚᎩ (Cherokee Community) Facebook Group valuable. It’s kinda small, but it’s one of the best ways to engage with Cherokee community online. Sorry if you’re a Facebook hater, Facebook is going to be your best bet for actually meeting people and engaging. The Cherokee Community group requires proof of ancestry before members can join. This usually just means sending your tribal ID or your thread in the Cherokee Research and Genealogy group to an admin and they’ll let you in.

Who can reconnect? This can vary between people, but most often I see people [biased towards Cherokees who are active online] saying that anyone with legitimate documented Cherokee ancestry can reconnect. Some people prefer reconnectors are able to enroll in one of the 3 tribes, some prefer people have connected living family, it varies a lot. In my experience as someone who is white and not a citizen yet, if you are respectful and humble, people are pretty accepting. It’s also important to think about why you want to reconnect. You need to be prepared to give back to your people as much if not more than you get. That means learning the language, the history, learn about current issues, etc. Don’t go into it just wanting to be able to say you’re Cherokee as a fun fact or get some sort of monetary benefit. It’s also important to remember that you will get asked to prove yourself. Don’t be offended if you’re asked if you’re enrolled, who your family is, how you’re Cherokee, etc. This is part of our cultural protocols. Not only do we want to keep people with fake family stories from getting into our spaces, we also just like finding relatives! You need to remember your place as a reconnecting Cherokee. Don’t think having legitimate ancestry suddenly means you’re able to talk with authority on native issues or suddenly claim to be oppressed. If you’re white, don’t suddenly start claiming to be a POC or “white-passing,” you can be white and Cherokee. Cherokee is not a race.

Consider Why you want to reconnect. I see a lot of people that want to 'reconnect' seemingly just so they can put cherokee in their bio and feel like part of a special club that can do closed practices and say they're two spirit or whatever. When you reconnect, the most important people will be the rest of the cherokee community. If you're more worried about performing to nonnatives, think long and hard about your priorities.

The best lesson for reconnecting is learning how to shut up and listen. I see way too many people joining cherokee groups as brand new reconnectors and immediately starting to talk and add their input on everything. You need to be able to just watch and learn and take the learning opportunities as they come instead of insisting on having someone go out of their way to teach you. So many people make fools of themselves in this groups by being loud when they have no idea what they're talking about, and insisting they get an Indian name, or wanting tattoos, or wondering if they can say they're two spirit, etc etc all when they don't seem to know anything else about our culture. You need to put work in first. Learn to read syllabary and attend the language classes, look into learning to weave or bead or whatever, get a few books by legit Cherokee authors and read them, binge some osiyo TV, etc etc. Learn what you can give before trying to see what you can take.

Here are some good basic things to check out for reconnecting

OsiyoTV

Cherokee Nation YouTube

Museum of the Cherokee People YouTube

Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liars Club by Chris B Teuton, Hastings Shade, Sequoyah Guess, Sammy Still, and Woody Hansen

Cherokee Earth Dwellers by Chris B Teuton and Hastings Shade

Mooney’s Myths of the Cherokee [note: this was written by a white man in 1900 after after spending some time with the Eastern Cherokee. The history is iffy, but the stories were recorded directly from Cherokee storytellers.]

Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation by John Ehle

Do your own research, but be extremely wary of Anything posted publicly online. There is lots of misinformation about Cherokee culture. Personally, I mostly do my learning in the vetted Cherokee Facebook groups, in books written by actual citizens, and by talking with connected friends. Google is rarely your friend in this case.

Language

The language is the center of our culture, it is what makes us Cherokee. It is our duty as Cherokees and as reconnecting people to learn the language. I can’t stress enough how important it is. If you aren’t putting any effort to learn the language, it shows others that you aren’t committed and you will likely have trouble getting any help reconnecting from others, it just looks bad haha. Not saying you have to be fluent overnight, I’ve been reconnecting for a year and I still am very much a beginner, ‘it doesn’t matter how slow you go, as long as you don’t stop’ as CNO language teacher Ed Fields says. Luckily, there are plenty of resources for learning online!

It’s good to learn the syllabary or at least familiarize yourself with it early, as it’s a good introduction to the sounds present in the language. It’s an important part of our culture and the language too. There are also many learning resources that are only in syllabary, so you’re missing out on those if you don’t know it. Here are some good resources for learning:

Simply Cherokee Syllabary by Marc W Case [HIGHLY recommended. I got reasonably confident in syllabary in like a weekend thanks to this book. You can find fairly cheap ebooks versions. It has a story for each character that makes it so easy to remember and associate the characters with their sounds.]

Learn Cherokee Syllabary app [Apple] [Android]

Syllabary fonts and keyboard

There are lots of resources for learning the language. It’s really good to hear it as often as possible when learning vs just reading it, as I’ve messing up so much in my pronunciation from just reading it and now I’m having to break habits. You preferably want to hear first language speakers. There are two main dialects of Cherokee, usually roughly split between Eastern and Western. Dialects vary a lot within those communities as well. If you still have contact with any relatives that speak Cherokee, it’s always better to learn as much as you can from them.

Cherokee Nation language department [just explore this site, they have lots of resources!]

Cherokee Learner site [explore this site too, this is a great compilation of pretty much every Cherokee language resource, eastern and western]

Online Cherokee Class with first language speaker Ed Fields

RSU Cherokee Lessons [youtube]

Mango lessons

Other apps, including the Memrise course

Online Cherokee dictionary

That’s all I can think to say right now! I’ll probably add to this later as I learn more, find more resources, and get suggestions from others. But for now, good luck, ᏩᏙ, ᏙᏓᏓᎪᎲᎢ !

[idanit]

ok now i need to know about your niche country-specific jeeves AU

"Every valet takes great pride / in cooking what his husband likes" an edit of a makatka by @maidblues

(You've probably forgotten about sending this ask. I almost forgot I had a reply sitting in my drafts.)

This is incredibly niche and very hard to do for numerous reasons, but I've been thinking about a Polish Jeeves AU for a good while now. I'm not the best person to come up with the best way to cut almost all politics out from a story set in the 1920s in a country that has just become sovereign and is about to go through some further enormous transformations, so I'm not going to try very hard. Wodehouse's stories already take place in an idyllic sort of fantasy on the theme of interwar and postwar Britain, so I suppose a Polish AU would have to just lean into that even harder.

(Polish aristocracts lost their legal protections in 1921, but let's not think about it too much. Don't think about how you could possibly make "Comrade Bingo" work in a post-1920 Poland either. Etc., etc.)

So we've established that this would have to be some sort of barely recognisable fairytale Poland. But something in me is compelled by the idea of trying this out anyway because there are not a lot of wodehousian stories in Polish literature of the time. Not a lot of comedy without other genres mixed in in general. And one does wonder what it would look like.

Names are tricky. I want Bertram to be Bartłomiej or Bartosz (Bartek in the diminutive). @maidblues likes to give him the surname of Kogucik (rooster) and I toyed with the idea of giving him the Kur (another word for rooster) crest.

As for Jeeves's name, his case is more complicated because as far as I know servants in Poland were usually called by their masters by their first name, and the most common servant (as well as Polish in general) name would probably be Jan. So I'm tempted to make Reginald Jeeves a Jan Regulski or a Jan Reguła (reguła means "a rule").

This choice has the advantage of turning the "Jeeves?" / "Yes, sir?" exchange into "Janie?" / "Tak, jaśnie panie?". It rhymes. I find this amusing.

Servants at the time were overwhelmingly female, especially those who worked alone and for a single person/household, but we're going to ignore that.

Bertie is an aristocrat living in Warsaw, since it's the capital city, but his family is from some Mazovian dworek (manor house).

Aristocracy was not quite as much of an exclusive club as it was in Britain (some historians say it made up 10% of Polish society). Bertie probably says his ancestors fought at Grunwald, but he would likely bring up the Romanticism and the XVII century a lot as well, because they were as alive in the Polish public consciousness of the time as Middle Ages were in the mind of a certain kind of Englishman. Bertie could lean into something commonly called "the pride of the Sarmatians" (duma sarmacka).

Bertie's school is important. Everything depends on this, I think — Bertie's language, his friends, his club. Wealthy aristocrats did send their children abroad sometimes, so he could even have a typical British public school education even if he'd be unlikely to attend Eton and Oxford, specifically, but this feels like a cop-out, so I'm going to assume he was a student at some Polish university and not think about it too much lest I get caught up in the timelines of what university in what partition of Poland it would make sense for him to attend.

Bertie's way of speaking. My heart wants to make Bertie use some elements from the Warsaw subdialect because it's very fun and it would fit him, but regrettably, I think it's too working-class for him. I am fascinated by the idea of Bertie borrowing words from German and Russian in addition to French, though. He'd probably make use of some form of gwara uczniowska (student slang), too.

And Jeeves could know the Warsaw subdialect well, even if he would probably not use it while speaking to the members of the aristocracy (I'm pretty sure an early version of canon Jeeves spoke with a subtle Cockney accent, calling Bertie "guv’nor"). I wanted to make him a Warsaw local, perhaps with some family in the countryside, perhaps in the former Prussian partition, since I think the level of literacy was higher there and I need a way for Jeeves to have a chance of getting some education.

The Drones. There were no gentlemen's clubs, so I think the Drones would have to be a coffeehouse, a restaurant, or a szynk / pub called "Truteń"/"U Trutnia"/"Pod Trutniem". It's a significant change because they were not exclusive places, but it's the best I can think of. Coffeehouses in particular had a rich tradition as cultural places where people spent hours and hours on discussions. I think a Polish equivalent of a Drones Club could even serve as a tongue-in-cheek satire on artistic groups like Skamandryci. The Polish Drones would just have to take their gambling elsewhere. (@maidblues came up with another name for a Drones-like place that served food: Darmozjad. I love the pun — the word means someone useless, lit. someone who eats for free.)

As for the Junior Ganymede (Ganimedes), I think it would be a stowarzyszenie (club/society) without its own venue. Its members would probably meet at regular conventions. Here, I see an opportunity of some comedic nods to the tradition of "zjazdy", which in the centuries past were politically significant meetings of the aristocracy.

Bertie sings Mieczysław Fogg's songs.

Jeeves knows quotes from Mickiewicz and Słowacki (Polish Romantic poets) by heart.

Bertie is bi/multillingual enough to run off to Paris instead of New York City every now and then. Not quite putting an ocean between you and your aunt, but far enough for Ciotka Agata not to follow him.

I'm unlikely to ever finish writing anything for Jeeves in Polish, so, to finish things off, have this contextless excerpt from some draft of mine:

Mam na myśli tyle tylko, że podczas półtygodniowego pobytu, w którym jaśnie panowi udało się wpaść do sadzawki, zaręczyć, zostać pogryzionym, rozsierdzić Spodkowskiego i obrazić trzy stateczne matrony, choć nie dokładnie w tej kolejności, Jan ocalił mój ulubiony garnitur (bez krawata), zgrabnie mnie odręczył, opatrzył i odwiózł do Warszawy, a skroni jego nie zrosiła nawet mgiełka potu. Wspaniały człowiek. Obsypałem go, rzecz jasna, pewną ilością marek, ale wydawało mi się to zgoła niewystarczające. Dusza moja śpiewała, wolna jak ptak bez obrączki, a mój wybawca miał z tego tylko trochę świstków papieru, które i tak natychmiast wyśle rodzinie spoza stolicy — znałem go doskonale.

[path-of-grass-and-leaves]

Working with Collective Spirits: Plants and Animals

UPG Warning: Content is based on personal experience.

Individual vs Collective

The difference between an individual spirit and a spirit collective is pretty simple. Working with an individual involves connecting with a being who has their own personality traits and motives. Some are well-known (like the Witch Father), some are spirits of the dead or specific ancestors, some are tied to certain individuals, families, and locations, and some are Nameless or long-forgotten.

A spirit collective is sort of like a current that runs through all living beings and objects. It can be as broad or as narrow as you wish. For example, you can work with the spirit of all trees or you can work with the spirit of Maples.

This is easy to conceptualize if you're an animist who believes that all life is connected and there is spirit in all things. Imagine the life force that runs through us all is a great river, and specific spiritual collectives are the tributaries.

To put it simply, if you are leaving offerings to the spirit of a dead rabbit that you found on the side of the road, you are engaging with an individual. If you are leaving an offering for all rabbits in your immediate area you are working with a collective.

Overlap

Sometimes a spirit can exist both as a collective and an individual. For example, the spirit of your house or local river may be made up of several different spirits and go by many names.

Additionally, if I'm working with the spirit of Apple Trees, one could assume that I'm working with millions of apple tree spirits formed into a single collective.

Connecting with Collective Spirits

If you're like me, you need to have an emotional and physical connection to certain spirits before you begin involving them in workings. This usually means that I'm working with plants and animals that exist in my own local biosphere.

Here are some ways to start getting to know plant and animal spirit collectives:

Meet them in their own environment: For example, if you want to work with the spirit of Oak Trees, start by spending time where they are known to grow. You can take a walk through a local forest or visit individual trees in a park or your own backyard.

Learn about them: Find reading material about the species you're interested in. Learn about their native habitat, behavior, diet, growth rate, myth and folklore, the time of year that they're present, etc. I find that engaging with a plant or animal on a scientific and material level helps you get to know them more personally and will therefore strengthen any spiritual relationships you wish to pursue.

Care for them: If you're looking to work with the spirit of Lilac, plant and care for a lilac shrub. If you want to work with the spirit of Hummingbirds, install a feeder. If you're interested in the spirit of cats or dogs, start fostering or volunteering for a rescue.

Observe them: If the collective that you want to work with is that of an animal, take some time to watch them from a safe distance in their natural environment. If you're working with a plant, feel free to get up close and personal as long as it's safe and you are not disturbing a protected species.

Veneration

I want to start by saying that veneration is not something that is required when working with spirits and in some cases can actually be a bit of a hindrance. However, it is beneficial if your goal is to emotionally connect with spirits, gain favor with them, and establish highly personal ongoing relationships. My workings boast a higher success rate and rich personal meaning when I am working with a spirit who I have developed a connection with through consistent offerings and acts of kindness.

Physical offerings

The most common form of veneration is a physical offering. They can be left at an altar or outdoors in the natural habitat of the collective spirit that you plan on working with.

Outdoor offerings should be left with great care for the local ecosystem. For plants I usually leave compost or fresh water. I will also drop specific food items in my compost bin as an offering to whatever plant spirit I'm working with that day.

For animals, things can be a bit more complicated. When offering food, it's crucial to be 100% certain that it is safe for wildlife to consume and that you aren't leaving so much so often that animals start to rely on you for food. I usually stick to birdseed, acorns, peanuts, fresh fruit and greens, unsalted sunflower seeds, and cat food for the strays. Keep in mind that food is left only in my own backyard (never, like, the woods) and never in high abundance. When in doubt, a bowl of fresh water is a more than sufficient offering.

Indoor offerings allow much more room for variety. Food items that cannot be left outside (like meat, cheese, confections, and alcohol) can be safely offered this way. You also won't be limited to compostable items and will be free to leave assorted trinkets, jewelry, or whatever you find appropriate.

Acts of Kindness

Personally I feel that acts of kindness are the best way to venerate plant and animal collectives. Not only are you building real-life relationships and connections, but you are making an active difference in the lives of actual living beings and this will always be well-received from a magical perspective. In my practice, how I interact with the physical world is in direct relation to that of the spirit world, so this is an important step for me.

Some acts of service can overlap with physical offerings such as leaving bowls of water for the wildlife on a hot day, filling a bird feeder, or watering a plant, but there are countless other options to choose from, including activism, rewilding, rescue, volunteering, and habitat restoration.

For example, if I want to work with the spirit of Monarch Butterflies, I may start a monarch waystation full of milkweed and nectar-producing native plants. If I'm venerating the spirit of Black-Eyed Susan, I could scatter some seeds on the roadside. If I'm working with the spirit of domestic dogs I might feel compelled to volunteer at a local shelter. Perhaps the spirit collective that I want to work with is fresh-water dwelling and I opt to help clean a local river.

In addition to physical offerings and acts of service, some ideas include constructing miniature altars and spirit houses, creating devotional art, and wearing devotional jewelry.

Working with Collective Spirits

There are many benefits to working with spirit collectives. They can be involved in spellwork, called directly during divination, and petitioned to help advance certain skills. This is where knowledge gained through study and observation are put to use. Plant and animal collectives come with their own folklore and symbolism, natural skill-sets, and physical and behavioral qualities which are useful in magical workings. Once you have a handful of spirit types that you're familiar with you can start putting everything into practice.

One way to begin choosing which collectives you incorporate into which workings is through divination. Break out your cards or bag of charms, call upon the spirit of your choosing, and ask them what their skills are. If you have researched the plant or animal in the past or already have a rough list of correspondences, you can compare the answers to your existing notes.

Petitioning spirits in magical workings is a great introduction to spirit work and can be easily executed by beginners. For simple workings, it's enough to just call upon the spirit, leave an offering, and ask for assistance. Here are a few simple ideas for getting started:

Divination: Call upon a specific plant or animal collective that corresponds with your question or possesses skills related to the subject at hand. Ask for them for their wisdom and guidance.

Spellwork: Before casting, call upon the collective spirit of your choosing and ask for them to assist you.

Glamours and Ambient Spells: Ask for the collective spirit to lend you some of their qualities, features, or skills, or ask them to bless a physical space or personal astral location with characteristics of their native environment.

Celebrations and Rituals: Invite the collective spirit of certain animals or plants to your ritual. For example, the spirit of Rabbits could be invited to join a Spring Equinox celebration.

Blessing or Enchanting Objects: Ask for the corresponding spirit collective to charm, enchant, or bless an object.

These are just basic concepts. Feel free to get creative and fine-tune some of these ideas to your personal practice. Working with collective animal and plant spirits is extremely rewarding and I've found that my magical skills have grown exponentially since doing so. My awareness of and connection to the natural world has also improved and I find that I notice and am able to identify significantly more plants and wildlife than I used to.

[ryin-silverfish]

Ping Jinchuan: A 19th century Sci-fi Shenmo Novel

Like all popular novels, when something sets a trend, many imitators follow suit, until the formula becomes its own genre of sorts.

FSYY is one such genre setter. Specifically, the "Battle of Arts" (斗法) formula, where immortals and deities are added into a historical event——usually a war, but it can also be something like Admiral Zheng He's voyage——and proceed to use said setting as an excuse to battle it out using spells, magical treasures, and formations.

It's such an enduring formula, late Qing novels were still following it. And because it's the 19th century, western technology and ideas were entering China and making their way into popular culture.

My first exposure to the results comes from Legends of the Eight Immortal Attaining the Dao (八仙得道传), where the narrator occasionally interrupts the story and goes: "Electricity-based technology is totally the work of Mother Lightning, guys!"

Why am I telling you all these random facts? Because Ping Jinchuan ("Quelling the Golden Stream") is that, but turned up to eleven.

Technically, FSYY is set in Shang dynasty China. Technically, Ping Jinchuan is an obscure 1899 novel about the quelling of rebellions in Qinghai and Tibet during the 18th century by the historical general Nian Gengyao.

However, considering that FSYY has 11th century BCE gunpowder weapons, and...the entirety of Ping Jinchuan, I really doubt the claim of the latter novel's author that the story is based on the eye witness accounts of his ancestor, who worked as an advisor under Nian Gengyao.

But if you insist, here's a rough summary of the historical background: the first war Nian fought in Tibet happened during the reign of Kangxi, because the Dzungar Khanate invaded Tibet.

The second rebellion Nian quelled in Qinghai, during the reign of Yongzheng, was started by  Lobzang Tendzin. He fought against the Dzungar Khanate with the help of Qing army, but rebelled together with local chiefdoms and Mongol leaders when he was not granted the rulership of Tibet afterwards.

(Confusingly enough, during the reign of Qianlong, there were also 2 other rebellions by the chieftains of "Greater and Lesser Jinchuan" in northwestern Sichuan, which might be where the novel's name came from.)

Naturally, the novel proceeds to tell a "Battle of Arts" story, about Tibetan Buddhist monks, Muslims, Daoist sages, and the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church duking it out with typical Shenmo novel treasures...and 19th century magitek.

There is potential for some serious analysis about Qing military expansion, violence on the frontiers, how foreign religions and people are perceived through the framework of popular fiction, etc. But honestly, after seeing the above summary, are you really here for *that*? 

I'm not, because I don't know nearly enough about the historical context, and the entire premise is ridiculous enough to defy any attempt at taking it seriously——unless the attempts are ironic.

Case In Point

The novel starts off pretty tame: Lobzang Tendzin, "King of Jinchuan", wanted to send his own Dalai Lama candidate to Tibet after the previous Dalai's death, as part of a power ploy to make himself the de facto ruler of Tibet.

He allied himself with Galdan, the Dzungar ruler, to force the Tibetans to accept his candidate at gunpoint——literally.

Their firearms and cannons got stopped by a Lama named Ding Chan, who used his meditation power to summon divine warriors and fend off the first wave of attack.

However, his meditation was broken by the plight of Jinchuan soldiers disguised as female refugees, and later, Galdan assassinated him in his sleep with a firing squad during a treaty talk organized by the Qing.

Emperor Yongzheng was not happy and sent Nian Gengyao and Yue Zhongqi to quell the rebellion. Also, Nian is actually the Heavenly Dog Star incarnate, who learned martial arts, classics, war strategy, and all sorts of neat stuff in his youth from a poor Buddhist monk.

Later, said monk and Yue's master sent a bunch of their disciples to Nian and Yue as reinforcement, before the battle began. 

Then, in Chapter 4, Nan Guotai was introduced as the fictional son of the historical Belgian missionary, Ferdinand Verbiest. Nicknamed "Little Lu Ban", he was well-versed in the arts of western machinery and firearms, and the first sign of the story going completely off the rails.

The first "Battle of the Arts" round was pretty standard——Five Phase Formation, magical breaths, treasures. But Nan was ordered to make 15 "mechanical carts" that could produce flames, in conjunction with a field of landmines, to assist in the breaking of the Five Phase Formation. 

Despite the similarity, they aren't tanks, but more like...trapped cargo trailers/RVs. Basically, they had "doors and windows" with built-in mechanisms that only allowed entry into the carts and could not be opened from the inside, and once the enemies were trapped, the carts became giant incinerators.

After losing the first round, the King of Jinchuan put up a recruitment poster for "talented followers of the Three Religions"...except the Three Religions weren't Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism, but Islam, Buddhism, and Daoism, since the story is set in Qinghai, where there was a notable population of Hui people (Chinese Muslims).

After seeing the poster, Galdan's wife decided to seek help from her own master, the Patriarch of the Snowy Mountains. He is a Muslim sage with 12 powerful disciples...who all wielded typical Daoist treasures.

They all got overshadowed by the next round of Steampunk Shenmo Battle, though, when an unrelated Daoist showed up with his trump card: "Strong Water", a.k.a. magical hydrochloric acid.

The magical HCI was then put into giant glass syringes and fired at Nian's troops, resulting in significant casualties. To bypass the HCI syringe cannons, Nan unrevealed his latest invention: the Skysoar Orb, a.k.a. hot air balloon.

The Qing troops then mounted firearms and cannons onto the air balloon, flew it above Galdan's camp to a height where the HCI syringes couldn't reach, and started shooting. However, they were all mortals, and got decimated when the enemy immortals flew up to take control of the balloons, forcing an emergency landing via needles.

After that, the hot air balloon was manned entirely by immortals, until Galdan covered his camp in a mesh of barbed wires, blocking the aerial fire but also making it impossible for him to use his own HCI syringes.

Then a little 13 years old immortal, Gengsheng the Acolyte, joined the Qing army, who's the reincarnation of the Lama executed by Galdan's firing squad. Abandoned at birth and adopted by a Daoist master, he was able to fly on clouds since he was 8-9 years old, which he used to travel to Europe. 

While he was there, a Swedish sage gifted him a powerful treasure——the Electricity Whip, which can be used to electrocute people to death...but also magically heal injuries with its currents.

I have trouble visualizing the thing. Is it a literal whip of lightning arcs (since it's described as being able to turn into a white beam), a taser, an electric cattle prod, a plasma whip, or the unholy lovechild of all the above plus a tesla coil?

Hilariously, the Electricity Whip treasure of the Nikola Tesla Sect (/sarcasm) stopped working when exposed to "dirty stuff" such as a woman's magical handkerchief. Classic folk magic style. 

After a bunch of boring fighting sequences, 6 of the 12 disciples of the Patriarch decided to get the big formations out, which were broken by buckets of pig blood. 

…Yeah, that's pretty much the extent of the author's understanding of Hui customs and Islam. (sigh) The surviving disciples went to get the Patriarch for help, who casted an AOE spell of poisonous smoke, water and fire to block the Qing troops' path...

Annnnnd Nan to the rescue again! With the help of Nian Gengyao's monk master, he built the Earth Travel Cart: a magitek subway train shaped like a pangolin, able to carry a hundred people and move a hundred Li per hour. It didn't need rails, you just dug a hole in the ground, put the train in, and it started tunneling through the earth on its own.

The entire army used 500 of these magical subway trains to bypass the Patriarch's AOE spell coverage, forcing them to retreat to their home base, Tianshan (Heavenly Mountain). Which is a real mountain range in central Asia and Xinjiang province, and going there from Qinghai is plausible. Kinda.

I'm still skeptical about the novel's claim that the path through Tianshan is the only path leading into Jinchuan proper, but whatever.

The Patriarch put his most powerful formation on said mountain pass——the Ice Freeze Formation, which will insta-freeze immortals, mortals, and flying birds alike when they step in range.

Then comes the craziest part of the entire novel. Honestly, everything after this chapter is pretty boring and formulaic, which makes it the perfect note for this article to end on.

Nan suddenly revealed that the current Roman Pope is the grandson of Matteo Ricci, who's the mentor of Nan's dad, and took his hot air balloon to Rome to get reinforcement. To no one's surprise, the Pope's treasure is a cross.

The Pope agreed and took his 12 disciples——supposedly because it's the same as the number of apostles——to the snowy mountain.

He gave a cross and a white candle to each of his disciples; they walked straight into the Ice Formation and broke it by holding the two holy objects up in the air, while loudly chanting (a highly localized translation of) "Hail Mary!"

After making his grand entrance, the Pope neutralized the Patriarch's spell attacks and turned his last disciples' army of soldiers back into their true forms——a bunch of farm animals.

He then told the disciples that as the Roman Pope, he had authority over "Russia, England, France, Netherlands" and all the European nations, and he'd leave the Patriarch to mind his own business if he surrendered and stopped interfering in the war.

Three of the four examples he gave aren't even Catholic, but maybe the Protestant Reformation just never happened in this novel's 18th century world because Pope Magic.

The Patriarch accepted the cease-fire treaty, went back to teach his religion to the population of northwestern China, and that's pretty much it. His last female disciple (Galdan's wife) got her troops' firearms neutralized by the Pope's cross, taken prisoner, and executed by Nian. 

After revealing that the Qing immortals' power also came from the Grace of Our Lord and Savior, and that was why westerners couldn't use spells (but could make electricity-based treasures?), the Pope flew back to Rome on Nan's air balloon, exiting the novel once and for all.

Which is a pity, because in the second half of the novel, one of the defeated foes escaped to (Ottoman?) Turkey to beg their king for reinforcement, and the Russian Tsar agreed to help the Jinchuan troops to make his French wife happy. I want my Papal 13 vs. Russian Orthodox Bishops Shenmo battle, dammit!

Food for thought: if the Pope was Matteo Ricci's grandson, and Matteo Ricci was also a mentor of Ferdinand Verbiest, Nan's dad (historically, Ricci died 13 years before Verbiest was even born)...

...Is this a timeline where the Jesuits won the Rites Controversy, Ricci cultivated himself into the first Catholic immortal, and ushered in the age of Syncretic Daoist-Catholic Steampunk? 

[theroundbartable]

My position on the war in Israel/ Palestine

Below the cut, because this is my opinion, and you are, of course, not expected to share it, or even care about my position at all. You might not even like what I have to say.

This is for myself and for the people who decide whom to follow based on the flags I raise in my bio (which is none).

It's a bit long, sorry.

The war in Israel/Palestine has now been going on for over a year and I keep seeing blogs that are entirely pro palestine, and then others who are entirely Israeli, accusing each other of rape and murder and genocide, of antisemitism and zionism, etc. etc. Most of these accusations were fact checked and true. Some arguments I heard of people were quite obviously formed through what their government told them, might even lied to them about. I cannot blame these people for clinging to faith, to clinging to the vague idea that there is a sense to their suffering, or who are trying to deflect of their own guilt.

I am German. I know the arguments. I know why they exist and I cannot blame people who's life might be depending on that hope, who's sanity might depend on that faith.

So far, I have not really posted my own opinion on it and I understand that my position on this is not a common one. Nor is it one that many people will accept or find satisfying. Never the less, this is my point.

Under normal circumstances, I would never have made a post and I already am very late to the debate, but since elections in the US are up and more dangerous than ever, since the debates and the war lead to attacks on people online and world wide, since all this enables the same fascistic views that once dominated my country and are threatening to dominate the field once again, I think I should at least say something.

I need to, in order to make up the the past my grandfather took part in as a German soldier, to honor my grandmother's memory who welcomed refugees of war and "war criminals" who were stationed in the neighboring Arbeitslager in her home; in her home where she was all alone with her sick father and waited for the news of her brothers falling in the war while the polish captive cooked them dinner and taught her to read. I need to, as someone who's ancestors were both shooting and housing their enemies. As someone who carries both the guilt and the pride into the next generation.

This is not a football game.

I can't go and pick a side and root for their win. I can't go out on the street with other students and hold up "free palestine" signs, when I know that the words are war propaganda from a group of terrorists. I can't go and side with Israel and justify a genocide by telling people they are being antisemitic if they criticise the Israeli government.

It is the Israeli government under Netanjahu, it is the Hamas who are fighting this war, and to say that the people under their leadership aren't in on it is naive to a degree.

We are not talking about winning and losing here. Because there are no winners in war. I CANNOT debate on who's human rights are worth more than the other. I CANNOT ignore that the Hamas started the war, I cannot ignore that they abuse their captives, I cannot excuse that the Israeli government shoots back at hospitals and abuses their own captives as well.

I can't choose between the grays, because to me, they are the same shade.

But to say they are all supporting those leaderships, to say that not most of them are just trying to survive is terrifyingly cold. That would be like saying they deserve what is happening to them and that can never be the truth.

This doesn't mean I'm not judging between the two. I judge the obvious violence on both sides, I fear for the victims on both accounts, I hate the idea that categorises who is allowed to live where in the country, I despise the idea that Israel alone is to blame.

"You can't not pick a side."

I did. Because there is not just two sides to this war. There is three or four, perhaps even more than that.

There is the terror organisation, there is the government, and then there is the people stuck in the crossfire. I refuse to side with the criminals. I refuse to side with the abusers. They are both wrong, they are both murderous and violent, and siding with one would be - for me - like pointing the gun at the other.

That said, I do not believe that people who raise the palestine flags are wrong, neither do I judge the Israel one. Both sides deserve justice for what happend and what continues to happen. But to a German who only raises the flag once every four yeara at soccer games, worshipping the government that is doing all this, that feels wrong. I know that my view is distorted because of my family's Nazi history, but I can't help feeling that way.

If we're talking about violence, justice would mean that more violence is the answer. An eye for an eye is justice too, but this will never result in peace.

Quite honestly, I don't even think a two state solution would be the answer either. It could be, if Hamas and Israel wanted peace. If Natanjahus war wasn't a ploy to keep himself in power. As it is right now, with the war expanding, even if they managed to somewhat put down their weapons, they will continue to be neighboring enemies, they will continue to hate each other and they will continue to never forgive, to never forget, justifying future reasons to war.

Honestly, I'm not arrogant enough to say I know the solution. All I know is that I know where I stand. And I will never, under any circumstances, judge you if you live in Isreal or in palestine. Nor will I judge you for fighting for each of their rights. Because unless you wish for the complete destruction of the other, unless you justify a genocide, then I am on your side. Because you are, in this war, on your own. And I don't want to see you there alone.

And I will not raise your flag, I will not raise the flag of your enemy, I don't even raise my own flags because I'm honestly not that much into soccer. Because I separate you and your life from the system you live in.

All I can do is tell you that if you flee to Germany, I will be one of the people voting for your safety, for your right to stay, and for being properly integrated. I will not side with the right wing fascists that dominate this country. I will not side with people who simply picked their favorite oppressor. It's not enough to save you. But I'm not a hero. I can only refuse to be the villain.

This makes my position obviously debatable, to some even unacceptable, and I understand that it's not very satisfying to read this from someone who is lucky and priviledged enough to watch from the sidelines.

But I simply cannot support either of these systems. Because neither of them value human life, let alone human rights.

[wayfind-er]

10 Ways to Honor Psyche

There is no information about how Psyche was honored in antiquity; therefore, these methods are all my UPGs.

Embrace the Arts & Humanities: Psyche is the Goddess and Personification of the Soul; take some time to study Arts and Humanities. Watch a musical, visit a museum, read up on ancient Philosophy, or do something related to the arts in Her name.

Create a self-care routine in Her honor: Self-care is important to Psyche and to your mental well-being. Consider incorporating Her into your regular self-care routine or making a new routine for Her. I've added sigils of the asteroid Psyche to my skin-care products so that whenever I use them, I am reminded of Her. You can do something similar or come up with something that works for you!

Write a letter to Her (or someone you love): This doesn't have to be anything super complicated. I like to write letters to Her about my week. If something needs to be said to a loved one, you can do that in Her honor, too (e.g., gift cards, letters, telling a loved one something important, etc.).

Watch a reality show (or lifestyle videos on YouTube): There's nothing better than watching reality shows, and Psyche seems to enjoy them. It's a fun way to see an exaggerated version of life. You can watch anything ranging from the trashy reality shows, to cooking shows. If those don't pique your interest, you can watch lifestyle videos on YouTube, too, to honor Psyche.

Dedicate some time to meditate in Her name: Even if it is only 10 minutes, practice mindfulness in Her name.

Spend some time doing shadow work/journaling:  I recommend setting aside, like, 15 minutes and just writing what's on your mind. You can Google shadow work prompts and use one of those or just write about whatever comes to mind. You can dedicate the exercise to Psyche. As a bonus, if you're feeling up to it, you can then read what you wrote to Her (either aloud or in your head).

Hang out with your loved ones: Just spend time with the people you love. You don't need to do anything special or fancy. If you love someone, you should spend time with them. Psyche would be happy if you did that in Her honor.

Spend time unwinding and relaxing: Sometimes, doing nothing is harder than being ultra-productive. You don't always /NEED/ to be doing something in Her honor. If you can't take a break, do so in Her name. You and Her could both probably use it.

Dress up in Her Honor (even if you're dressing up to stay home): Psyche loves nice things and feeling pretty. Put together that cute outfit you've been thinking of, and try on those shoes that are a bit bolder than you'd usually like; dress up and expand your horizon some. **If you can't afford to experiment with your clothes, consider making a vision or mood board of the style you'd like to try.

Learn about a new/different culture: Psyche is the Personification of the Soul and seems very interested in learning about people. Consider learning about a different culture than the one you live in. It may be the culture of your ancestors or a culture that just seems interesting to you. Consider watching videos on different cultures or reading scholarly papers with primary sources.

I tried to list some unique ways to Honor & Worship Psyche that I use in my practice. There are a bunch of other lists that come with different suggestions. If you haven't already, I recommend @/khaire-traveler's Subtle Worship of Psyche, and @/differentsoulsweets' Introduction to Psyche blog. Star and dot divider by @/cafekistune

[windvexer]

On what I'm going to call "peer positioning" in witchcraft, and the scary empowerment it can bring you

I think a lot of people who get into witchcraft have a problem with being able to see themselves as peers & equals to the powers they cultivate around them.

I see this most often discussed when it comes to gods. "Just because your god asks you for something doesn't mean you need to do it!" Etc. I think we've all heard that.

But today my thoughts are on the tarot, and how some people seem to treat tarot readings as "the truth" or "the answer" that then must be followed, even if they (the living, breathing, human practitioner) don't really agree or don't really want to do that.

I'm really big on the analogy of a witch as a monarch, and the concept of various powers (like gods, spirits, tools, and spells) being counselors in the throne room.

In this context, it's easier to adopt the mindset that all of these powers have their own personalities, abilities, and goals - and that they can & will provide conflicting information when you ask for advice. (Especially ancestors - so opinionated!)

Imagine Captain Picard sitting in the meeting room with Geordi, Riker, and the rest of the space nerds.

Captain Picard is like, "the power core is failing and the away team is stranded on the planet. I think we should use the nebula to hide until the Gromflomites stop searching for us." And then Geordi is like, "but Captain, the engines would never make it! We have to go rescue the away team immediately!" And Captain Picard is like, "damn... Wow. I really wanted to go to the nebula, I thought it was the best choice :/ but if you're saying we literally don't have to worry about the Gromflomites..." Then Riker is like, "Captain, no. Geordi isn't saying the Gromflomites aren't a problem, he's just expressing his top concerns as Chief Engineer." And then Picard is all, "oh, so... this is conflicting information? Did that mean I did a bad reading on Geordi, or that negative spirits are stopping me from being able to communicate? Is Riker possibly a trickster?"

If you're captain of the ship, monarch of the kingdom, (etc.), then it might be important to ask yourself:

Am asking for input from my counsel of allied powers, and then making choices for myself?

Or, have I inadvertently signed over my decision-making process to these powers?

And I think it all kind of comes back to "peer positioning," or, witches being able to develop a spiritual framework within which they are equals to the powers around them.

Since beginning practicing witchcraft in earnest, I have often demanded a course of direction. Instead of asking, "how do I accomplish this?" I would ask, "what do I do?"

And the answer was the same every time, deeply infuriating, but also very scary: "Do whatever you think is best."

I think that's the problem of being the captain of the ship. Once your counselors are done giving their input, you are the one who has to make the final call.

Lately I've really been on a kick about witchcraft as a path of empowerment, and I think that viewing spiritual input as just that - input - is a vital part of the process.

Even if you are a true-blue believer in the magical power of tarot, tarot is still just one counselor sitting in your throne room.

Even if you have tutelary spirits, guardians and guides, gods and angels, providing blessings and support - they are not sitting at the head of the table.

You are.

I think that a framework of allied powers as peers and equals is relatively basic, and does have its flaws. But I also think it can be helpful in a variety of ways:

It can provide a system of understanding why allied powers can give conflicting advice, or even seemingly bad advice that doesn't align with our personal desires.

It can provide a tool for processing spiritual input.

It helps restore a sense of personal authority to a practitioner.

It can help a practitioner reclaim control of a path that's grown a mind of its own.

It aids in practicing that most oppressive of skills - liberated autonomy.

I just think it's something to consider. At the end of the day, most of us have probably got to make our own calls.

[I'm making this post because in the past few months I've been helping witches consult the tarot, and they've been giving feedback like, "so this is what I should do, right?" or, "what is it telling me to do?"

I can basically see the huge reblogs where people are explaining that a period of time where they signed complete personal autonomy over to their god was the most empowering and spiritually electric time in their lives,

and I want you to know, I'm not speaking about vows and oaths made to entities that gives them control over your life. I'm talking about situations where witches put down their autonomy so they can have both hands free to shuffle tarot.]

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

Key terms necessary for understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict : Part 1- Ancient Israel to the founding of modern Israel, Jewish terms

A/N: Hey! The results are in, and this is the topic my followers chose🫶 Writing this felt very much like retaking my high school history finals lol. Enjoy reading.

*These terms and definitions will be organized by topics, in chronological order. **If I have made a mistake or if you feel like I forgot something important- don’t hesitate to tell me in the comments. It is very hard to summarize thousands of years. *** Be respectful, I am human.

1. Key terms in Judaism and the connection to the land of Israel :

Israel and Judea- Were the two ancient Jewish kingdoms.

Zion ציון- Is one of the 70 biblical names for the city of Jerusalem. In fact, Jerusalem is referenced by this name in the bible over 150 times.

The word Zion is very much embedded into our culture: it is used in many prayers and Jewish texts written throughout Jewish history, songs etc.

Zion and the exile from it:

It is especially used when describing longing and the wanting of return to the land of Israel:

The most famous example that uses the word Zion is the biblical prayer from the book of Psalms, 137:

1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

תהילים פרק קלז א עַל נַהֲרוֹת, בָּבֶל--שָׁם יָשַׁבְנוּ, גַּם-בָּכִינוּ: בְּזָכְרֵנוּ, אֶת-צִיּוֹן.

This verse is an example of the longing for Israel: as it was written after the exile to Babylon.

*Yes, the funky Boney M song is based on this Psalms verse :) Coming full circle- It is also used in the official hymn of the modern state of Israel, Ha'Tikva. התקווה, written by Naftali Herz Imber. This word might sound familiar to you, as it is also the origin of the word "Zionism".

Zionism- is the notion that the Jewish people deserve to have a state of their own.

Semite- is a term for people relating to, or constituting a subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic language family:

Semite languages- are a group of ancient languages, that originated around the same time, in Africa and the Middle East- aka the neighboring countries of Israel.

The Semitic languages are: Hebrew and its other ancient dialects , Arabic, Amharic, Aramaic and more. Unfortunately , most of these are extinct and no longer spoken.

The languages that are still spoken to this very day are : Arabic, Amharic and Hebrew.

Some Hebrew Fun facts :

-While there are only estimated 8 million Hebrew speakers nowadays( most of them Israeli), Hebrew is considered a holy language in is spoken during prayer.

-Ancient Hebrew and modern Hebrew are very similar. So much so that if I were to time travel, I could have a decent conversation with my ancestors😊 (some pronunciations, grammar and words have changed, but it’s essential the same).

-Which cannot be done with Romanic languages or Celtic languages..

Antisemitism A\N: This word is getting its whole section because it simply deserves it. Nowadays, every time a Jewish person says something is antisemitic, they will usually be bombarded with mocking comments about how Jews like to call everything antisemitic. If had a nickel for every time I got those comments or an Arab person tried to troll me in the comment section by saying "I can't be antisemitic if I'm a Semite myself"... Let's make it clear (once again).

As I have explained before, the word Semite refers to a group of ethnicities. However, the word Antisemitic refers to Jewish hatred: "Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews.[2][3][4] This sentiment is a form of racism,[5][6] and a person who harbors it is called an antisemite. Though antisemitism is overwhelmingly perpetrated by non-Jews, it may occasionally be perpetrated by Jews in a phenomenon known as auto-antisemitism ".

TLDR: Don't be a Jerk and use antisemitic rhetoric, blood libels, and stereotypes... You don't get to choose if something is antisemitic or not, Jews do.

2. Modern Israel and its founding

The Knesset- Is the Israeli parliament consisting of 120 members, elected democratically every 4 years. Usually- there have been 5 elections in the last 5 years. It also currently has 36 ministers. Yes, that _IS_ a lot.

Kibbutz- "Kibbutz is a community where people voluntarily live and work together on a noncompetitive basis. The first kibbutzim were organized by idealistic young Zionists in the beginning of the 20th century."

As time moved on, starting in the 80s, many Kibbutzim struggled financially and closed down. Today, there are 265 Kibbutzim left, with approximately 200,000 residents. Less than 20% of them are communal.

Unfortunately today, the word Kibbutz has a different connotation:

British mandate- Yep, they colonized us too lol. After the first world war, Between 1917 and May 1948 (Israel was founded literally as soon as the mandate ended).

Fun fact- Today, there are still a few rules left from the British mandate In Israel (Most of them were updated or changed by Israeli law makers after it's founding, usually by the Knesset and the Supreme court of justice).

“Homa U’migdal” (חומה ומגדל Tower and stockade)- During the British mandate, Jewish settlements were built overnight due to a legal loophole still valid from the Ottoman rule. The loophole prevented the British from destroying the new settlement: "Homa U'Migdal is the name of an operation that the leaders of the Yishuv initiated in Palestine, during which 52 new settlements were founded. This operation was a response of the Yishuv to the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt and the restrictions the Mandatory authorities placed, both on the building of new Jewish settlements, and on the amount of Jewish immigrants allowed into Palestine. The building of each settlement began at night. First, the guard tower and the defense stockade were set up, so the operation was named “Tower and Stockade”. According to an old Ottoman law that was still valid during the Mandate period, the destroying of a building was not allowed after the roof had been erected. For this reason the British did not destroy the "Tower and Stockade" settlements which had not received building permits. "

The 2-state solution - The notion that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be two states for two people- one for Arabs and one for Jews.

Balfour's declaration- is the famous letter sent by then-British foreign secretary Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild in 1917. In the letter, Lord Balfour stated that the British Empire would support the forming of a Jewish Zionist state in the land of Israel.

Peel Commission- was a community created in 1936 by the British rule during their Mandate over Israel. As the name suggests, the head of the Commity was Lord Peel. A suggestion for a Two-state solution was suggested to representatives of both Jews and Arabs. Unfortunately, the Arabs have refused it.

1947 Partition Plan- A partition plan suggested by the UN, that included another draft of the two-state solution, with different borders. The Arabs have refused it once more.

Declaration of Israel's Independence from Britain:

And so, as the British mandate ended on May 14th, 1948, the people's Council (that later served as the initial government of Israel) declared the formation of the modern state of Israel.

The day following the declaration, the Arabs in Israel revolted and with the help of 5 foreign armies that invaded Israel, tried to stop the formation of Israel: Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.

They failed and Israel was formed.

You can watch David Ben Gurion, head of the council (and Israel's future first prime minister) declare its formation/independence here.

PS- this was the flag of Palestine before the current one:

Sources:

-Semite languages pic: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Semitic-languages

-Kibbutz: * https://kibbutzulpan.org/about_kibbutz/ *https://www.hamichlol.org.il/%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C (Hebrew)

-Homa U'Migdal" : http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/en/Pages/TowerStockade.aspx

[cursecuelebre]

You don’t have to be Traditional in worship of the gods.

Reconstructism is a great movement and I respect a lot of it what modern day pagans trying to do when reliving the old traditions and religion of Hellenic Polytheism or Norse paganism what have you. Trying our best to recreate the old religion best and closest as possible. Though it is what our predecessors had done it won’t fit everyone’s lives today.

Before I continue I will say that I am between reconstructist and Revivalism (Having a modern day version of ancient religion), I appreciate what my ancestors and predecessors had done but I cannot fit in a structured or dogmatic lifestyle. You don’t have to follow the holidays every single month, purify yourself everyday before going to the altar, give an offering every single day, the proper way to give prayer or offering is not an requirement. It is nice to learn and respect that maybe adopt some aspects but not everyone can do those things or feel comfortable with them.

When I try to worship multiple deities with different titles it takes so much out of me to the point I feel like I’m doing something wrong and I just feel heartbroken that I’m not being enough for the gods. It’s hard but what’s been always express to me is that when it comes to household worship, your personalising your own practice with no one telling you what to do and not to do. The gods do like the ancient way of practice of course but they understand that it’s not for everyone. Even in the ancient times people may thought differently how to pray and worship the gods. I’m not saying that people should take liberties and do whatever they want rather take time and ask “Why do I feel this way when worshipping this way?” See how you can improvise it. I worship just one god at a time. When it comes to Community worship you mostly probably are going to worship structurally which is not a bad thing.

The best way I can describe it is you can go to church and agree and respect it but at home and personal life you’re doing your own thing and a personal relationship with the gods. I think that’s powerful to me and our unique way of connecting to the gods. Even today if we want to actually practice way the ancients did we should be having animal sacrifices and oracles or wooden pillars with horse blood on it, etc. but we don’t do that now because it is a modern day for modern day pagans whether we like it or not. Respect and adopt and learn the practices back then, see how it can improve your relationship with the gods.

For example I don’t offer any human bodily fluids to the Hellenic gods. But Hekate, she is worshipped even outside of Hellenic polytheism and taken her out of the Hellenic context she allows offerings like bodily fluids. Lighting candles, offering incense, votive offerings, speaking to them, just thanking them is just as powerful as a ritual. If I’m including a god or goddess in my practice I will do things more traditionally if my prayer is answered most definitely sing my praises to them.

It’s okay to have a relaxed practice the gods understand our limits and likes and dislikes, they won’t force us to do something we don’t like especially we try multiple times to get use to it.

[lyreofchrysaor]

My ko-fi shop is open! Please do consider buying something or just supporting me, as I am in an extremely tight spot financially right now.

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⠀ ⠀⠀୨୧⠀ ⠀⠀infernal divine

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⠀ ⠀⠀୨୧⠀ ⠀⠀hindu pantheon

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Xaire ♡

[polina-me]

Inspiration has come to me sharply, therefore, here is the relationship of the Duck-McDuck family to "feminine" things and etc.

Della Duck

SHE HATES wearing skirts, dresses and makeup.

She admits that all these things are cute and all that, but the maximum that she will allow herself from the "feminine" is only long hair.

She may be interested in something, but she doesn't see herself in it.

As a child, she was often naughty and changed clothes with Donald, which is why she often got a kick in the ass, especially from the ancestors of the McDucks and grandma Duck, but in the end they resigned themselves.

She is offended that she is primarily seen as a girl, and not a pilot and/or an adventurer.

She likes to admire something feminine, but not in terms of "I want it too"

"Wow, this girl is so beautiful..." "Yeah, I wonder where she got this dress?" “what? Oh, well. Uh."

Donald Duck

As always, Donald is the complete opposite for Della and he LOVES "feminine" things.

As a child, he almost never quarreled with Della, and if she said she wanted to change clothes, then he just shrugged and changed. When McDuck's grandparents and grandmother Duck scolded Della for looking "not like a girl," he never understood why they couldn't change clothes. Grandparents McDuck and Grandma Duck stopped after he asked Hortense why they couldn't change clothes.

In the emo phase, he mastered makeup and learned how to work with hair and even had a wig!

When he got older, he realized that he was a femboy (you can also say crossdresser) and, fearing condemnation and ridicule from the family and especially Scrooge, began a double life with the name Dolores NiPato

Growing up, he began to give up his second life more often in favor of his family, arguing for himself like this: "I am already an adult man, I need to stop"

During the ten-year breakup, he wore a long skirt so that the triplet ducklings could reach out and attract his attention, but when they grew up, he stopped, fearing that he would set a bad example

Huey Duck

It's hard for me to say anything about him. Everyone remembers him as a trans girl, but I do not know my exact opinion about this, so I have two of them:

1. He is indifferent to women's things and does not mind wearing pink according to his mood. He can wear skirts and dresses, but mostly when he realizes that he is actually half-naked and in the mood. He wants to grow his hair out to see how it will look with sideburns. He can learn to wear makeup to help his brothers.

2. Transfem, but tomboy with long hair.

Dewey Duck

Like Donald, he loves women's things very much! But unlike him, the duckling is not afraid to show it, because Donald tried all the time to show him that he is normal, different, but normal

Sometimes he receives jokes from Huey and Louie in the style of "Oh, my lady, you are so beautiful today!", but often does not understand that this is a joke and is sincerely embarrassed and rejoices at the compliments, which makes his brothers feel a little awkward

Some days, she dresses up with Webby in the same clothes because it's cool and thinks it seals their union as brother and sister

He always tries to join the bachelorette party or ask Lena to teach him how to make up (for Lena it's exhausting, so she taught Huey how to make up so that he could teach Dewey)

When he was at school and wearing a skirt, he was bullied, but he could often stand up for himself and/or he was protected by Huey and Louie

When Donald was called to school because of Dewey's "inappropriate appearance", he made such a scandal that the principal was very afraid of him and the duckling sometimes compared Uncle Donald with his mother in his thoughts

He likes to show off his images and outfits in front of Della, even if they are stupid. Della loves them all. "YES! YES, BABY! THIS IS MY BOY! SHOW ME THE EMOTIONS!"

Louie Duck

He mostly doesn't care about clothes, he only wears something comfortable and/or expensive

Sometimes he may wear makeup, but he is mostly lazy

He loves different rings and bracelets, but he has almost no sense of style, so he had to be taught how to wear jewelry correctly

Will destroy your life if you say even one bad word about his femboy brother (and trans sister)

Webby Vanderquack

Just a girl🥰💕

Sincerely does not understand why pink is only for girls

She gets offended and angry when they call her "childish" because of her favorite color

Curse your soul to eternal torment in Hell for your words about Dewey and Holly (name for trans Huey)💀😈

Scrooge McDuck

Just an old man sticking to the old rules

In fact, he doesn't really care whether he wears women's clothes or men's clothes either. But fuck you with a cane if you say that kilt = skirt

Purely out of interest, he may ask about makeup or some feminine things for self-care

He can wear a skirt or a dress, he doesn't care. But he still feels embarrassed in these outfits because of his old considerations.

He doesn't even suspect that he caused Donald's injury💀

[writingjourney]

Neither have I played that Dragon Age game but from what ive seen with his jewelry, he seems like the kind of guy that is very particular about ring and bracelet placement

RIGHT!! I relate a lot to this because I wear a lot gold jewellery and I am very particular about which piece goes where. But then it goes a lot deeper than vanity for him as well. A lot of my favorite pieces I have inherited from my grandma and great grandma after they passed, gold especially in the form of jewellery is a way humans endure which the game suitably captures.

This is a bit of a spoiler now but in the codex entry "Aurum Profundis" he writes this in his diary:

"Gold is the eternal metal, and the sun beneath our vaults. It was first worked by our ancestors in tribute to the dead, and only Nevarra appreciates its sacred inner nature. Silver will tarnish, copper corrode, and iron rust. Gold endures as our dead endure, and will ever adorn the inhabitants of the Necropolis."

It seems that with Mourn Watches wearing grave gold in preparation for their death and also potentially inherited pieces as well (a family heirloom he might have kept after his parents passed, I enjoy the idea) this is something that must be very meaningful to him. It has a morbid quality to it of course, collecting gold pieces to take with you to your grave, but it fits his character incredibly well. The sheer amount he wears, as though he could force himself to accept this inevitable outcome (one he is so scared of). And if you think about the real world and funerary rites in different cultures it's quite interesting how they incorporated it into their world-building.

On that note I also adore when artists draw him with ankle bracelets and toe rings etc. It's something I am now headcanon-ing indefinitely because it's such a great idea.